eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit
San Francisco, May 4-7, 2008

Search Analytics Track - PACIFIC HEIGHTS

Optimizing PPC and Organic Search

Track Descriptions | Keynotes | Schedule at a Glance | Speakers

SA-1 Tuesday, 11:15 - 12:05
Essential KPIs for Search Engine Optimization

Brian Klais, Netconcepts
Richard Zwicky, Enquisite

There are basic SEO metrics that will help with the "blocking and tackling" — things like keyword popularity, indexation, link popularity, PageRank scores, rankings, top-referring keywords, etc. There are also the red herrings, like keyword density and KEI scores, that are only distractions. But most importantly, there are a whole new class of SEO metrics that are largely undiscovered by folks in SEO and analytics alike, that are essential in order to fully capitalize on the "Long Tail" of SEO. These Key Performance Indicators include:

Brand-to-nonbrand Ratio -- percentage of your natural search traffic that comes from brand keywords versus nonbrand keywords
Unique Pages -- number of unique (non-duplicate) web pages crawled by search engine spiders
Page Yield -- percentage of unique pages that yield search-delivered traffic in a given month
Keyword Yield -- average number of keywords each page (minus the freeloaders) yields in a given month
Visitors per Keyword -- ratio of search engine delivered visitors to search terms
Index-to-crawl Ratio -- ratio of pages indexed to unique crawled pages
Engine Yield -- the amount of traffic a search engine delivers for every page it crawls

Brian Klais, who has been working in web marketing from the very start, will make sure you have the knowledge you need to do the job at hand.

SA-2 Tuesday, 1:30 - 2:30
Actionable Organic Search Analytics

Matt Bailey, SiteLogic
Diane Hoag, IBM developerWorks

For many companies, analytics is nothing more than reporting numbers found on the dashboard of their statistics program. The complex and dizzying array of charts and graphs don’t seem to provide any guidance that will improve the findability of the website. This session will help new analysts understand the methodologies necessary to create actionable analysis for their company. Using the basic principles of segmentation, contrast, and comparison, and some help from Captain Kirk, Matt reveals how to make dramatic changes to improve the results of your organic search campaign.

Then, Diane talks turkey. With seven years of analytics under her belt, working with standard tools like SurfAid, Coremetrics, Hit List, and NetTracker, Diane talks about the trials and tribulations that occur when search engines suddenly stop delivering traffic. Her story, from the practitioner’s perspective of a real life experience, will help you understand how to prevent such a crisis from happening with your site, and how to recover if it does.

SA-3 Tuesday, 4:00 - 4:50
Measuring Paid Search In Two Parts

Andrew Goodman, Page Page Zero Media
Kevin Amos, Impaqt

Part One: Paid Search Success: Non-Obvious Insights

Andrew Goodman, Page Page Zero Media

Integral to any discussion of benchmarks and statistics related to a paid search campaign, to state the obvious, is why each number is important, and what the statistics either reveal or obscure. Andrew will:

Provide an overview of how different types of measurement are used for different business models. Custom strategies rather than out-of-the-box reporting methods are required to gain insight into campaign success.
Explain which reports and stats in eg. an AdWords reporting interface, Google Analytics report, or other reporting interface are likely to be most valuable, and which are most likely to get in the way or trip you up.
Explain which components of quality-based bidding algorithms are causing campaigns to succeed or fail.
Explain which testing methodology will optimize your campaign to make the most money in light of these algorithms, even if their main role is to benefit users and the search engine’s bottom line.
Explain why well-designed campaigns nearly always experience less click fraud, and show how to prove this with a third-party click fraud audit service
Make the case for simplified reporting and actionable analytics.

Part Two: You’ve Got the Corporate Media Plan -- Next Steps for Your Paid Search Campaign

Kevin Amos, Impaqt

The interdependence of search with your company’s media mix is beyond question (at least at the conceptual level). It (the media mix) impacts your impression activity, click-thru and conversion rates, and costs. Therefore, it requires a fine balancing act to optimize your paid search campaign to best exploit the positive influences, and avoid the negative ones. (Yes, negative impacts do exist.) Let’s assume you’ve got historic media activity, as well as the media plan. In this session, you will learn the concrete steps required to study the inter-dependence of your media campaigns. You will also see how those initial, tentative steps at study and coordination will open up your search campaign to greater efficiency and higher sales.

SA-4 Tuesday, 5:00 - 6:00
Onsite Search as a Crystal Ball

Daniel Shields, Wicked Business Sciences
Phil Gibson, National Semiconductor Corporation

Can you raise your conversion, site-wide, by more than 25% with one analysis technique? CableOrganizer was able to isolate and correlate the searches being performed on their site to the number of sales which would occur in a single day. To increase the number of searches, and improve the relevance of displayed results, they monitored the visibility and valued the real-estate positioning of the search cue. Daniel tells the story of working to understand how ’people’ used the site. See Daniel’s visual references and the flow-chart of patent-pending process.

Next, Phil tackles the same subject, but from the perspective of a lead-generation website. Knowing your visitors and guiding them through the search process on the National Semiconductor website is a talent learned from years of online marketing experience. Phil, who has that experience and then some, will describe the process of stacking the deck, tuning the results for the audience and using onsite search to better qualify sales leads.

SA-5 Wednesday, 11:15 - 12:05
All Your Searching Questions Answered

Mike Grehan, Acronym Media
Avinash Kaushik, Market Motive Inc.
Vanessa Fox, Ignition Partners

Have a question about how search works? How to make it better? Why things are so frustrating? This wildly successful session at the last eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit is brought back by popular demand. Just be sure to watch the clock as this session has been voted the most likely to make you miss lunch.

SA-6 Wednesday, 1:30 - 2:30
Serious Search - Graduate Level

Barbara Coll, WebMama.com Inc.
Gary Angel, Semphonic
Michael Stebbins, Market Motive

You’ve read the books, you track the blogs, you’ve got most of your search marketing in hand and are doing a pretty good job of it. Now it’s time to take it to the next level. Find out what Gary, Michael and Barbara learned in 30 years of combined experience in search and analytics. They have definitely matriculated and are ready to outline where things are going next with online search. Come learn from the graduates.