Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

After recently weighing in on what I feel are some deceitful practices in the world of SEO, I have decided to weigh in on an increasingly marketed approach to pay per click marketing that I’ve been presented with and asked questions about quite a bit recently.

The topic?  “Guaranteed top Google listings for a flat fee.”  I’ve seen faxes and emails touting this service, one such example being one my brother sent along in a fax called PageRank Global.  Scouring some industry boards will show various other companies offering this same service as well.  Reading through those boards I haven’t found a lot of people that say they have used these services, but I have seen a lot of discussion about questions receiving less than satisfactory answers.  However, apparently some of these companies check out well with the Better Business Bureau.

To lay it out for you, here’s the basis of what these companies offer:

1. Guaranteed top three listings each month on Google
2. A flat fee for that whole month

Now, this strikes me as an odd business model, but I think it would be possible to do this on the up and up given a couple of circumstances:

1. The company is willing to lose money, or have wildly varying margins per client month to month
2. The budgets are managed EXTREMELY closely so as to pinch every penny imaginable

However, one claim that runs across several of these companies is that they can offer this pricing via a “special deal through Google”.  This does not happen.  Ever.  No exceptions.

That, to me is a huge warning flag.  If your marketing pitch begins with a blatant untruth, it should be an uphill battle to win anyone’s business.  Beyond that, if someone were still truly interested in going down the road of using one of these services, here’s a short list of questions to ask them:

1. How do they configure pricing?
2. What is their anticipated margin on your project?
3. What information is included in reporting?  This should include impressions, clicks and most importantly cost per click and total cost.
4. Will you have access to the AdWords account (now THAT is transparency).
5. Will they setup or tie in your existing Google Analytics account for you to monitor the traffic from your PPC efforts (this will prevent them cooking the books in their reports)?

I could see someone saying “no” to number four, as some companies could fear tampering with the campaign.  But beyond that, questions one and two should have simple straight forward answers, and two should be in a number form.  If number three doesn’t include all of the requested information, request that it be included.  If not, I would find another company, as you have no real idea what you’re getting charged for.

Any one else have experience with this type of thing that they’re willing to share?

George Orwell once said, “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”

While most advertisers would turn up their nose, let’s be honest, often times he is right.  How often does a radio ad, television ad, or a billboard offer you something you need?  For us cynical types, it’s just random noise that muddles up our day.  As Orwell mentioned, it’s just drawing attention to what is essentially unnecessary for us.

I have a graduate degree in marketing and I LOATHE traditional advertising and am completely desensitized to it. But this is the beauty of search engine marketing and pay per click advertising.  Rather than rattling the stick, you simply set the swill in front of your customers when they decide they want swill.  Voila!  Customers love you again!

Businesses, despite their brave stances and declarations to dedicate resources to marketing, rarely do so when times get tight.  Which is where we’re at now.  As I said in my (surprisingly popular) blog back in June titled “When sourcing web services makes sense”, search can be an extremely cost effective marketing vehicle, particularly if you have a product or service with a solid gross margin.

As companies cut their PPC spending it provides opportunity to grab market share and gain new, loyal customers at lower cost per click, at that.  Further, PPC will let you target new markets - something particularly important for companies in struggling local economies like Michigan.  Often times companies have failed to truly push their web presence because they’ve been able to rely on their local market and local sales team.  Without paying to build the infrastructure to support a new sales team or having to find a qualified sales person in Kansas City (as an example), the company can push their products through their PPC campaign by ramping up an aggressive PPC campaign geo-targeted to that market, and even build appropriate landing pages for that market. PPC provides an avenue for short term growth by geographic diversification, and better leveraging web assets.

Search engine optimization is a bit of a harder sell, as many struggling companies need results yesterday.  But, with that in mind, unless executives are jumping in life rafts and posting their resumes on careerbuilder, it makes all the sense in the world to budget some funding for SEO.  Again, remember that everyone else is cutting back, and that gaining top rankings is a never ending race.  While your competitors cut back or even stop their SEO efforts, they’re essentially taking indefinite water breaks.  If you keep running, you can gain a lot of ground on your short sighted competitors, and potentially put them in the rear view by continuing aggressive SEO efforts.  And gaining and maintaining top rankings in Google is the gift that keeps on giving!  So while PPC has its own benefits in terms of targeting, search engine optimization provides immense long term benefits in this time of tightened purse strings.

So while I agree with Orwell, I don’t think he’d apply that statement to the world of search.  This is a whole new animal…like a liger.

Seems everyone turned it up a notch in regards to their online marketing efforts (I can only assume it was in my rather curt take on GM’s use of pay per click last month…right?).  Ford and Chrysler even launched differentiating strategies, an interesting strategic move - disassociating themselves from the “Big 3″ moniker in a way.  Perhaps with the prospects of a shrinking pie and the threats of extreme oversight lead them to think strength in unity would lead to lesser results.

Anyhow, without delving too much further into it, I found an interesting article here that goes into greater detail as to the automakers’ approaches to leveraging online media to sway public opinion.  Interestingly, it discusses Ford’s launch of a similar PPC campaign to GM, but again, no talk of geo-targeting.  This, to me just seems like a terrible waste of funds.  As they point out very clearly on emptywheel, the entire Michigan delegation is for the bailout.  This would be equivalent to Netvantage working with every business in the state of Michigan, and still serving ads to them (and KNOWING we have their entire marketing budgets - I need to make this happen…)

I just Googled “auto bailout” and look what I see…

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!

GM and Ford, this is not helping your case!

These are the types of things that leave me wandering around the office muttering in Polish.  Will someone please tell these guys to stop advertising in Michigan?  I can only imagine how many impressions for these ads come from Michigan.  I have seen estimates that 10 percent of our workforce would lose their jobs if there is no bailout, and how many retirees do you think this would affect?  I have to believe a good chunk of click funds are being eaten up by Michiganders…whose representatives have already declared their intentions.

I will leave you with my final thought…from a TV legend.  My feelings are summed up at the 14 second mark.

Thank you Susan Powter.

First off, I’m not going to take sides here, I’m simply going to talk hypothetically about something I would do if I were GM.  Something, quite honestly, I’m surprised that they’ve already started doing (to some extent), and that’s utilizing paid search.

It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of paid search marketing, and maybe I’m just on too much of a kick with this lately since I started digging into the brilliant use of defensive PPC and Internet marketing by Obama’s campaign, but I think I’m onto something.  One of my Facebook friends posted an item the other day titled “GM Facts and Fiction” which led to the website of the same name.  The site is a GM run marketing tool which does a nice job of segmenting why you should support the bailout from a variety of perspectives - employee, retiree, dealer, concerned American, and supplier.

Further, the home page limits options to a few clear, but highly actionable paths.  You either segment yourself for targeted marketing efforts, forward the site to others, watch a video, or go to a “learn more” page that further pounds home the message.

As Americans seek to learn more about the effects of these bailouts (last month Google reported over 4,000,000 searches for the term “bailout”!), this is obviously a good political tool to sway public opinion in your favor.  But this is only one step.  The site, like any, is useless without some marketing efforts getting people to it.  A quick search for “gm bailout” showed me the following sponsored link in Google:

GM bailout Adwords Ad

Without much thought, we think, “Good move GM, way to get your message out.”  But I feel this is shortsighted.  First, the budget for GM has to be tight, so they should be pinching every penny on this (or at least giving the appearance that they are), so why am I seeing this ad in Michigan, where politicians and the general public are both firmly behind this cause already?  Ultimately, they’re preaching to the converted…and paying for every click!

If I’m running this campaign, I would be geo-targeting the ads to constituents with representatives deemed most likely to change their position.  My marketing mind says, I’d aim the campaign at areas where the representative voted in favor of the first bailout, or represents a large number of autoworkers.  Making sure these people are presented with the message, and providing them tools (the site’s forwarding option) could be a very effective way to develop grassroots support for GM’s cause.

As it stands, the effort can still be effective, just not cost effective.  Sadly, I’m not surprised.