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Benchmark: Search Marketing - PPC Edition

Summary of Contents:

  • Chapter 1: PPC Objectives and Challenges(pg.9-26)
    • Informal processes still define PPC marketing maturity
    • Challenges hampering PPC effectiveness over last 12 months
    • Objectives for PPC programs in next 12 months
    • Marketer insights on developing PPC marketing strategies
  • Chapter 2: PPC Tactics (pg.27-48)
    • Majority of organizations run PPC campaigns in-house
    • Creating highly-targeted ad groups is the most popular tactic
    • Split testing landing pages considered to be the most difficult
    • Split testing landing pages may be difficult, but it is very effective
    • Marketer insights on success with PPC tactics
  • Chapter 3: Monitoring and Tracking Metrics (pg.49-70)
    • Web conversion often defined as multiple-field form completion
    • Many marketers have no read on how many bad clicks they get
    • Small percentage of organizations have better than average quality scores
    • Nearly 40% of organizations bid on less than 100 key terms
    • Exact match is the most popular match type
    • Paid search plays average role in total traffic volumes
    • Median web conversion rate on paid search traffic is nearly 4%
    • Paid search accounts for nearly one third of total leads on average
    • Paid search yields mixed results for lead quality, with some standouts
    • Free analytics solutions are the most widely used
    • Marketer insights on using analytics to optimize PPC performance
  • Chapter 4: Planning and Tracking Budgets (pg.71-100)
    • Biggest budget increases expected in inbound marketing
    • Half of marketing budgets go to online marketing, on average
    • PPC and website take biggest shares of online marketing budget
    • Majority of PPC budget goes towards clicks
    • Similarly-sized organizations display wide variability in PPC operating budgets
    • Chart: Current PPC budgets, by organization size
    • PPC budgets expected to stay the same or grow
    • Marketer insights on the value returned from PPC budget invested
  • Chapter 5: Inbound Marketing Leads (pg.101-106)
    • Inbound marketing lead sources are growing in importance
    • Inbound leads cost 66% less than outbound leads, on average
  • Chapter 6: Using PPC in Local Search (pg.107-122)
    • Local search viewed as having positive impact on objectives
    • Many still have no local business listing on search engines
    • Google Boost lags in usage
    • Marketer insights on the challenges of optimizing for local search
    • Marketer insights on successfully optimizing for local search
  • Chapter 7: When Paid Search Goes Mobile (pg.123-132)
    • Mobile search viewed as having positive impact on objectives
    • Less than half of organizations enable ads to show on mobile devices
    • Marketer insights on their challenges with mobile search
    • Marketer insights on their successes with mobile search
  • Chapter 8: Search Marketing Success Stories (pg.133-140)
    • Case Briefing: Learning from an unsuccessful PPC campaign
    • Case Briefing: Using PPC analytics to capitalize on daily performance trends
    • Case Briefing: Outsourcing PPC Campaigns increases conversions 400%
    • Case Briefing: Designing custom landing pages increases leads by 88%
    • Case Briefing: Improving conversions with landing page tests
    • Case Briefing: Using sitelinks to lift clickthrough rates 14%
    • Case Briefing: Redesigning PPC ads and landing page increases CTR 54%
  • Chapter 9: Agency Perspectives (pg.141-152)
    • Client investment in PPC is driven by measurable ROI
    • Agencies are more optimistic when it comes to PPC budget increases
    • Relevant ad copy and highly targeted keywords considered most effective
    • 30 % of client campaigns have quality scores greater than 7
    • Agency insights on improving quality scores
    • Text ads outperform other ad formats by a factor of 3
    • Ads on social media sites growing in their effectiveness
    • Agency insights on their successes with PPC campaigns
  • Appendix 1: LPO Benchmark Report Charts (pg.153-170)
    • Headline and call to action are the most impactful page elements
    • Marketers managing online tests don’t validate results 155
    • In-house expertise challenges to landing page optimization in 2010
    • Outsourcing LPO operations and expertise
    • Staffing is a key budget component related to LPO
    • Web analytics and key performance indicators
    • Dedicated landing pages vs. default website
    • Seventeen page elements optimized in 2010
    • Testing methodologies and operations
  • Appendix 2: Benchmark Survey Demographics(pg.171-176)

  • Appendix 3: Search Engine Marketing Glossary (pg.177)
    • An A-to-Z glossary of common search marketing terms