Stemato.com - Stephen Tompkins’ Blog

Measuring ROI for online campaigns is time consuming work full of numbers and spreadsheets that seemingly go on forever. The media planners days are filled with data crunching and searching for the metrics they need from various sources. Everything from time spent to search queries crowd the typical day and marrying this data together has become a great challenge. It seems everyone has a custom solution.

And as online marketing tools progress, products that deliver excellent data visualization tools will hold a significant competitive advantage moving forward. Why? Well, the ability for a planner to quickly gather the data they need to make decisions is crucial to success and a great dashboard is the lynch pin of this process.

With this in mind I started thinking about Search Marketing interfaces. The differences between many of them are minor but the experience differences are major. The ability to consume keyword group data and which keywords are performing is integral an integral function for search marketers.  But many interfaces create a complicated gossamer of reports and internet pages to give you the information you need. It can feel like Indiana Jones searching for the Ark of the Covenant to find what you need.

Many of these interfaces gives you great amounts of aggregate data but fall short in providing a great quick glance at the keyword and keyword group level. I am aware of all the dashboards that these programs have but I still need more. Its this keyword data that have been thinking about lately. What if you could quickly see in graphical terms what is performing vs. underperformers?

In the following weeks, I am going to build out a sample of this data visualization that I am talking about.

Keyword research can be a daunting task. Relationships between consumers and brands can be like the difference between Japanese and English. Finding an appropriate starting point for setting up your first search campaign can be the biggest roadblock. After determining what product or products to build your campaign around putting together a great set of keywords is the next step.

Keywords form the spine of the your search campaign; getting these relationships right is important to your success. Where do you begin? Corporate websites, brochures and other marketing materials can be a good starting point for relevant terms being used to discuss your brand but they sometimes lack closeness to the consumer. Don’t be alarmed though because consumers have left a virtual digital treasure chest of keywords waiting be discovered in blogs, message boards and forums.

Here is my 5 step process to begin to gain insight in the blogosphere to what is being said and using it for keyword research:

1. Compile a list of blogs that talk about your brand - Perhaps the most important step is to explore the blogosphere and see who is talking about you. Del.icio.us, Google Blog Search and Technorati are a great place to search your brand and see who is talking about you. Then put together a list of the ones you find to be have the most scope and activity. Look for plenty of comments and large readership. Check for hints including RSS subscribers and comments counts.
2. Read and look for patterns of conversation - Pay particularly close attention to the comments and specific language being used to talk about your features, models and brands in them. Do they use model numbers or branded terms* to discuss products? Comments are insights straight from consumers about the language that is being developed around you. Tag clouds also hold interesting patterns.
3. Make a list of terms - Compile a list of terms that you see in multiple places. Segment the list and make sure you don’t forget the long tail.
4. Rank terms on list - Once you have a master list of all your consumer-driven keywords# put them in order of importance. Focus on consumer talk and how they might search for you not how you would search for your product.
5. Decide how much to bid on terms - Should you bid more on terms that are from consumers or same? Should they be contextually driven or keyword? For instance, Chevy is used more in conversation than Chevrolet according to BlogPulse. Does this chart mean you should invest much more into contextual advertising for the term “chevy”? One thing is certain you would get more placement due to its increased term use.

These 5-steps are starting points for introducing consumer-driven keywords into your paid search campaign. You can not only increase your paid clicks but gain valuable CRM insights into your brand by adding them into your web strategy. The only question left is. When do we start?

* I remember when I worked at a satellite radio manufacturer we had one radio that was called: XTR1, Jimi and Stream | Jockey. Combing through forums, blogs and message boards would have yielded consumer preference for its name.

# Keywords that originate from consumers of a brand and are not necessarily brand driven.

Building from last week’s story about the London Mayor’s election, I wanted to look at some baseline analytics behind the race. Keeping in mind that Boris Johnson eventually wins the race all these charts seem to take on an interesting look. Is it possible to predict an election based on buzz, volume and traffic? If you believe these charts the answer is yes.

Buzz

First look at the below Blogpulse chart (query here) showing the buzz leading up to the May 1, 2008 results. Conversations appear equal through the second week of April but after that they begin the initial spike in Boris Johnson’s favor. The old adage goes “no publicity is bad publicity” and although I have not looked at sentiment it seems to bare true here as Boris peaks much higher than Ken in the buzz chart. (Additionally, Boris Johnson also shows up on the Key People chart here at number thirteen.)

Volume

Volume is an interesting metric online. Ultimately it is about your brand popularity and reach. Or how much the press is talking about you. This Google Trends chart shows that Boris Johnson outpaced Ken Livingstone in news volume too. How did an incumbent so quickly lose press mentions? Did all the online squatters have an effect on Mr. Livingstone’s ratings?

Traffic

Finally, looking at traffic can show you interest about a candidate’s platform. Compete.com’s analytics tool shows backboris.com getting much more traffic than kenlivingstone.com. Which actually did not even register on their graph. Does this mean people were just not intrigued enough about the incumbent to check his website?

Buzz, traffic and volume metrics give us different insights into online behaviors and working in tandem they can help complete the story. They give us an interesting look at the Mayor’s election in London and how a candidate swung the tide in his favor. Was it his online savvy or the help of other’s acumen that helped Boris Johnson?

Yesterday I watched the Papal Mass on television and I started to wonder how much buzz the trip received. Here is a Blogpulse chart, comparing the Pope’s visit to the US, with American Recession.

Here is a link to the actual query.

With all the news about the trial and tribulations of the Olympics torch this week, I thought to run a chart and see the blogosphere’s reaction to the issues. It is interesting to see that the torch is driving much more buzz than the issues. I cannot help but wonder if the events have actually overshadowed the reasons leaving no one to gain.

Protest is patriotic but just make sure your ideas, do not get lost in your methods.