SES Singapore 2011 – Day 2: Fundamentals Track – Live Blog

B2Bento brings you Day 2 of the Fundamentals track. Expect to have a good serving of the latest trends, innovations and best practices from the finest thought leaders in search and social marketing. Check out the main post for the opening address and keynote panel as well as the live coverage of Track 2.

[3:30pm] “Innovation in mobile advertising” – You Teck Lam, Consultant, ZOIBOX; Sally Wuu, Head of Marketing, SEA, INMOBI (Moderator: Anna Maria Virzi, Executive Editor, ClickZ)

Sally Wuu – (Brand Marketing) The Mobile Perspective

Mobile is …

• Immediate – deliver messages directly to consumers
• Intimate – people use mobile device the most
• Interactive – rich media
• Accountable – mobile is completely measureable

Don’t chuck out Marketing 101 out the window. It is still relevant.

Best Practices:

• Maximize the reach of your mobile campaign because mobile devices are so pervasive. Optimize for various mobile devices. Consider CRM. There is no harm including a form.
• Re-think what targeting means and be relevant in mobile advertising. There are other options we can use to target audience (e.g. devices people are using, the kind of content people consume, etc.). Target early adopters (devices that are recently launched). Once you have targeted them, remember to keep your ads relevant.
• Optimize ad design for mobile. Your real estate is limited. Limit the clutter by keeping your copy clear and concise. Make the font size generous and make the call-to-action really clear. Mobile users expect mobile sites to load faster than web pages on desktops.
• Prolong engagement. The creative possibilities are almost endless with rich media (movie trailers, etc.).
• Remember to track, measure and optimize your campaign. Know what works and re-allocate your budget from those that are not working.

[2:30pm] “Search Advertising Simplified” – Eddie Choi, SES Advisory Board & Founding Partner, Frontiers Digital

• Embrace Simplicity.
• Keywords talk to search queries. Ad copy talks to searchers/audience. CPC talks to customers.
• Keyword research is very important: you can understand the demand of a product through the keywords people use to search. Understand your USP, value proposition, brand attributes, product attributes, customer demographics, and customer perception.
• In multi-language international campaigns, semantics is critical.
• Understand the supply side value chain, especially if you are in B2B.
• Look at your competitor’s ads and get insights from them.
• Doing keyword research is a loop.
• Ad Copy: Funnel (awareness, interest, desire, action) vs. Brand Pyramid (emotional benefit, consumer need, functional benefit, product attributes). Ad copy can be so scientific.
• Brand or No Brand: no brand copy (in China) tends to work better than brand copy.
• CPC: Project a conversion number. Get CPA based on the budget. Assume a conversion rate. Derive the # of clicks. Get CPC based on the clicks.
• Analytics: The most important thing. The big picture: what is the function of web analytics: tracking, analysis, testing. Get a perspective: compare keyword performance vs. time change.

[1:40pm] “A-Z of an e-commerce website” – Jurik Auer, Manager, Online Sales, Marketing and Mobile Services, Lufthansa Airlines; David McLean, Head of Search, Skyscanner; Omri Bril, CEO and Founder, Podium Advertising (Moderator: Adaline Lau, Editor, ClickZ Asia)

David McLean – How to make search engines LOVE you

The steps to success

• Keyword Research: optimize for mobile and tablet. Understand what the keyword is under the niche that you are targeting. Google insights + competing pages. What else can give you the edge? Pick your winners.
• Information architecture and index-ability: User profile. How do users search for products? What is the funnel for searching? Make use of mergewords. Build your keyword track. Use common terms in navigation. Include filters for popular navigation.
• URL considerations: Since raters are typically “normal” users of Google, first impressions of your URL count BIG TIME. Make your URLs memorable. Don’t use parameters. Include the keyword. Use dashes, not underscores.
• Content and what can go wrong: Get user-generated content. Don’t copy from product descriptions. Unique titles and meta-data please. Get your landing page types right. Content drives conversion. Keep it unique!

[12:00nn] “KFC: A social crisis management case study” – Jean-Marc Thomas, Director of Search, Neo@Ogilvy

• Everybody is talking about social media today. Everybody consumes video every day on all kinds of platforms and devices. Now, people watch videos more on tablets compared to desktops.
• In July 2011 in Malaysia, 2 videos were posted showing people mishandling food in the kitchen. It got picked up in social media, went viral and basically the “fire” spread out. KFC (via Ogilvy) decided to use the social platforms to fight the fire. 2 videos of an apology were uploaded immediately (using 2 languages). Drive traffic to the Facebook page about the in incident as well as the YouTube video from KFC.
• The Search Strategy: driving traffic from search engine to FB and YouTube
• Paid Search Results: 44% of clicks on Google came from the Bahasa keywords
• SEO Optimisation: Ranking #1 video. The correct video optimization helped us rank above the videos KFC was fighting against on their main keywords! Due to the limited budget for PPC, video SEO was an important criterion to this success.
• The way KFC handled the crisis earned them significant positive buzz.
• Social Media Crisis Management: posts from other bloggers helped
• Challenges: In YouTube, you cannot target a specific country unlike Google AdWords.
• What brands should do: Google is pushing video content on search; people have more access to videos than before. There would always be videos, look out for hidden content that may negatively influence your brand. Prevent and take actions immediately. Own the digital shelf – your own content must be able to figure prominently in search results.

[11:20am] “Intention marketing: Search and social” – Rosemary Lising, Managing Director, GroupM; Simon Ashwin, Head of Social Media and Production Services, APAC, GroupM

Is there a relationship between social insights and search? Where does the path to purchase start? 58% in the study starts with a search engine. When asked about search, 86% attested to the importance of search. 45% said that they use search all-throughout the purchase process.

Channel Used to Convert: search – 51%; Social – 1%; Search and Social – 48%.

Consumer Intention Revealed

• Usage of search and social media channels accelerates as consumers get closer to conversion – the “Late Kick”
• The “Late Kick” – even 30 days out, consumers still haven’t fully decided and you still have the opportunity to influence conversion.

Path to conversion: The shift between search and social is not linear. Consumers shift back and forth between search and social during the purchase process.

# 1 Motivator for Social:  33% use social media to persuade, eliminate competitor brands and of course to influence.

Earned social media reaches converters. Consumers want a social connection post purchase. There is definitely a correlation between the two channels (search and social), don’t treat both as separate silos. 25% – stimulus for jumping from one medium to another was the ability to learn more. Nearly 70% – search and social make people feel more confident in their purchase decision.

Enhanced Optimization Approach

• Paid Search Optimization Approach: Conventional – test, optimize, results; Enhanced Method: listen, optimize, results
• Delivery Model – what we do: listen, optimize creative messaging, and optimize keywords
• Enhanced Optimization – Copy: improved CTR and CPC results when we listen before acting
• Enhances Optimization – ROI: Improved ROI when we listen before acting

Benefit of Search and Social Optimization: Search and Social optimizations drives improved results 70%-80% of the time

Insights to Actions: consumers start with “intent”, they then go through a lengthy purchase process with many touch points; Social – earned social is integral part of the decision process, refines the buying process through perception changes and brand elimination

Rethink the opportunity: have an always-on integrated search and social program

[10:40am] “Optimizing for the Youtube search engine” – Ricky Baizas, Digital Marketing Executive, Philippines, Nestlé

Optimizing for that “Other” Search Engine: the second highest search engine is YouTube. Nestle Philippines came up with 90 commercials in 2010. So it was easy for them to shift to YouTube.

“Coming up with excellent and share-able content is like catching lightning in a bottle.”

• Have Fantastic Content
• Check what Content you have in abundance
• Check with Legal – clear licenses (music, etc.)
• Get the Filename right for easy search. Fix it so that it contains all of your main keywords. (e.g. nestle-philippines-tv-commercial-milo-olympics.avi). Don’t upload a file as is.
• Fill in ALL blanks: Title (same as filename); Description (use main keywords here. +links, script, cast, etc.); Tags (use main keywords here too)
• Maximize the Features: Playlists (organize by brand, format or theme); Subtitles (when crawlers go through YouTube, they can know what’s contained in the video); Annotations (link to related videos and playlists – keeps your audience in your channel)
• Embed Everywhere: Put your content out. YouTube is very social and that helps but best do it yourself to start the ball rolling
• Make the Right Friends: Be social with great people. Check for people who are active and with a good amount of content. Engage with them!

Q&A:

• The YouTube channel partner program started in Philippines: you can actually invest in media now to give you a boost. If you have the budget, go for it.
• Google AdWords can specifically target YouTube.