NetElixir Founder, Udayan Bose, offers ten strategies to improve your search engine advertising campaign.

Online retail sales have been completely flat in the first quarter of 2009 (comScore), and all economic indicators point to a very difficult holiday shopping season this year. In 2008, comScore data reported holiday sales were down 3 percent- the first ever decline since 2001. This year, retailers need to prepare for more tough times.

Beginning in early October and lasting through the end of December, the holiday season accounts for nearly 50% of the annual sales revenue for some retailers. It is obvious that success during this time of year is vital for companies’ survival, and competition for sales this year is going to be at an all time high. NetElixir produced a workbook, "Fresh Ideas," to help online retailers streamline their search engine marketing efforts to be as efficient as possible. Below are ten practical tips from the book to help propel your keyword search advertising program. 

1. Build your Objectives-Investment Scorecard. Quantitative methods like creating a chart with specific goals or objectives and how much money you plan to spend on each one, will help you understand how each part of your budget contributes to the overall program. Remember, what you can’t measure, you can’t control.

2. Use Strategic Keyword Bidding during the Holidays. Tailor your campaign to consumers’ holiday shopping habits by using tactics like day-parting and product category-specific bidding.

3. Sync Your SEM Campaigns with  Your Holiday Marketing Promotion Calendar. The holidays comprise peak sales days when consumers spend the most amount of money and companies earn maximum profit. Know which days (e.g. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.) are important, and allocate different amounts of your budget and use targeted keywords appropriately.

4. Know Thy Competitors. Because searchers always like to compare before making a purchase, keep track of aspects of your competitors’ campaigns like product, price, promotions, and specific SEM tactics employed, etc. This research will help you understand how you stack up to your competition.

5. Use the 5 KPI’s Every Search Advertiser Needs. A portfolio of key performance indicators (KPI’s) is needed to measure SEM driven customer acquisition performance in a holistic manner. A few of them are profit per click, average order value per new customer, and the percentage of (converting keywords / all keywords). Make sure you set your KPI benchmarks before starting your campaign and then track them on a weekly basis.

6. Create A Targeted Holiday Keyword List. Gain reach coupled with high conversion probability by completing the 5 stage optimal keyword list building process of research, select and group, test, analyze, and refine.

7. Differentiate Through Targeted Ad Copy. To help you stand out and build brand credibility, make sure your ad copy writer answers questions like "At whom is your ad copy targeted?" as well as "What will compel the searcher to click on your ad?" and "Where does the searcher expect to land on your website post clicking?"

8. Use Twitter to Create Immediate Campaigns. Campaigns built around keywords extracted from tweets are more immediate and relevant, and therefore hold greater monetization potential. You will have an edge over competitors and also significantly lower your cost per click (CPC).

9. Make Transactional Landing Pages Relevant. Build trust, demonstrate consistency of message, and guide the visitor by keeping a set of important factors in mind, including keeping pages simple and establishing landing page specific KPI’s that link to overall campaign KPI’s, among others.

10. Understand the Importance of Trademark / Brand Name Keywords. Trademark and brand names are more likely to be the last clicked keyword for a conversion, and their contribution to total account conversions has increased 5-8% over the last 12 months.

Use tactics like evaluating the performance of brand terms separately from those of non-brand terms to better understand the performance of your campaigns. If you have a strong brand name, anticipate that other advertisers will bid for your trademark terms.

Udayan Bose founded NetElixir with a vision to provide online marketers worldwide with a paid search campaign optimization solution capable of delivering magical performance. To download a full copy of his workbook, complete with charts and performance indicators for retailers to fill out, please visit http://netelixir.com/semfreshideas.html