Amazing paid search tactics and tools from the SMX Advanced 2014 conference from Jennifer Slegg @jenstar

1. Amazing Paid Search
Tactics & Tools
Jennifer Slegg
JenniferSlegg.com
@jenstar

2. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Jennifer Slegg
• Owner of JenSense
• Blogs on search marketing at JenniferSlegg.com
• Consulting for SEO, PPC, content marketing & content
monetization
• Twitter: @jenstar
• Email: jenstar@gmail.com

3. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar

4. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
AdWords Targeting by Income
• Based on neighborhood incomes from IRS data.
• Tailor ads to specific incomes.
• Lower income look for deals and sales.
• Higher income look for quality and service.
• http://3qdigital.com/featured/household-income-targeting-
adwords-yup/

5. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
AdWords Targeting by Income
• Lead Gen AdWords Campaign
• Targets middle class
• 3 weeks (May 14 – June 3)
• No bid modifiers used based on income at this time

6. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
AdWords Targeting by Income
Courtesy Susan Waldes @suzyvirtual

7. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
AdWords Targeting by Income
• Significantly higher brand searches by lower income (bottom
50%)
• Possibly due to television campaign that reinforced branding
• Also had highest CTR (11.33% CTR)
• Non-brand top 10% vs bottom 50% CPL is $20 different
• Only about 50% of searches could Google income target
• Seemed to be equally split between Google and partners

8. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Sitelinks
Shorter Sitelinks perform better (12 characters NOT 25)

9. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Sitelinks
• Things like ® and ™ can make it stand out
• For marketing, you CAN link to your Pinterest, YouTube,
Instagram or Tumblr accounts.
• Don’t forget grammar 101

10. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
“Bending the Rules”
• Watch competitive keywords to see what interesting tactics
are being used in competitive market areas.
• Payday loans
• Car insurance
• Loans
• Mortgage
• Credit cards
• Mesothelioma
• Don’t break the TOS….
But ask your account rep if it is a beta test you can join.

11. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Negative Keyword Campaigns
• If you run a huge negative keyword list, run “the best of the
negatives” keyword campaigns at rock bottom PPC.
• Keywords with low conversions
• Semi-targeted keywords
• Negatives by location
• Oops keywords
• Also gives a second look to any keywords that may have been
added to negative keyword list accidently or by another PPC
manager

12. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Negative Keyword Campaigns
• B2C market targeting parents
We chose 100 keywords in negative keyword list
• Keyword1 – 3.8% CTR; ROI higher than average
• Keyword2 – 2.9% CTR; ROI higher than average
• Keyword3 – 2.3% CTR; ROI average
• Group of dozen or so 2.0%+ CTR
• However, there were some that performed >0.5% CTR that we
removed quickly

13. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Negative Keyword Campaigns
• B2B tech market
We chose 85 keywords from negative list
• 1 keyword – 6% CTR with double average ROI
• Now one of their best performing keywords
• 3 keywords – 2-3% CTR with average ROI
• Deleted the remainder and added back to negative list

14. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Negative Keyword Campaigns
• Why these keywords were in the negative list:
• Error in cut and paste
• “That is not how we refer to our product/market”
• Regionality errors (pop/soda/sodapop)

15. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Vanity Campaigns
• You know your ad copy works & converts
best BUT that stubborn owner who insists
HIS ad copy is better!
• Instead of banging your head against that
wall, create a quick vanity campaign
• Select keywords (what “the boss” searches for when he wants to
see his ad – fortunately, they are seldom the money ones)
• Geotarget as close to his office and home as possible

16. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Mobile Design Flaws
• Don’t believe a site is “mobile friendly”
• Chrome mobile emulation tool
• NEW tool from Google (May 2014)
• Login to Google Webmaster Tools
• Site must be verified
• https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/googlebot-fetch
• Mobile: Smartphone; Mobile: XHTML/WML; Mobile cHTML

17. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Mobile Design Flaws

18. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Mobile Design Flaws
• Change in Google’s natural search means if your organic
competitors are doing it wrong, paid ads can benefit more.

19. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Quick List of Never Ever

20. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Clickfraud prevention

21. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Current Events Fail
• Always add negative keywords based on current events or
disasters with content ads
• Car ads on Paul Walker death articles
• Cruise line ads on Costa Concordia disaster
• At best, they won’t get clicked
• At worst, someone will report your ad showing up on an
inappropriate article as “news”

22. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Survey Says….

23. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
And finally….

24. Jennifer Slegg JenniferSlegg.com @jenstar
Jennifer Slegg
• Owner of JenSense
• Blogs on search marketing at JenniferSlegg.com
• Consulting for SEO, PPC, content marketing & content
monetization
• Twitter: @jenstar
• Email: jenstar@gmail.com