SES Singapore 2011 – Day 1 “Hot Topics” Track – Live Blog
What’s hot and how can you ride the heat wave – all set for a incisive look at the what’s shaking up the social and search marketing fields. See live report of the Fundamentals Track here. Day 2 coverage here.
[3.30 pm] Panel discussion – The big 3: Search, social and display in 2012 by Cindy Deng, Senior Director and General Manager of Search Business Operations, APAC, Yahoo!; Kate Clough, Regional Media Director – Asia Pacific, MRM Worldwide and Arun Kumar, Head of Digital APAC, IPG Mediabrands; Moderated by Andrew Tu, Vice President, Business Development Asia-Pacific, Brandscreen
Introduction: With online advertising becoming more complex, it is now more vital than ever that advertisers and agencies understand the opportunities that display, search are providing. Arun Kumar on Rebirth of Display: Search, TV and Cross-Channel
- The advertisers-publishing-audience ecosystem is getting more complex (see infographic)
- Asian ecosystems are beginning to look like that of the US
- Exchanges and DSPs (Demand Side Platforms) are driving costs down
- Broken marketing ecosystems – inherently inefficient, not specific enough view of desired actions, decisions made on imperfect information
- Optimization happening in silos – display, search, mobile, social and television
- Display – retargeting improves returns
- Audience buying on TV – integrated data defines audiences that allow ad inventory to scale, which can then optimize performance
Cindy Deng on Harnessing Search and Display Opportunities
- Evolution of search – what is the market demanding
- Branding matters to search marketers – increasing brand awareness is a key expectation today
- Volume is limited, must grow the funnel – grow it to cover search, display, social and other channels
- Search has to become more “push” – users are demanding quicker access to information (remove the “Search” button). Provide “answers” not “links”, and contextual shortcuts: tools to explore what they want, wherever they want
- More rich, interactive, and engaging formats – rich ads in search (higher overall conversion)
- Search and display are synergistic – what advertisers can’t afford to ignore
- Moving from search marketing to synergy advertising – yields stronger results
- Display ads drive searches
- Search retargeting – discern user intent and interest – more succesful in driving branded search lifts
- What To Expect Next
- Shopping shortcuts – built-in advertising opportunity
- Search wallpaper
Kate Clough on Attributing Conversion Value: Post-click and post-impression
- Post-impression conversions
- Performance perception and optimization rely on accurate and meaningful metrics
- Wrong metrics give false appearance of increased performance, while business stagnates or even declines
- Assumes tools used to track ad exposures and clicks
- Two profiles: 1) Sees ad, clicks, shops; 2) Sees ads, does nothing, comes back to shop – how to attribute?
- Default attribution methodology: Credit all post-click conversions to the last ad clicked – strong evidence of influence on conversion
- What else could have contributed: Tracked ad impressions, word of mouth, public relations, promotion, other paid media, current consumer
- Post impression conversion testing: 1) Substitute ads with public service announcements and monitor impact on conversions; 2) Continued conversion activity is not attributable to tracked ad units; 3) Decrease in conversions is attributable to ads
- Attribution Adjustment: 1) All tactics may have “performed” the same but after testing and applying true credit, you see varying performance; 2) Adjust methodology to impact optimization and 3) Monitor total post-impression conversions and re-test as needed
[3 pm] Building brands in a searchable social world by Pushkar Sane, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Convergination Ventures
- The realities of the digital world
- Curiosity killer or curiosity building?
- Mobility fidelity
- Parallel conversations
- Language of convenience
- World of “Facends” (Facebook friends) – not friends
- Circles of influence
- Circles of “casual” care
- Importance of Avatars – different faces to different audiences
- Increasing trust in the “unknown”
- The acceptance of beta – as long as our expectations are managed, we are fine. Perfection is not desired.
- Disclosing footprints – do we really care about privacy?
- Constant migration across platforms, recreating their lives in new ways
- Private problems to public posts
- How do we treat marketing now?
- People are numbers
- Consumer is a target to be hunted
- Focus on the rearview mirror
- Brands are creating noise
- Interrupting people and breaking privacy is a must
- Excessive focus on tried and tested
- Current marketing model – 100% reach, 10% intent, 1% buy
- Current brand building approach – show you same ad, repeat it 20 times, acquire lead, sales and deliver to CRM, and when you call, press 1, 2, 3… we keep the customer waiting. NOT EFFECTIVE!
- If you’re a consumer, it feels like being in a jail
- What should brands and marketers do?
- Accept the reality – customers ask: is it fun? Catch me if you can.
- Brand building is not linear – multiple entry and exit points
- Consider an inverse funnel – 1% Empower, 10% Excite, 100% Engage
- Consider new ways of connecting – not mass or direct marketing; move to peer-to-peer targeting.
- Neutrality is a myth – need to act on what you listen
- No longer marketing in a country – what you do is visible everywhere
- Allow consumers to reshape the brand
- Respect the power of people
- Learn the technique – learn how to play where you are
- Think of brand as a host – keep the party flowing, make it easy to talk and enjoy
- Learn and evolve
- A single person can destroy brand equity, e.g., Dave Carroll and “United Breaks Guitars”
- Sometimes consumers can be less forgiving, e.g., BBC and “Blackberry is not working”
- But don’t panic every time there is negative sentiment, e.g., the Apple and “iPad video”
- Stay away from the IFR (Increase Fans Response) bugs
- Only risk perception changes with greater challenges – social is not be shied away from
- Make marketing social!
[12 noon] Proven strategies and tactics for advanced paid search. Rey Ong, Digital Marketing Manager, Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts, Janice Tan, General Manager, Acronym, Sho Shimoda, Global Marketing Director, IREP. Moderated by Lydia Ng, Digital Marketing Search Lead, Singtel
Sho Shimoda, IREP on Optimizing Search
- Paid search is easy to start
- Path to Conversion: Impression -> Click -> Page/Site -> Conversion
- Get more impressions by expanding keywords – How? 1) Pick keywords from landing pages; 2) Use Google tools; 3) Similar keywords from thesaurus; 4) Build phrases from keywords
- Get more clicks, testing title/description – 1) Consider testing conditions: change just one variable (title/description) at a time; 2) Bidding – improving how you look to the search engines: you may bid higher but if your CTR is lower than the competitor which affects the quality score, you may need to bid many factors higher; 3) Bidding – building quality score: create new ad groups based on ad scores from the existing ad group; 4) Landing page – smoothening the flow: a) Capturing the motivation (Want to buy) – be direct, less is more effective; b) Capturing the motivation (Have a concern) – what it is, why it is better, what others say – here, more is more effective;
- Landing page – building it systematically: split page into multiple parts, place it into templates and play around with combinations that give higher CTR
- Conversions – 1) Use Analytics segmented by paid search and natural search keywords and what’re their conversion drivers. Then add cost drivers (for paid); 2) Segment by Brand search (searching by name or company with intention) vs no-brand search (searching with potential interest
- Q&A:
- Sho Shimoda on search advertising in Japan: highly driven by keywords, not URLs. Need to create new keywords for different campaigns.
Rey Ong, Banyan Tree Resorts on SEM Campaign Expansion
- Initially, 50% of budgets were reserved for brand keywords and contributed 90% of conversions; generic keywords took 50% of budgets but turned in only 10% of conversions
- Learning: optimize brand keyword campaigns first, then expand to generic keywords
- When Should You Expand? 1) Brand optimized keywords; 2) Campaigns within target CPAs, and 3) Budgets are available
- Campaign Expansion Funnel (in terms of decreasing audience size): Branding Awareness – offline ads (print/TVC) -> Need Arousal (Digital – display ads) -> Info Search (Digital – generic keywords search) -> Evaluation (Digital – brand keywords search) -> Moment of Truth (Makes a booking or not)
- Tips for Keyword expansion
- Expand keyword list to include 1) plurals, misspellings, generic keywords; 2) Long tail keywords (top 25 keywords contribute 50%, long tail ~22k contributes the other 50%); 3) Organic keywords used to reach your site; 4) Site search keywords
- Focus on adding keywords with less competition
- User Google Keywords tool
- Moving to Display Ads
- Giving your site a second chance when it did not convert via search – use re-marketing and retargeting
- Insert code into your website
- Site visit place visitor on remarketing list
- Your banners follow them everywhere!
- Advantages: 1) Ensure top-of-mind awareness; 2) Second chance to convert; 3) Effective ROI; 4) PPC: free awareness advertising if users don’t click
- Create different remarketing lists for different purposes
- Quick Tips
- Use only unused budgets for experiments
- Monitor closely – if it doesn’t work stop
- Measure and pay attention to analytics – conversion rates, bounce rates, time-on-site, look beyond last click conversions to assisted conversions
Janice Tan, Acronym on Broader Optimization Strategies
- Pre-click optimization – micro-testing (creative selection, sub-geo targeting, day-week parting), bid management and macro-testing (budget, language, target markets, engine choices)
- PPC metric are flawed – profits can decrease even if other metrics look good
- Take Shot glass approach (targeted, effective)
- Think usability
- Copy sucks, so be smart. Less is more, use bullets, avoid “Wall of text”
- Don’t give people crazy forms. Ask for minimum information.
- Continuity and convergence
- Use smart designs and graphics
- Clear calls-to-action (CTA’s) – ensure visitors know what’s next
- Think beyond the nitty, gritty – look broad
[11 am] Social Analytics by Kelly Choo, Co-founder,Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, Brandtology; Hari Shankar, Director, Performics; Moderated by Matt McGowan, Managing Director, Americas, Incisive Media
Kelly Choo, Brandtology
- How do you handle information overload with over-proliferating channels
- Major challenges
- Automated sentiment analysis – how to handle sarcasm, acronyms and slang; generally poor accuracy when automated
- Trained professionals needed to turn data into insights – from raw data to structured and categorized data to sentiment ratings to accuracy and relevancy improvement, to actionable charts and reports
- Suggested deployment of a social media support framework
- Globally: India, China, Australia, Other Markets
- Science: trend analysis product attributes and comparison across markets, top discussed topics, corporate reputation management and global campaign tracking and learning
- Locally: local professionals to sieve through slang, sarcasm etc
- Turning data into actionable intelligence
- Data: WWW, trained analysts
- Actionable intelligence: market research, consumer insights, product development, PR and branding, advertising creatives, media planning, marketing, lead generation
- Create a Sample scorecard
- Goals: Awareness? Engagement? Increased sales?
- Insights Phase: KPIs – 1) Social media equity – buzz, sentiment, influence index; 2) Engagement index, 3) Reach index
- Engage Phase: Number of followers, fans, new conversations and responses
- Finding the ” Unknown Unknowns” – the 4 quadrants
- Known Knowns: Validation
- Unknown Knowns: Catching Up (e.g., “what to people say about competitors?”
- Known Unknowns: Investigation (e.g., “what properties?”)
- Unknown unknowns: “Net Casting” (e.g., “what else are people saying”)
- SEM/SEO: look for “Buzz Clusters”; buy search terms if less well-known to optimize efficiency of paid media
- Influencing the influencers – community management
- Who are they? Are they really influential?
- Crisis Management or “Virality” measurement – tracking and acting upon “spikes” in conversations; sustaining the buzz
Hari Shankar, Performics
- Thinking ROSS – “Return on Social Spends”
- Worldwide social media spends are increasingly high – but are the returns being measured? Some say they are “unable to measure”, or do not use any buzz monitoring tools, but their organizations do consider the effects of social media on SEO – there is a disconnect!
- Some known facts:
- People love to connect (status checks and chats are frequent; people are “reacting to brands”) – tends or propel brands
- 50% get and 50% give advice about products/servies, companies or brands on social networking sites; 50% use social networks to compare prices; 56% to talk to sales or specialists; 24% have made a purchase as a result of something posted on a social network; 31% purchase more from companies/brands that they like/follow over other brands; 60% are more likely to take action when a friend posts something abt products/services
- Customers want to be involved with companies – “bring them to the boardroom” to improve the relationship
- So what really matters? Fans? Followers? – These are just outcomes. What really matters is four key metrics:
- Did you catch their interest? Chatter rate (# of responses/post) – content requires a deeper understanding of your audience, your brand, your market and the value you will add to the audience and the environment
- How much did they share? Propagation rate (# of shares/retweets, shares per post; content that has best share rates – e.g., videos)
- How popular did it get? Popularity rate (# of likes per post, # of +1s per post, # of favorite clicks/tweet) – understand the flavor that works and collect valuable insight on in creating more of those “pleasant flavors”
- What value did it bring? Return on Social Spends – sum of immediate and delayed revenues, sales and other goal conversions. Gather using easy custom repors via Omniture, Google Analytics, Web Trends, etc.
Q&A
- Kelly Choo on transparency in benchmarking: time period, drill-down into granular conversations, quarterly, internal (campaign A vs campaign B).
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