Winning
Googlers’ top of mind pays off at low cost
What every nonprofit that has stepped its toes into the murky
waters of online marketing/online fundraising wants is to be the
top of mind response to every query input to Google (or
Yahoo, MSN, or whatever).
Life lesson – you get what you pay for. Not only is it important
to design your web site so you include all the right keywords,
meta tags, etc., to ensure the search engine finds you and finds
you fast and early. It also pays off to pony up for search
engine marketing, ie advertisements.
Advertisers list the keywords they hope visitors will use in
their search, which then put their ads above the “organic” list
of web sites generated by the general search of the entire web,
identifying them as “sponsored links” and providing a
description (limited to 90 words in Google).
Cornerstone Group of Companies recently introduced
Cornerstone Search to help companies and nonprofits take
advantage of this marketing opportunity.
Full suite of offerings
The announcement of the introduction claims that “Cornerstone’s
expertise in direct response marketing provides organizations
with a full suite of service offerings including key word
development, bid management, ad preparation, campaign landing
page development and, more importantly, form and database
development that will enable organizations to complete the full
loop of a search campaign.”
The company also waves the flag in promoting its services. “For
most companies in the online space, Canada is more of a rounding
error than a business building opportunity,” says Senior
Vice-President Don Lange. “However, Cornerstone has been
built on serving Canadian marketers and US-based marketers who
do business in Canada.”
One convinced client is the Multiple Sclerosis Society of
Canada, whose Vice-President Direct Marketing Deanna
Kennedy tried the program as a test between October 11 and
November 14.
In that time period, she says, “we found there was an 18% lift
in response, revenue per day, and a 19% lift in donations per
day.” These results were recorded although the society wasn’t
undertaking any kind of a specific campaign or backing up the
online efforts with any extraneous promotion.
Ads move to the top
When people input, eg, “multiple sclerosis” into a search
engine, the Canadian society might be ninth or 10th on the
“organic” list, says Kennedy, but using the sponsored links
system moves it right to the top.
Kennedy also likes the flexibility of the system, where she says
she pays a daily charge which she considers very low compared to
costs of other fundraising vehicles, and this can vary by her
choice of how much to spend. She raised the spend in December,
then plans to slacken off somewhat through the late winter/early
spring and increase it again in May, which is awareness month
for this health charity.
The fundraiser, a self-confessed technophobe, also lauds the
personal service and technical support she and the organization
have received from Cornerstone personnel.
Bid per word
An overview document produced by Cornerstone to explain the
system says that it starts with the advertiser actually bidding
on certain keywords. Highest bidder gets highest mention. For
certain common words, that could get pretty expensive. So
finding the right keywords – relevant but not too common – is a
challenge.
Because the ads are so small, they must be carefully crafted to
target the message precisely to the keyword the searcher has
input. In fact, if they are not effective – do not generate what
Google considers to be an adequate number of clicks – the search
engine will drop them.
Cornerstone recommends the advertiser direct the responder to
the ad to a landing page which might not be the organization’s
home page, but would be the page within the site which, again,
is most relevant to the searcher’s perceived interest. It might
even be necessary or advisable to create a special landing page
for the purpose.
Can measure quickly
Because it is possible to track all responses to the ads,
advertisers can measure campaigns very quickly and precisely.
In budgeting for a search engine marketing campaign, an
organization must bear in mind the actual rate paid to the
search engine, which will vary by the number of keywords and the
amount bid on them; the cost of any web development for landing
pages; the cost to monitor visitors when they reach the landing
pages; and Cornerstone’s own fee, which comprises a setup fee
and a percentage of the total spend.
The company says its services include: the development of key
words and phrases; generation of negative key words to weed out
irrelevant searches; creation of the ads; placement of the words
and ads with the search engine(s); monitoring the campaign,
keywords, cost and conversion rate; and optimization of campaign
elements (keywords, bids, ad copy, etc.).
For further information: Don Lange, Senior Vice-President,
Cornerstone Group of Companies, 2200 Yonge St., 8th flr.,
Toronto ON M4S 3G3, 416/932-9555, ext 141,
[email protected],
www.cstonecanada.com;
Deanna Kennedy, Vice-President, Direct Marketing, Multiple
Sclerosis Society of Canada, 416/967-3016,
[email protected]. |