Cover door of SEM automated management tool

From: http://semwatch.org/2010/04/sem-auto-pitfal/

Author: gaoge Date: April 30, 2010

The North American SEM automated management tool has been in China for almost three years. First, it is efficient frontier, and then ominiture searchcenter, 360i, iprospect. It is said that kenshoo has developed Baidu interfaces this year. These names generally represent the highest level of SEM professional services in North America. At the same time, many domestic SEM service companies are actively developing their own automated management tools.

But in general, leisheng is large and the rain is small. Most Chinese search and marketing administrators still have little knowledge about automated tools, even some major domestic customers who are using these tools are still not very clear about the strengths and limitations of these tools. Most of them know that they can use these tools as their shopkeepers, we may see a decrease in the cost of SEM serving, an increase in conversion, or an increase in rankings. Of course, unlucky users may find no improvement, and computers are no better than humans. This kind of first-hand experience will soon give them the impression that the tool is good or bad, but why is it good or why is it bad? It is likely that most tool users will not mention it in 1234. Some unexperienced customers may have fantasies that SEM automated management tools are the iron of PHS roaming the future, and dirty jobs can be lost. Is that true?

Soft belly

 

I gave a brief introduction to some tools in North America in SEM automated management tools. However, no matter which algorithm mode, the so-called automated management tools, the part that truly achieves full automation lies in spot price management. Landing pages, advertising languages, account structures, keywords, and other elements still need to be done manually. Tools can only provide reports and suggestions, and cannot be implemented directly. Technically, full automation may be possible, but no one wants machines to write ad words for you? What machines do well is computing/data processing, not creation and judgment. What data is this bidding tool processing? When I wrote extensively matched vs exact match, Tianyan asked efficient on my blog.
I have explained the frontier product a little. Here we will copy it:

"Well, I have never seen the statement of maximizing clicks, although lowering the CPC is often the actual effect.
This product is actually three models: one is the income model, the other is the consumption model, and the other is the model that connects the income and consumption. Therefore, the core data here is RPC (revenue per click ), it is more efficient. The main deviation usually occurs in execution. When a simple CPA goal or efficiency goal is used, a very serious ROI blending will occur-this is intentionally, in order to charge more service fees under the target. A product is a good product. The more knowledgeable the customer, the more effective the product can be ."

Therefore, SEM automated management tools include the actual revenue through tracking and the actual consumption expense through search engine APIs, and predict the keyword and advertisement level to compare the combined effect, in this way, we provide the ideal bidding suggestions and use the search engine API to automatically launch the bidding.

Some customers once asked how automated tools can cope with market competition, because they read and calculate their own data and won't search for what their competitors are doing. The standard answer is that the price already contains sufficient market factors. If you place your $1 CPC ranking in the second place, you must have a competitor who is willing to spend more than you, or who is better than you. In this case, the bid of the automation tool is the reasonable price for achieving the ROI target.

The term "ROI" is tricky. I have discussed it in depth in "exercise for setting marketing metrics" and "CPA vs VPC". I will not repeat it here. The ideal situation is that we have the highest ROI on every keyword of each product. In practice, this is hard to achieve (or the implementation cost is too high and not worth it ), in this way, how to achieve the highest ROI in the combination of a large number of keywords and products becomes a problem-it is the problem that automated management tools are trying to solve. I mentioned ROI
Blending, which is from a theoretical point of view, is probably not maximizing profits by using a simple ROI indicator. However, in practice, most search and marketing administrators need to achieve ROI indicators. In reality, ROI blending is not a big problem, but meets user needs.

The real problem is: if an automation tool works well, is it just that good? Or, in turn, if the automation tool is useless, doesn't it mean it's useless? None. Automated tools automatically manage the spot price based onCurrent Settings. The current settings are neither necessarily good nor keep pace with the times.

Efficient Frontier used to perform proxy operations in China before. Several customers failed the test. The major reason is that they only managed the current spot price for existing keywords. One-click butchers compiled this paid search (PPC) Management: It's about advertising series planning.
-In section 1, I also wanted to talk about the account organization issues. In the past, when we took over the new account, our first task was to review and adjust or even reorganize the customer account. The account structure should be clear and reasonable, so as to facilitate reading and adjustment of advertising. The keywords should be adequate and the advertising language should be relevant; the target positioning should be subdivided. These jobs are basically done well, and the incoming data is reasonable before being handed over to the automation tool for optimization. Otherwise, a customer will be thrown into the tool without initial optimization. The data obtained is not good. What is the use of a good tool?

Another problem with current setup optimization is that the automated tool only works based on the set ROI goal and does not involve the possibility and trend judgment. We all know that the quality score in adwords can be improved, and the CTR can be obtained by impacting the high ranking. If the competitor's products are basically homogeneous, the impact of high ranking and high CPC will lead to a reduction in the quality score after enduring short-term losses, thereby turning the loss into profit and gaining more traffic. However, in automated tools, the tool is only based on the current ROI goal and does not include (or cannot be included) quality score factors. Therefore, the tool will not try to do this. Similarly, automated tools for improving advertising languages and landing pages will not work on their own. Once this type of tool is used, the effect is very obvious, and it is easy for the search marketing administrator to deactivate it, and may no longer actively seek new improvements. The bidding price can indeed achieve the most advantage, but the optimization itself is not the ultimate.

The title party is used to cover the door. How can a tool cover the door? If the user does not know the tool completely, it will bring the cover door on the SEM management. Therefore, it is unrealistic to use SEM automated management tools to replace humans. After using tools, high-quality search marketing administrators are actually needed because tools free up manpower from computing that consumes a lot of time and energy, at the same time, tools can also provide more detailed data interpretation, helping search and marketing administrators invest more in testing and improvement in other directions.