Best Practices in B2B Demand Generation - demandblog

B2B Paid Search Webinar Today (July 29th)

If you enjoyed my last post, an interview with paid search expert Terry Whalen on paid search and B2B, you might want to join us for a webinar today, July 29th: 10 Secrets to Better B2B Paid Search Campaigns.

A recording will also be made available.

Here's the description:

If more than 90% of business buyers find the products or services they need through search, then why are B2B marketers finding it challenging to drive results in paid search campaigns?

The vast majority of paid search advertising through Google AdWords is focused on business to consumer (B2C). B2B companies rely on paid search to generate new leads, but B2B conversions are very different than a B2C company.

B2B companies are often simply hoping to capture a name to add to their marketing database so that they can begin the lead nurturing process, and sales cycles tend to be upwards of 12 months. ROI can take much longer to measure than in B2C, and you always need to preserve your brand.

Google is someplace you need to be, but managing your B2B Google AdWords campaigns can be very challenging.

Speakers Terry Whalen from CPC Search and Jason Stewart from Demandbase will share 10 helpful tips for managing your B2B Google Adwords campaigns, including:

• Update Your Campaigns for Quick Wins
• Integrate Google Adwords With Your CRM to Track ROI
• Content Match and B2B
• Find Those Keywords You Aren’t Thinking Of
• Analyzing the Value of Your Clicks … Even When They Don’t Convert

Terry Whalen is a partner at CPC Search, a full-service PPC management firm that optimizes PPC campaigns on behalf of its clients. Prior to running CPC Search, Terry led marketing initiatives at Citrix’s GoToMyPC, and he received his MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Jason Stewart leads online marketing programs for Demandbase and is the lead blogger at Demandblog. Jason has more than 10 years of online marketing and B2B lead generation and management experience. He founded and leads the Salesforce.com user group in Salesforce.com’s headquarters location (San Francisco) and was one of the first 500 certified Salesforce.com Certified Administrators.

Register here.

10 Questions About Google Adwords for B2B

by Jason Stewart

I went to the recent SMX Advanced show in Seattle and attended a few of the paid search segments, but was disappointed by how B2C-focused the content was. There were a fair amount of B2B companies in attendance, and the organic search side was very informative and helpful, but for paid search there was a definite hole in the content when it came to B2B.

I met paid search consultant Terry Whalen recently, and thought it would be fun to ask him a few questions specifically related to paid search for B2B companies. Terry is a partner at CPC Search, a full-service PPC management firm that optimizes PPC campaigns on behalf of its clients. CPC Search is a Google AdWords Qualified Company. Prior to running CPC Search, Terry led marketing initiatives at Citrix’s GoToMyPC, and before that he received his MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

1. What are some of the key differences in running a B2B paid search campaign vs. a B2C campaign?
   B2B is typically less straightforward than managing PPC programs for consumer-focused companies. Part of the reason for this is because it is often more difficult to measure value for companies where the sale happens offline. To illustrate, picture an e-commerce company selling products via credit card on its website. It’s relatively easy to measure revenue via Google AdWords using a ‘purchase’ conversion tag that passes through dynamic revenue variables to AdWords reporting. But for B2B we are typically only measuring a lead submission via AdWords, and all leads are not created equal. The value of a lead can be all over the map, because some leads are high-quality and some are low-quality. To get at the true value of leads we need to access data beyond AdWords or analytics – we need to go into the CRM. And, while this can certainly be done, it is not without additional challenges. Another important difference between consumer and B2B is that typically the SEM manager has fewer data points on which to optimize and grow the account. This is because – all other things being equal – cost/conversion is generally higher with B2B campaigns, and thus there are few conversions in a given time period on which to optimize.
   
   
2. Google is obviously the 800 lb gorilla, but how do the other search engines stack up for B2B?
   The other search engines tend to do very poorly relative to Google when it comes to B2B. I know this after spending $100’s of thousands of dollars on Yahoo and MSN for b2b accounts. It becomes a return-on-effort problem. If you are lucky – for B2B – you might be able to spend $10 on Yahoo for every $90 you spend on Google. Again, that’s if you are very lucky with your particular vertical. We typically see that in terms of maximizing the overall ROI and total profit for our clients, our time is much better spent optimizing Google vs. spending time on the much smaller Yahoo campaigns. This is due not only to arithmetic, but also to the fact that Yahoo (and MSN) has a very poor advertiser interface relative to Google AdWords. MSN is rarely even a consideration for B2B accounts – although I actually like Bing, and adCenter could be a contender at some point if Bing continues to take market share.
   
   
3. What is typically the first thing you focus on in a new engagement with a B2B client? In other words, where can you usually find some quick wins?
   Great question. We’ve seen a lot of money being wasted on Content, and we often have some triage to do. Triage can consist of adding negative placements (such as youtube.com and myspace.com), turning off certain categories (parked domains, etc.), and writing ads that very clearly state the advertiser’s value proposition. We also check to see that the Search Partner Network is yielding good results. For some B2B clients, Search Partner inventory does not convert well, or it drives lower quality traffic. After all, the search partners include sites like aol.com, shopping.com and ask.com – not exactly strong with business-oriented audiences relative to Google. Another one of our top to-do’s is to make sure that ad-serving is set to ‘rotate.’ This is very important for proper ad testing. In order to evaluate 2 or more ads, you need to make sure the ads have been rotated equally during the timeframe you are analyzing. Yet the AdWords default is to rotate the ad with the highest CTR more often. Good for Google in terms of monetizing search engine results pages (SERPs), but bad for the advertiser. Especially with B2B, we want to test ads that might be less “click-friendly” but in actuality may provide greater value to the advertiser (both in terms of a higher conversion rate and also higher lead quality).
   
   
4. Are there any tips or tricks that you see your B2C clients do that could carry over to B2B?
   Not so much. For e-commerce clients we often use keyword-insertion (KWI) in our ad text. We can measure very easily if KWI is a good idea since we have actual revenue data flowing in at the ad level, and a conversion actually equals a purchase event. But for B2B we often shy away from using KWI, because there tend to be so many different user search queries that could be matched to our ad, and those queries might indicate very different user intents. If KWI is a bad idea, it will be much easier to see this with a B2C campaign – even within a day or two – right within the AdWords interface.
   
   
5. In a nutshell, when is it better to use exact match instead of phrase match?
   Almost never. I almost think it’s the wrong question. For keywords that are either important to your business or that have high levels of impressions, clicks, spend or conversions, always use both. And always use negatives – either broad, phrase or exact match.
   
   
6. Do many of your B2B clients use the content network? How has your use of the content network changed over the past year?
   Yes, they do. The Content network has become much more transparent, and the tools to move the levers up and down have gotten better. Due to better transparency and control, we use the Content network more than we did 12+ months ago. I think this will continue to be a trend. However, for B2B, if you can spend 20% of your AdWords budget on Content and have it perform to the same benchmark as your Search campaigns, you are doing very well.
   
   
7. How do you like the new Adwords interface, what are some of the pros and cons from a “power user” perspective?
   I think it sucks much less than I thought it did 45 days ago (heh). We are getting more used to it. I think the ideas around it are very solid, but certainly latency is a big issue. I expect the interface to get faster and faster over time, and I expect we will like it more and more. At the end of the day, most hardcore campaign management and optimization takes place within Google’s AdWords Editor, so the new web interface is less of an issue for many folks.
   
   
8. You have recommended using Google Analytics to help find keywords, and there is also the keyword tool right inside of AdWords. Are there any third party tools you can recommend for finding relevant keywords?
   I wouldn’t touch 3rd-party keyword tools with a 10-foot pole. Not because I think they do harm – it’s just because I don’t think they really do any good. Oftentimes in managing PPC campaigns, the trick is knowing where to focus your effort. I have never made money for myself or for clients using 3rd-party keyword tools (and yes – I have experimented a lot!). Google is actually pretty good at keyword relevancy (news flash!), and their keyword tool is powerful. If you are running a campaign on Google, why not rely on Google to help with keyword discovery? We also place a high importance on Google’s search query data to add keywords and negatives to our campaigns and ad groups. Google’s search query data is much, much better than it was (they announced a major improvement in search query granularity around April ’09), and it can yield a lot of great ideas *based on actual query data*. We also look at the organic query data within Google Analytics or whatever analytics package the client is using. Lastly, we do sometimes use compete.com or spyfu.com to look at competitive keyword data, but this rarely results in any action items for us since we are typically already testing or have tested any keywords that a competitor is running.
   
   
9. How do tools like Demandbase Professional, which allow you to analyze the “demographics” of the businesses visiting the landing pages associated with a particular ad group or keyword influence your decisions when monitoring a paid search campaign?
   I think this information can help a lot. If the client sells enterprise software into F1000 companies and we see that we are attracting lower-tier users to our pages, that can affect things both at the keyword level and at the ad level. The really fun part is when you can ‘watch’ this data in real time or near real time, make changes, and see if they made an impact.
   
   
10. Your top ten Adwords tips are great….can you take it to 11?
    You bet - I’m a big believer in taking it to 11! Start small, then go where the data takes you. Don’t start with 5 campaigns X 50 ad groups X 100 keywords in each ad group with 5 ads in rotation. Start smaller, and spend your time tweaking (or cutting your losses on) the poor performers and scaling and further optimizing the things that are working. We’ve achieved great results using this approach. I hope some of these tips help and thank you for listening!

Post Click Marketing On-Demand Webinar, Tips, Tricks

by Jason Stewart

Demandbase had its first webinar last week, an analysis of Post Click Marketing. Even the best and most successful marketing campaigns convert only about 5% of the clicks. What about the other 95%? Demandbase helps to focus on the "silent majority" as you can see by viewing the recording of the webinar here, but I also compiled some additional Resources and Best Practices from a variety of sources for you to help you with your Post-Click Marketing initiatives.

Landing Page Best Practices

There is a lot of content available regarding fine-tuning your landing pages. Here are five of the most interesting tips regarding landing pages (and web forms in general):

1. Make sure the offer on your landing page matches the offer they clicked on. Are they seeing what they expect to see?
2. Put your form and all relevant content "above the fold" - they need to see everything you need them to see, without scrolling down the page.
3. Position the one thing you want them to do as the most obvious call to action on the page - don't overwhelm them with links or actions.
4. Use "hidden" fields on your web forms to capture relevant information about lead source or to attach the lead to a specific marketing campaign.
5. Streamline all forms for easy conversion, eliminate unnecessary questions and focus on only the information you need to qualify a prospect as "qualified."

Here are links to some great content on best practices, with more detailed information:

How to Get Valid Phone Numbers From B-to-B Prospects
by Anne Holland, former content director at Marketing Sherpa

Lead Scoring Should Influence Your Web Forms
by Jason Stewart, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Demandbase  

Hot Tips to Increase Landing Page Conversions
Marketing Sherpa/Marketo co-presentation teleseminar with downloadable slide deck and audio file.

Getting started with Salesforce CRM for Google Adwords
This is a recorded session from Dreamforce 2008 featuring Sean Whiteley from Salesforce.com and marketing analytics guru Dave deBronkart from TimeTrade. Lots of good post-click marketing tips on tracking ROI of your clicks, landing page discussion starts at about 18:55.

Lead Management Vendor Selection

Rather than reinvent the wheel here, I discovered two really great resources digging in to this very subject that I can share. Full disclosure - Demandbase is a Marketo customer...

Selection of a Marketing Automation Vendor - Part 1
Selection of a Marketing Automation Vendor - Part 2
Inbound Marketer Blog

Raab Guide to Demand Generation Systems
Independent analysts at Raab Associates provide detailed, objective analysis of products from leading demand generation vendors. It is not free, but you can download a free excerpt here.

Are B2B Leads Getting Worse?

Dave had an interesting point in the comments section of the last post...

"I *hate* people who focus on a metric and obstinately disregard that it doesn't signify what it used to."

Let's talk about one metric in particular. Conversions. Is the quest to increase conversion rates on our landing pages sacrificing the quality of our leads? Have our efforts to make it so incredibly easy for people to convert made the actual act of conversion meaningless? Is our effort to lower the cost per conversion increasing our cost per selling opportunity?

On a side note, has increased conversions of lower quality leads single-handedly led to the rise of the ultra-competitive lead nurturing space, due to the need to further qualify our web leads?

Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section...

Google Now Indexing Flash?

Almost two weeks late on this, but in case you missed it Google can now index Flash files on your website...or at least any textual elements in the Flash that your site visitors are able to see and interact with. Some limitations include Flash that is launched by javascript as well as external content that is loaded by your Flash file. Check it out at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

What the Heck is the Long Tail?

The Long Tail.

This is one of those phrases I hear more and more. And at the risk of betraying my own ignorance, it is one of those phrases where I think I know what it means...at least in relation to search marketing. I think.

Approximately 90% of the traffic on the search engines is tied up into a small number, maybe 10% of the keywords. The other 10% of the traffic, which is still A LOT of traffic, is tied up in more specific, niche, specialized phrases and words. Those words make up the "long tail." For example, "television" is not in the long tail. "32 inch LCD HDTV with input for my computer" is. Click here for a series of graphical representations. Ignore the picture of the monkey with the long tail, though.

Feel free to put your own definitions up in the comments section, as long as you make them as simple as possible. Also, are there any other marketing phrases you can think of that could use a good "plain english" definition? Let's hear them.

Google Can You Hear Me, Part 2

The B2B Search gurus at Enquiro have written a much more eloquent and detailed list of reasons to use Google's webmaster tools than I ever could. Check it out here.

More Press Release Optimization

Coming out of the comments related to this post, Search Optimization for Press Releases, is a link to a great tool for grading your press release before you post it online.

Unfortunately, Hubspot's PressReleaseGrader can't tell you how enticing the hook is on your story, or if the press will flock to you as the next big thing. That's up to you. What it can do is pretty impressive, however, checking it for links, phone numbers, format, reading level, and even showing you which words are mentioned most in the release to make sure you are emphasizing the correct keywords. A great tool to make sure the nuts and bolts are there, and are placed correctly.

It's up to you to create the story, though...and that's always the hardest part.

Check it out here.

Search Optimization for Press Releases

Demandbase has a press release coming out next week, and we asked our PR firm (Marketing Alchemist) to do a little research on optimizing our release for the search engines. In a shameless bit of cut and paste, I thought it might be interesting to share the email I got back summarizing their findings from a variety of sources, with links to the original materials. Here you go...

____________________________________

• How to optimize your release for the search  engines
• Research  keywords for your target audience/subject matter
• Add keywords to the press release to create keyword-rich content
• Add  keywords to your H1 header tag
• Add  keywords strategically within your press release copy
• Add  keywords in links back to your site
• Make  sure density levels are appropriate (I recommend an 8-15% overall density)
• Make  sure your optimize the first 250 words of your content
  
  
• Case study of WineZap.com July 2004 SEOed press  release:
• Major differences were made in the most critical spot - the headline
• Use of wine related search phrases in their release
• Also  incorporated a call to action and discount coupon for those who clicked through from the press release to a special landing page with newsletter sign-up
• "Sweet spot of 400 to 500 words" as the ideal press release length
• Recommends  experimentation to determine the right keyword density
• Critical terms were included only once each, but were each included in the short 400 word release.
• Important  keyword phrases were hyperlinked within the text and the release posted to PRweb.com site press release archive.
  
  
• Tips from “industry friends” of SEO professional  Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog:
• Write a pithy (80 character or less,) descriptive headline that includes important  keywords.
• Use the language that your audience/potential customers use when searching for or discussing topics related to your product or industry
• Link your strategically important search keywords to deep relevant pages in your site, not the front page.
• View creating a press release as compiling a mini web page on the news or topic being written about.
• Add an audio link such as a podcast or product announcement into your press  release. If you have an RSS feed associated with your releases, you can direct Apple iTunes to pick up the audio automatically and include it in a freely available channel on iTunes.com.
• Consider choosing a newswire which will allow “external” multimedia content hosting. For example, YouTube for video or Flickr for photos. These sites are spidered by the major search engines as well as being searchable “social” directories within the site. YouTube is the third largest search engine.
  
  
• All Aboard! Inbound Links for SEO - SEO Press Release deliverables will generally include:
• 450-500 word press release; optimized for a core search term and 2 to 3 niche terms
• Release incorporates anchor text; based on search term associated with target web page
• You often have your choice of distribution
• Access; to view statistics about how your news release performed over a 30-day period
• RSS  feed and paid inclusion distribution
  
  
• SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO - Online press release optimization needs to focus on three things: Presentation, position, and performance:
• You have to write the most interesting, compelling copy you can. You are only be newsworthy if you show people there is a new angle to your story. Announcing your new product is not news in and of itself with compelling information on why it is different.
• Press release positioning is also critical. If you think all you have to do is submit a press release to eMediawire or PRWeb, get out of the press release business.
• Press release performance should be measured and adjusted meticulously. If you’re only writing one press release, you take your best shot.

Source Articles

• General Tips: http://www.pandia.com/features/pressrelease.html
• Case study of WineZap.com SEOed press release in  July of 2004: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/11/22/press-releases-new-seo-back-door-to-top-rankings
• Tips from “industry friends” of SEO professional  Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog: http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/press-release-seo-tips/
• All Aboard! Inbound Links for SEO: http://www.searchengineguide.com/paul-bruemmer/all-aboard-inbound-links-for-seo.php
• SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO: http://seo-theory.com/wordpress/2007/06/22/seo-myth-press-releases-for-seo/

Google Can You Hear Me?

Many of you may know about Google's tools for webmasters already, but if you don't (and you have responsibility for search engine optimization of your website) you go take the tour and then have your webmaster set it up.

Here's just a few questions you'll be able to answer about how Google sees your site...

• When is the last time Googlebot crawled my website?
• Did it find any dead links and what were they?
• Are there any changes I should make to descriptions and metadata to help improve my search rankings?
• Which natural search queries most often returned pages from my site, and which of them were clicked?
• How is my site indexed by Google, and which pages are indexed?
• Which other sites point to my site?

You can also make sure Google knows where your site map is, and is crawling it. And if you don't have a site map, go build one and then subscribe to the webmaster tools, which is completely free to use.