Getting ahead with content - the new search currency

Marketing Direct

02/06/2008

Many advertisers have been asking how they may counter Google’s recent trademark policy changes. The answer? By applying a blend of traditional direct marketing techniques and pioneering search marketing skills.

Search marketers will need to adjust brand term strategies and monitor daily spend caps since Google abolished its trademark protection policy on the 5^th May. Brand term bid prices will be driven up by an influx of new competing advertisers in the auction, so marketers will have to redouble efforts to maintain share of voice and response rates.  Bid strategies must be monitored carefully while ad copy must be made more compelling in order to achieve stand out.

The US market lived through the same policy change some four years ago, and while Google are quick to reassure UK marketers that there will be little to no negative impact in campaign performance, the reality is that it will be much harder to achieve comparable results in the future. Moreover, the repercussions on the US landscape have been more far reaching:

Google’s all-new “level playing field” has given rise to a powerful and fast growing trend of third-party (some endorsed, some not) resellers: aggregators, affiliates, shopping sites, multi-brand etailers and vertical directories have all benefited by being able to promote their proposition via Google by piggy backing off – or indeed hijacking – brands and trademarks. Consequently, the US market today has a significantly different, and far more competitive, ecosystem in which direct marketers must fight aggressively to attract and retain customers.  

Increased competition is generally a healthy force – although there is a certain irony in this move, given Google’s dominant market position.  Brand owners will need to invest more in Search in order to protect their own patch, and increased spend will obviously benefit Google.

But the top performing advertisers won’t be the ones throwing the most media money Google’s way – it will be those advertisers who invest equally in content development who will lead the pack. Google’s quality score will award the top spots to the sites with relevant content and a serious commitment to overall site performance and user experience.  Content is the new currency, in PPC as well as natural search.

Talking of natural search, Google’s changes to their paid search model will force marketers to secure coverage in the natural listings in order to capture brand search traffic. And even though paid search results are widely consumed by most browsers, natural results that are preferred in most cases.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) keyword strategies will need to prioritise brand search variables, metadata will need to be optimised for clear and descriptive messaging, and branding must be strong – in the URL, title and description of the listing.  By achieving high rankings in the natural results for brand terms, marketers need not be so reliant on advertising performance – or indeed on any radical changes made by Google to their paid search algorithm.

Finally, traditional, above-the-line and direct marketing channels can play their part, by pre-qualifying brand search leads so that propensity to purchase is already high upon arrival on Google.  That way, the competition may be lying in wait, but the consumer is already pre-disposed to act on their results.

Appears in ‘Ask the Expert’: Marketing Direct, June 2008