Last week we took a look at the Measurability of Search Engine Ads this week we have a new thread that has sparked the interest of many top names in the business. The thread is named The ROI from SEM can not be measured accurately and resides over at Search Engine Watch Forums. The thread creator starts off with a really long post. I summarized it as follows;
Big Brand X has PPC ads for the the keyword phrase of the Brand Name of Big Brand X.That keyword phrase brings in $10,000 in sales per day but costs $5,000 per day on PPC spend.
You remove the keyword phrase from the campaign and you have the same gross sales on your site.
So in essence you are saving $5,000 per day.
But the tracking tools show you have a ROI of $5,000 per day.
He is fighting a battle with his company, to keep the campaigns live, due to the above example. He has received a ton of advice, including;
Simply bid with PPC using same/similar ads for a different site or subsite. Heck, for a spend that size you could alternate every hour (or any other way you wanted to) for as long as it takes to get the information necessary, as long as you were using PPC software capable of making those changes on the fly. Use a second company if necessary.Treat the PPC as you would the banner ads, just trickier to control. It sounds like all you really need to do is show the ROI (or lack thereof).
And more. But the bottom-line, if he doesn't make it happen, the affiliate will, as Mikkel points out;
My best advise for a client like that would be: Drop search marketing and leave the market to your competitors.
Interesting discussion, forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
