My presentation from SMX Advanced 2012 in Seattle.

1. Maximizing Enterprise SEM
#SMX #14B
Tad Miller
@jstatad @SEARCHMOJO
SEARCH-MOJO.COM
800.939.5938

2. OUR HISTORY WITH MAZDA USA
• 5 Years
• 30,000,000 + Clicks
• Generated hundreds of thousands of Quote Requests
• Grew the budget over 265% in that 5 years
• Worked for 5 different agencies
Winner of the 2008 JD Power Automotive Online
Marketer of the Year
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

3. THE GARAGE IS A GREAT PLACE FOR
AUTOMOTIVE PPC
• Search Mojo literally started in the room
above my Garage in 2006.
• It was in that room in 2006 we began managing Mazda USA SEO and later in 2007
that we began managing Mazda USA PPC.

4. WE GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE…

5. THE AGENCY BUREAUCRACY

6. THE MAZDA REVOLVING DOOR
• With attrition it’s hard to tell the players
without a program…the only consistency over
5 years was us.
We reported to all of these people over 5 years

7. THE PROBLEMS WITH ENTERPRISE PPC
• Serving many masters
– Internal Departments
• Legal, Marketing, Branding, IT, etc.
– External Agencies
• Lack of Communication between Silos
• Lack of Understanding of the Ad Medium
– “Media Buy” mentality
– “Push media” vs. “Pull media”

8. THE ENTERPRISE PPC ENEMY - HIPPOS
Highest Paid Person’s Opinion
--Avinash Kaushik
• They make the decisions
• Opinion/Ego based
• Not based on data or facts

9. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE SEM SUCCESS
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

10. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS –
BUILD TRUST
• Build Trust
– We earned Mazda’s trust by doing SEO for them
first
– Deliver results
– Give them data that shows them how they are
saving money
• Cost Per Conversion Savings
• Cost Per Click Reductions
• Get more clicks for the same amount of budget
• Shoot down costly “ideas” from Search Engine Reps
that don’t deliver ROI

11. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS –
DON’T MAKE DECISIONS
• Take your direction from the massive amount
of customer PPC search and conversion data
at your disposal

12. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS -
BEING DATA-DRIVEN
• Mazda drank the “Analytics Kool-Aid” early
– Established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
and surveys to see which KPIs impact purchase
– Willingly surrendered control to searchers and
customers to determine what works (more
importantly what doesn’t work)
– Had a willingness to test and accept the results

13. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC - FOCUS ON
THE FUNNEL
• Low Funnel Shopping KPIs for the
Ready to Buy
Honda Civic
• Mid-Funnel KPI to get in the
Compact cars consideration set
New compact car finance offers
• Upper funnel KPIs – “Hey we exist”
2012 compact cars
• Hard to justify spending budget on
Mazda 3 Dealers
upper funnel keywords like
Mazda 3 Invoice Pricing competitor trademarks when
budget is need for the ready to buy

14. THE FUNNEL MIGHTIER THAN THE HIPPO?
• Getting Buy-in on the “Funnel Strategy” is vital
• What delivers the best low funnel conversion volume?
– It gets fully funded budget
– It gets the highest bids
• The Funnel determines priority – Creates “Sacred Cows” that
HIPPOs will yield to
• Data-driven Execs want their ideas tested – but they don’t
want to jeopardize results on the best performers

15. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS –
YOU DON’T WIN ARGUMENTS…
• Don’t argue with Executives or
Agencies – Let the data do the
arguing for you
• Insist on testing ideas from up
above
• Keep the results in a ready
spot…You will need them
again, and again and again…

16. KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS – BE
A HISTORIAN
• When you outlive all of the executives and agencies you start
over again with the replacements
• Be prepared for the same old bad
ideas. Carry the equivalent of a
Batman Utility Belt for Analytics
Reports
• You can usually stop the bad ideas in
their tracks and not get diverted from
the tactics that produce results

17. SITUATIONS TO PUT THE KEYS TO USE
Uhhhhh…Yeahhhh. We’re going to
need you to change a few things.
Mmm’ kay?
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

18. I’VE HEARD SOME GOOD ONES…
I was up late last night and searched
What do you mean our Quality Oh Boy.
for___________ and our ad didn’t
Scores will be low advertising on Here it
show…
competitor trademarks? Comes…
I want our ads to
More
show for a search on
Emotion!
“Spirited”
Don’t call it a Hatchback. It’s a
“5-door”.
Those keywords don’t fit with our I want an AdGroup
“Brand Guidelines” about our Flag
I don’t care what it
costs I want…
This doesn’t say Zoom-Zoom to me.
What do mean? Thousands of people
call us “Mazada” when they search?
I know the conversions
What’s next “Mooz-Mooz-Mooz?!”
are great, but I just care
about Impressions

19. DEALING WITH THE “BRANDERS”
“Fun to Drive”
“The Emotion of Motion”
“Spirited”

20. FEELINGS
Write a 25 Character Headline That Makes Me Feel Like This:
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

21. NOW CONVEY “EMOTION” IN AD COPY!
• With Nagare as a basis for creativity and exploration, Mazda's approach
is now evolving. The underlying design philosophy for the next
generation of Mazda cars is adding the power and beauty that one
sees in the instantaneous movement of animals or humans. This is
the form displayed in the moment motion begins – for example, the
instant when a cheetah pounces on its prey, or the moment of a
sword strike in the ancient Japanese martial art of kendo. It is this
moment where accumulated force is released that contains the most
finely-honed balance of strength and streamlined beauty. It is in this
instant – which requires maximum concentration – that we feel
instantaneous power, speed, a dignified tension, a sophisticated
beauty. It is, in its way, highly seductive.
• Now put that in a 25 character headline and two 35
character description lines and SELL! SELL! SELL!

22. LET’S GET OUR CREATIVE PEOPLE ON
THIS PPC THING…
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

23. BRAND VS. RELEVANCE IN AD COPY
• We gave the “Branders” and “Creatives” all the rope they
wanted and tested our ads that emphasized the keyword
searched vs. ad copy that said things like:
“Rip the road a new pot hole anywhere you please”
• Our Findings: Unless creativity and cleverness is
rewarded by the searchers with higher click through
rates – which it almost universally is NOT – Relevant and
seemingly dull usually performs much better with Click
Through Rate and Conversion performance
• Tag lines don’t work
• “Zoom Zoom” is wasted space in ad copy

24. HOW YOU WANT TO BE SEEN AND WHO
YOU ARE…
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

25. BRAND VS. REALITY
• Sometimes what you want people to call
your product and what people actually call it
are two different things
Vs.
MAZDA3 5-door Mazda 3 Hatchback

26. SAVING THE HATCHBACK
• Brand managers and copy writers were
appalled that we would call the car a
“Hatchback” -– “Brand Guidelines”
• Reality: almost 2000% more search for
“Hatchback” over “5 door”
• Used the same memo twice in 5 years
to save the word usage on ads and
pages

27. RUN YOUR RACE, NOT SOMEONE ELSE’S
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

28. FOCUS ON THE COMPETITION
• All of my clients are obsessed with their
competitors
• Mentality – spend anything in Advertising to squash
competitors. But won’t spend a dime to improve
sites, CRO, or landing pages
• “Conquesting” – Bidding on competitor names or
product names
• Keeping “Focus on the Funnel” allowed us to
maintain budget on tactics that work better long
term

29. SOMETIMES THE RULES DON’T ALLOW IT
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM

30. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS USE “THE FORCE”
• At some point you are going to have to
use “the dreaded Q-word”
• Educate on Quality Score concepts for
those stakeholder “pet projects” that
aren’t working
• Highly recommend “Quality Score in
High Resolution” by Craig Danuloff

31. CONTACT
Tad Miller
tmiller@search-mojo.com THAT’S THE
800-939-5938 x 102 END!
Twitter: @JstaTad
@SearchMojo
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SearchMojo
@searchmojo SEARCH-MOJO.COM