Latest SEL Column: How To Bid Profitably On Non-converting Keywords

Posted: November 9, 2009

There are many studies that show that using both organic and paid together creates increases in CTR and conversions, even if the ad is not clicked.

However, many of these types of words are early in the buying cycle. It is very hard to monetize keywords early in the buying cycle as often someone is still conducting research before buying. However, that does not mean these keywords are useless. Often consumers will ‘lock-in’ to a site, or find enough information on your site to finishing going through the buying cycle and create a conversion.

However, how do you set bids for keywords that often do not lead to direct conversions; but for ones that you still wish to find some visibility?

You can use a combination of the new goals in Google Analytics (page views per visit and time on site) and the budget optimizer, which tries to maximize the clicks that any one campaign receives.

The two of these in combination with each other allow you to set ‘branding awareness’ or ‘informational campaigns’ to take advantage of these words.

My latest Search Engine Land column walks through the procedure for setting up these campaigns and how to measure them for effectiveness:

How To Bid Profitably On Non-converting Keywords

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