SES Toronto – Social, Market Share, & The Key To PPC Success!

SES Toronto  – Social, Market Share, & The Key To PPC Success!

SES Toronto  - Social, Market Share, & The Key To PPC Success!TechWyse was in attendance at SES Toronto last week at the Hyatt Hotel, and each one of us picked up great bits of information relevant to the areas we work in while in the education sessions.  While there were no real earth-shattering revelations in the presentations, I managed to gather some interesting Pay Per Click stats and information that I'd like to share.

Influence of Search and Social Networking

It seems like a small number, but it's actually quite incredible that Canadian users made 13% of all visits to search engines. Google's share of the search market in this country is huge, and considering 13% of all visits are to search engines, it's even more mind-boggling that people visit the site as much as they do.

Not surprisingly, Bing has moved in to the number 2 position in Canada in terms of search engine market share (May 2010), while Yahoo! continues to fall, coming in third place at 7% market share. The surprising tidbit gathered here was that Bing currently has the highest success rate when it comes to search results serving up what users are looking for. Bing is successful 80% of the time, meaning 8 of every 10 searches show results that satisfy a user query. I guess the name "The Decision Engine" isn't far off.

And did you know Ask.com is the number 4 search engine in Canada? Just don't mention it only has 1% market share…

With regards to social networking, 17% of all search traffic is to social networking sites. An incredible share of the total search traffic in Canada alone. It shows us that sites such as FacebookTwitter,  Digg, and others are growing to a point where they have become a part of routine online searches and activity.

Important Google AdWords Information

It was encouraging to hear Matt Rogers from Google tell those in the 'Advanced Paid Search' presentation that Click Thru Rate is the "most important factor in your Quality Score". What does this tell me?

It tells me that Google places importance with AdWords advertisers choosing relevant keywords that serve up relevant ads, which results in users clicking on their ads. The same as they have always told us. But by placing importance on the CTR of your campaigns, Google are saying, "We will reward you for bringing in as many visitors as you can from as few impressions as possible." By doing so, you have proved relevancy. Users like your ads because they match the search query they entered and are composed with keywords in the copy that encourage a click!   I always tell clients and AdWords users  to move away from generic, bland, or irrelevant ad copy.

Great ad text is the first step in a successful PPC campaign!

Next, think about your keyword lists. Some people think that advertisers develop a list of keywords and then leave them on auto-pilot as the campaigns run. This is possibly the worst thing you can do with your AdWords.

We've seen things like seasonality, increased competition, and new product lines affect keywords and where your ads rank in the search results. But the biggest thing you should remember is this:

20% of all Google searches every day are new terms. These are words that may not be covered by your keyword lists, and could cause you to lose potential customers and leads.

Continue to use keyword tools like the Google Keyword Tool to include new terms, but also use the Search Query Report in your AdWords reports tab. Discovering new terms through this report could save you money by adding new terms with lower competition levels, that target specific locations, or add descriptive words like colours, model numbers, or product sizes that you may have missed by restricting yourself to general terms.

Again – I really enjoyed the education sessions at SES Toronto this year! Nice job guys putting this together.

Finally, for those of you running tests on ad copy or ad images, ask yourself this question that was brought up in the presentation:

Are you testing apples to apples, or apples to oranges?

Think about how that applies to your campaigns.

It's a competitive market. Contact us to learn how you can stand out from the crowd.

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5 Comments

  • avatar

    That was quite an amount of information. Bing's info is indeed surprising, but great news! I think that time is not far off when social media shall overtake search engines.

  • avatar

    I totally agree with you Matt, I think that social media has influenced search to a large extent . The integration of Social Networking sites and Search Marketing offers a really compelling opportunity for advertisers to make their brand more exposed online and make their brand a part of online conversations…

  • avatar

    Matt, many thanks for the SES updates. Gave me interesting data and metrics. 20% of Google searches are on new terms! That is news to me. How crucial is it to add these new search terms in our campaigns!

  • avatar

    Nice to know that Bing is coming up on search engines in Canadian market. Quite surprising though Google is not up to the mark at getting the right search result.
    Nevertheless this information is a mine for the marketers in the Canadian area.

  • avatar

    Already I have received positive comments on SES Toronto from my buddies out there in Toronto. I was planning to attend the conference but unfortunately I had missed it.  But my degree of disappointment somehow have reduced through the proper dissemination of high voltage  information from SES by you guys. Many thanks.

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