Pay-per-click bid management software is a great solution. A bid management tool is a software application that allows advertisers to manage pay-per-click keyword bidding. These tools are a great way to manage large campaigns. Bid management software helps advertisers control spending and get maximum value from the lowest budget bidding. By alerting advertisers of errors and position drop, bid management tools are great options for keeping the advertiser informed at all times. From one interface, marketers can manage keywords across all major search platforms.

However, bid management software is not for me.

Despite all of the great services bid management software offers, it is not a solution for me. For a beginner, and possibly an intermediate advertiser, these tools may work. However, there is much more to paid advertising than one tool can provide.

1. “Bid to Position” is a non-issue
   Search engines are no longer this simple. Pay-per-click marketing includes quality keywords, relevant ads, great copy, and landing page relevancy. These influences are not measured in bid management tools. Quality score plays a stronger role now.
2. There is more to analytics than the “Last Click”
   Bid management does not take into account all other online promotions. I would love find any analytics program, bid management or not, that can measure “the assist.” If a user sees display advertising, searches 5 days later and buys, that revenue should be credited partially to the display ad.
3. Search is not just about keywords
   Search Engine Marketing consists of social marketing, branding, personalization, data feed (i.e. Google Base), etc. These tools can not be measured in bid management.
4. Offline Activity
   Bid management rules do not know about upcoming promotions or unwanted press. Nor can they anticipate seasonal changes, at least not as thorough as human contact.
5. Consumer Intent
   The intent of the customer can not be measured through a tool. Pay-per-click management requires an understanding of the business and the unique customer. Pay-per-click marketing is most importantly “marketing”. Marketing requires insight, customer understanding, intuition and more. Bid management takes a simplistic, tunneled-vision, approach.

On his second day at work as the new CEO of Yahoo, Jerry Yang signed the acquisition papers for Rivals.com. It is a move that hopes to move Yahoo closer to the obsessive sports fans.

Rivals.com is vast online site that features college and high school sports, along with recruiting information. Based in Brentwood, TN, Rivals.com generates most of its revenue from subscription services. The site currently has about 185,000 subscribers, with about 150 smaller sites.

This allows Yahoo to reach a demographic they are struggling with, younger and highly educated. Let’s face it, that’s currently not the typical Yahoo customer.

This also clearly matches what Yahoo has proved to be over the years, an online publishing company. Rivals.com provides that content and expertise Yahoo has needed to reach the serious sports fan.

According to Hitwise, E-bay’s traffic was not affected by removing advertising from Google. See article on AdAge.com for details: EBay Yanks Google Search Ads, Yet Traffic Rises

Hitwise has been reliable in the past from my experience, so I will assume that their statistics are correct for now. Whether this is accurate or not, I do not know or care.

I am more concerned that EBay would not know what the impact would be. Does one of the most visited sites in the world not have analytics? Do they know where their traffic is coming from?

Coming from someone who relies on site analytics to make every marketing move, offline and online, I can not understand how that can happen.

Of course the other angle could be … they did know what the impact would be, by analyzing traffic vs. cost vs. conversion. However, I am not sure if EBay cares about cost per conversion. They have a “Seller” audience to report to, that is their customers. They do care about traffic and so do their customers.

What does all this mean? Well, first it is too early to tell. It is only one week of data. That is not a big enough sample to make any assumptions. If it turns out that their traffic is not affected, then E-bay has a much more serious problem on their hands. Why did it take them so long to pull the ads?

EBay has spent millions of dollars on Google advertising over the years. Evidently that was a waste of money and made no impact on revenue or traffic. That means that someone in their marketing team has serious explaining to do.

*** Updated June 23, 2007 ***

It turns out that E-bay was affected by being removed from Google advertising for 10 days. Of course, E-Bay would never admit that.

“We found that we were not as dependent on Google AdWords as some may have thought,” said EBay spokesperson. “By re-allocating our marketing dollars to our other partners, such as Yahoo, AOL and MSN, we were able to increase traffic and find efficiencies that will enable us to drive more value to our sellers and partners going forward. We are now slowly turning AdWords back on, in a much more limited way than before.”

Logically, that makes perfect since. It is a great idea to diversify. But let’s face, Google must have a significant impact on EBay’s business. By going back to the Google, they are acknowledging this.

However, that’s okay. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Not only does Google advertising have an impact on EBay’s, but E-bay is one of Google’s largest advertisers. It’s a mutual exchange where both parties benefit.

Of course, Google definitely benefits more from this arrangement. EBay must have terrible analytics and a terrible way to measure return on pay-per-click spend. Therefore, Google will always have the upper hand.

As any expert in pay-per-click marketing will tell you, pay-per-click is NOT expensive if you can measure ROI. By knowing what is bringing in revenue and what is just brining in visitors, marketers can have the upper-hand in the relationship. In this case, EBay does not have those strong tools needed to make wise decisions with online marketing dollars.

It is time for Ask.com to drop their “algorithm” marketing campaigns. Frankly, it was a bad idea from the beginning, but not for the obvious reasons.

Are the Ask. com ads offensive? Yes, possibly. Using the Unabomber and Jesus is an ad campaign was probably not the smartest idea. Now they have a new ad that is, well for lack of a better word, just creepy.

However, the mass marketing approach is a terrible idea. In this case, it would not have mattered what the message was.

So what would I do?

Steps to Increase Ask.com’s market share.

• Stop trying to be Google. It is too late. Google is Google, so Ask.com can not be Google. You can not go back and change the past. Currently, you have nothing to offer that they do not have already. Why would searchers come to Ask.com?
• The hard truth: The public does not care about accurate results.
  According to Ask.com’s CEO Jim Lanzone … “it is important to highlight the uniqueness of our algorithm, which takes a different approach to ranking than our competitors. The Ask.com algorithm’s relevance methodology goes beyond the popularity focus of Google, Yahoo and MSN’s, and is the only one to break the Web down into topic clusters and determine community-based relevance in real time.” We don’t care.

  Even Google, although they may not admit it, does not consider the accuracy of search results as important as other features. Speed, simplicity, and clean results are still higher priorities for Google. (By “clean results” I mean formatted nicely, with a distinct separation from paid and unpaid.)

• Do not market to everyone. Mass marketing does not work.
  For Ask.com to gain market share, only a small group of users are needed. That would be you and me. The people that read search engine marketing blogs and attend search engine marketing conferences. If we began using Ask.com, then word will spread quickly. However, Ask.com has not given us a reason to use their product nor have they attempted.

  Solution: They can offer all attendees to a search engine conference: Free Advertising for a Month. No catches, no sign-ups, no commitments. If they believe in the product, then it should not be a problem. If the trial period is successful and advertisers are happy, then word will spread quickly to that mass market that they are trying so hard to reach.

  Ask.com can let search engine marketers do the marketing for them. If we have success, then we will report on it. We will blog on it. We will discuss it in message boards. We will encourage our family and friends to use it. We will spread the word. We will reach the mass market that Ask.com is trying so hard to reach now, but we will be successful. Of course, that’s assuming the product is worth using.

I want to follow up on a few discussions that have been floating around the Search Engine Marketing community.

The conversation started at Patrick Sexton’s Seoish.com.

How do you market a website on a limited budget?
I took it a step deeper. Below is how I would market a product online, with limited funds.

1. Content is still king – If you have nothing to say, then consumers do not want to visit. Paying visitors to come to a bad site is a poor investment. Clean up the content on the site, by giving the users what they want. Create link-worthy, non-sales content for users. Good content creates good links.
Cost – Hours of Writing

2. Contribute to the online community – By getting involved in online discussions, a buzz will be created. Of course, this only happens if you have something worthy to say. Commenting on a blog by trying to sell your product, does not create buzz. Research social sites, tagging and other Web 2.0 sites and find discussions to contribute to.
Cost – Hours of Web Searching

3. Give the product away – Find the most vocal, excited, web-friendly customers and give them your product. If you are confident in your product and they enjoy it like you know they should, then they will quickly spread the word. Find the driest tender (per PyroMarketing) by going back to step 2.
Cost – Expense of giving away product

4. Start Spending on 2nd tier search engines - The cost per conversion is usually very low with smaller sponsored search options. This should provide a stronger ROI, and provide you with the funds needed to invest in Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search.
Cost – Low Cost, High ROI

5. Open up a Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search account - Follow steps from prior post (Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Pay-Per-Click Advertisers).
Cost – Great value when done properly, but initial funds are required to get started