Following the PDCA process I’ve listed some guidelines as to how each step applies to a new or existing Paid Search initiative. The guideline is not exhaustive and it is not enough just follow the guideline and assume you are going to be profitable. It is critical for you to standardize each step of the process so it is easy to repeat.

PLAN

Planning is the most critical step in the Paid Search process – when done correctly everything else will fall into place. Planning includes:

1. Review of Client Website and Offerings
2. Assessment of PPC Accounts
3. Assessment of Analytics Implementation
4. Client Goals and Past performance
5. Competitive Analysis
6. Campaign Structure and Design
7. Keyword Research
8. Landing Page Development
9. Ad Creative Development
10. Budgeting

DO

Once the plan is communicated and agreed to it is time for implementation. Implementation can be broken down into two main areas – PPC Campaign Build and Analytics.

PPC Campaign Build includes:

1. Campaign Settings
2. Budgeting
3. Ad groups
4. Keywords
5. Ad creatives
6. Landing pages
7. Destination URL tagging
8. SiteLinks, ProductLinks, etc.

Analytics Implementation includes:

1. Java script development
2. Site tagging for analytics packages like VisiStat or Google Analytics
3. Audit site tagging
4. Verify conversions are tracking properly
5. Set up a method for reporting (if this includes using a PPC Platform like Acquisio, additional steps will be needed to import campaigns into third party tools.)

CHECK

Now that you have launched your Paid Search campaigns and allowed then some time to run, it is now time to check the progress.

Monitoring & reporting on progress includes:

1. Review keyword activity for conversions and Quality Score
2. Search query mining for new keywords and negative keywords
3. Review text or display ads for conversion performance
4. Identify patterns in data for new targeting options
5. Review audience and demographics performance
6. Weekly Dashboard review
7. Monthly Dashboard review & analysis

ACT

Evaluation of the first three steps should provide insight in to ongoing continuous process improvement.

Actionable insights on where and what to do next to improve performance include:

1. Campaign and ad group targeting
2. Keyword performance and bid management
3. Keyword and Search Query expansion
4. Ad creative performance and future testing
5. Landing page testing

Again, this is a general guideline to follow. Using the PDCA process alone is not enough to keep quality, customer satisfaction, time, costs and profitability in its most effective and efficient state but it will give you a solid foundation to build from. By following the PDCA process you need to standardize the steps in each part of the process in order to tie those steps back to the amount of time and cost it takes to complete each step. Standardizing the processes allows you to make certain that you are using the most efficient way to complete the various tasks in the fewest amount of steps. Time, they say, is money. And lastly, you need to make sure you are not only following the standardization of the processes, but that you are also choosing to do the right type of work that adds value and meets or exceeds customer satisfaction and expectations.

*Deming’s PDCA (The Deming Cycle) was initially developed by Walter A. Shewhart. In his later years Deming updated PDCA to PDSA replacing the ‘check’ phase with ‘study’ since he felt that ‘check’ emphasized inspection rather than analysis…

Related Articles

American Society for Quality (ASQ) – Plan Do Check Act

Training for Endurance in Lean (with PDCA)

Today, pay-per-click platforms like Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter and Facebook Ads are becoming much more complex. Beyond the core components of a pay-per-click account mentioned above, adding to the complexity of a pay-per-click account are features and tools such as campaign settings and automation, ad extensions and retargeting. At times the complexity can be overwhelming but there is a way to think about all this that can help you dance through your day as a search engine marketing manager a bit easier and it begins by thinking in systems. This elevated view and thought process into pay-per-click advertising and search engine marketing enables accountable parties the ability to increase their capacity to think, learn, communicate and act more systemically¹.

The Pay-Per-Click Dance

In 2001, the late Donella Meadows published an article Dancing with Systems about her journey towards understanding systems. Dancing with Systems is a 14-step approach to learning how to develop your own way of working within any type of system – pay-per-click advertising and search engine marketing included. The key take-away for me by reading this article is that if you give up the need to control the system and predict outcomes you leave more time for delivering value-added work. The 14 steps include:

1. Get the beat.
2. Listen to the wisdom of the system.
3. Expose your mental models to the open air.
4. Stay humble. Stay a learner.
5. Honor and protect information.
6. Locate responsibility in the system.
7. Make feedback policies for feedback systems.
8. Pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable.
9. Go for the good of the whole.
10. Expand time horizons.
11. Expand thought horizons.
12. Expand the boundary of caring.
13. Celebrate complexity.
14. Hold fast to the goal of goodness.

When it comes to pay-per-click advertising, I’ve often thought that there is a certain rhythm, or beat, to managing accounts on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. I’ve written before about the idea that, if you listen and pay attention to what is important, keywords and text ads will tell you their story once the data begins to unfold. If you watch, listen and learn you will know what to expect from certain parts of the system and can prioritize work based on that knowledge.

Each day, search engine managers should crave to learn something new about an account or their approach to managing accounts and share what you learn not only with your immediate co-workers, but also with your clients. Like it or not, you are not isolated – everyone who touches a keyword is a part of the greater, global pay-per-click system. It is irresponsible to withhold information and doing so will come back to haunt you in the long-term. Collaboration and sharing of ideas and results, good or bad, can only help grow pay-per-click advertising efforts.

Paid search advertising has become an increasingly powerful marketing tool, but it also has the ability to make 95% of the users look like used car salesmen. Understanding the implications of how your approach to pay-per-click advertising, whether positive or negative, influences the greater system of search engine marketing and eCommerce is critical to its sustainability allowing you to dance all night long…

Resources

Thinking in Systems – Donella Meadows

Systems Thinking – F. E. Emery

¹isee systems

In a recent article entitled “Companies to Spend More on Internet Marketing This Year – Survey” written by Nina Varghese from PlanetInsane.com, Nina talks about how Google and Bing are set to see in increase in ad budgets because more companies who were recently surveyed will allocate more money to Internet Marketing than the previous year. The article also goes on to say that many of the retailers surveyed, will put more dollars into Bing/Yahoo. However, what the article did not mention at all was Facebook Ads, which has seen an increase in Ad revenues over the past year. According to SoftPedia.com, they project that Facebook’s Display Ad Network will beat rivals Google and Yahoo this year. Moreover, another interesting thing to note from the SoftPedia Article is “the new revenue doesn’t even come from other web advertising budgets, it’s mostly drawing from budgets previously reserved to traditional venues, like TV.”

So, now that we are starting to see a trend where more and more companies are continuing to shift more Ad dollars to the Internet, I want to know where “Tactically speaking”  will they be spending them. I would like to know the following:

• Search Networks
• Google Re-marketing
• Yahoo Behavioral Targeting
• Display Networks
• YouTube
• Mobile
• Facebook Sponsored Stories
• Facebook Fan Pages
• Facebook Ads (external)

More Ad Dollars means Better Efficiency:
According to Nina at PlanetInsane, she states “About 41 per cent of the companies surveyed said that they would divert some spend on Bing, for their Internet marketing. The latest technology enables advertisers to move search campaigns to Bing.” Now, the AdCenter Desktop Editor is easier than the Bing Platform, but still is not as efficient as the Adwords Editor. On the other hand, there are much better alternatives than these Editors. In fact, software companies who focus just on the PPC Industry provide features which would significantly reduce the headaches of all of the “day to day in the weeds”. For example, Acquisio’s PPC Management Software and Performance Media Platform offers the following:

• Google Search & Display
• Display Retargeting
• Yahoo/Bing, Facebook Ads
• Tracking and Attribution
• Bid Automation & Rules
• Terrific Reporting

 
NNXX2HYJ2AN8

Well, it appears that on March 3rd, Microsoft will stop any editorial investigations into complaints about trademarks used as keywords in the United States and Canada. They say that the reason for this is to “come in line with search industry practices” and the only way to fight a Trademark dispute is to have the trademark owner should contact the advertiser directly. If that fails, then the trademark owner can fill out the Intellectual Property Complaints Form and then Microsoft will start the investigation.

>> Click here to read the updated Microsoft Adcenter Intellectual Property Guidelines

Some important points:

• Microsoft will investigate complaints relating to alleged trademark violations in ad text.
• Microsoft will continue to allow fair use of trademarks in ad text.
• Microsoft is not a mediator. Microsoft encourages trademark owners to engage directly with advertisers who they believe are misusing their trademarks.

Microsoft accepts the fair use of trademarks in ad text, such as:

• Use of a trademark by a reseller of authentic goods or services
• Informational websites about goods or services represented by the trademark, such as product reviews
• Ordinary dictionary use of a term
• Comparative advertising, when supported by independent research

Wow, I was not expecting this from Yahoo and Bing.

In my opinion, that’s a very slippery slope, especially with using the “drill baby drill” Hockey Mom at the realm. Regardless of your political views, that is a dangerous tactic especially when were are living in a very polarizing political society and the last thing a search engine needs is to come across like they are supporting a specific political party or organization.

See the Actual Screen-shot below (or do your own Yahoo Search)
http://search.yahoo.com/search?cs=bz&p=Sarah+Palin&fr=fp-tts-701&fr2=ps

1. What’s your opinion on this?
2. Do you think this is in Bad Taste?
3. Let us know your thoughts?

Yahoo Search Emergency Transition Preparation:
In a recent email that went out, Yahoo expeditiously has told their advertisers that they will soon be able to drive traffic from both engines and their partners within the convenience of one account as the transition will force Yahoo Advertisers to use the Account within Microsoft Advertising adCenter.

Another interesting point to note is that Yahoo will be providing it’s advertisers with a series of emails to help the transition as well as provide tips and advice to prepare for the transition as well as “We strongly recommend that you follow the provided guidance to help make your transition experience smooth and to get your ads live within adCenter as quickly as possible.”

So in a Nutshell, Yahoo is doing the right thing by educating their advertisers on how to best keep them informed as well as help them avoid the horrible memories of the past Yahoo Panama debacle. The key question I have is who is pushing this? Is it Microsoft to protect it’s reputation or is it Yahoo trying to put a band-aid on the past. No matter of the who, what and why, all I know is that it’s better this way than no communication at all.

Before I contacted Yahoo as to why I could not choose a different country, I was asking myself questions like:

• “Why the hell can’t I choose a different country?”
• Is something broken with this account?
• Is the client’s account not spending enough?

Ask your Yahoo Rep to Help You Find an International Rep.
Frankly, I was surprised to know that Yahoo does not necessarily support multiple countries outside of USA and Canada through a U.S. created Sponsored Search Account. In order to advertise outside of the US, you will have to get in contact with an International Account Rep. who has to assist you.

Here’s another Temporary Work-Around:

1. Go to http://everything.yahoo.com/us/?world
2. Choose the country you want to advertise in.
3. Go to that country’s home page and at the bottom you will find the “Advertise With Us” link.
4. Click that link an you’ll be able to open an account.

However, Yahoo told me that even though this is not the best process to follow, it will be phased out and be much easier once the Search Alliance goes through.

Yeah, that would make it easier to spend more ad dollars.

Imagine the growth possibilities if they would just make it easier for their advertisers to spend more money by providing a tool that would allow them to manage their accounts more efficiently. The fact that this tool ONLY supports Windows is a little troubling to me in this day and age. As you may know, this Tool (still in BETA) has been available since February 2009 and frankly I am a little bit surprised that there has not been more talk about the lack of MAC support.

Don't you feel like MSN Adcenter is kinda "going thru the motions" but not really understanding the Industry and it's effect in the marketing world? Here are just a few thoughts as to why MSN has dropped the ball on this Tool

• They figure not too many people are spending enough with MSN anyway to justify the time.
• Would rather force the PPC Advertiser to use a 3rd party PPC software tool do the work for them
• They are totally "not in tune" with the Search Marketing Industry as a whole. 
• Lack of Priority, since they are focusing so much time and effort on BING

MSN does not need a Decision Engine, they just need to make a Good Decision to support their advertisers.

Did you know: If you enter the phrase "Decision Engine" into your Text Ads within MSN AdCenter, they will not allow it?