Search Advertising Optimization Software
By: Manoj Jasra
Large online advertisers will waste as much as $4.5 billion on paid search advertising in 2008, estimates WebTrends Inc., a leading provider of web analytics and online marketing solutions.
WebTrends bases this estimate on results of its new service, WebTrends Ad Director, which formally debuted at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Jose, California. WebTrends Ad Director utilizes self-learning technology to optimize millions of combinations of keywords, landing pages and ads across the major search networks to achieve maximum results. Companies using the solution have seen their return on ad spend increase an average of 44 percent.
“Search engine marketing is one of the most critical acquisition channels for many companies, but it is clear that a significant portion of these investments are being wasted or underutilized,” said Kevin Ryan, vice president and global content director of Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch. “As search marketing becomes even more competitive, marketers would be smart to investigate automated methods for increasing SEM returns.”
“We have customers that are realizing over 1,500 percent return on ad spend after switching from their old bid management tools,” said Alex Yoder, WebTrends CEO. “But more importantly, all WebTrends Ad Director customers have seen substantial gains over bid management, while reducing the manual overhead associated with these outdated solutions. With WebTrends Ad Director, we have struck the optimal balance between what machines can do best- repetitive analysis, testing and updates on a massive scale-and the insight and perspective humans bring to search marketing decisions.”
Some of the clients who have realized substantial improvements in their SEM advertising results since switching from bid management to WebTrends’ automated optimization solution include Safelite AutoGlass, who increased daily sales by 42 percent after two months, and Orion Telescopes and Binoculars, who increased quarterly SEM revenues by 35 percent in one year, without increasing average CPC costs.
“We were able to achieve a much higher conversion rate and broader coverage of the online space while reducing staff hours dedicated to search campaign management by 50 percent,” said Alicia Albo, PsPrint (http://www.psprint.com/).
In addition to significantly improving search advertising results, WebTrends Ad Director is the only automated solution that enables companies to override the system to achieve goals outside of normal parameters. For example, a company may wish to set minimum bids on certain terms, such as brand terms, regardless of the observed return.
