Joseph Kerschbaum (Clix Marketing): performance and ROI rule

Kerschbaum started by explaining how the PPC market is evolving in the US in this economic downturn. 

This is what he says: “Advertisers are putting more focus toward analytics and measuring return on investment. Sure, companies have been measuring their results from Search Engine Advertising for years, but smart companies are analyzing and optimizing their performance more granularly now, trying to generate as much revenue per-click as possible”. 

Next comes the almost inevitable shift towards performance marketing.

Kerschbaum: “Smart advertisers are enhancing their landing page experience and streamlining their shopping cart process in order to increase their conversion rate. This leads us to a shift from simple Search Engine Marketing to performance marketing, as coined by a recent blog article. PPC campaigns are being held to higher standards. In this economic climate, performance and ROI are more important than ever”. 

As promised in the title of this post some trends for 2010, as Kerschbaum sums them up:

• The trends of conversion optimization and performance-focused marketing are going to continue to gain importance in 2010. 
• With smart phones becoming more prominent and more users searching via their phones, mobile search marketing volume is going to continue increasing. 
• The Google Content Network will continue to expand in 2010. Advertisers who want to boost their volume significantly will have to learn how to take full advantage of this aggressively expanding network. 
• Advertisers who have the ability to appeal to an international audience need to start paying more attention to users outside the US. This summer, comScore released its Global Search Marketing report. This report stated that of the 100 billion global searches conducted monthly, only 22% were conducted in North America. 

Joseph also gave three tips regarding a successful PPC strategy:

1. Optimize your landing pages. 
   Of all the activities that a PPC manager can do to improve their performance, landing page optimization should be at the top.
   
2. Continue to optimize your account's structure and performance. 
   Never stop split testing your ad texts, and always look for ways to make your ad groups more specific and targeted. 
   
3. Learn how to harness the Google Content Network. 
   Or, learn how to make the Content Network better. The volume for this distribution channel is already there, advertisers just need to make it work and generate a positive ROI. 

Read the full interview here.