Rocket Science For Dummies Pt. 3 (Or - Why So Much Money is Wasted on Badly Managed Paid Campaigns)
By Craig Danuloff
Late last year in reaction to some SEO/SEM in-fighting, I offered some comments on organic search optimization. Another element of the debate was how the work of organic search optimization compared to the effort (and required skills) for paid search management.
While both tasks generally fall under the umbrella title of ‘search engine marketing’, in reality organic and paid search marketing execution have very little in common. The skills, tools, and even personality characteristics which I’d associate with organic and paid optimization are in large measure dissimilar.
Both paid and organic search remain a definite mix of art and science, but with the relative percentages are inverted. Organic remains largely art while paid search is dominated by science. The lack of clear organic analytical information, as mentioned in the previous post, is one significant reason.
While a lack of technology and control make organic search optimization difficult, it is ironically the increasing sophistication of management and reporting tools that make paid search management increasingly tough for the casual practitioner.
Driving a paid campaign means deciding on and controlling an amazing list of variables: keywords and phrases, campaign and ad-group organization, match types, negative keywords, bids, repeating all of these on each different engines, the engine content networks and their controls, the text ads for each keyword group, day-parting, geo-targeting, landing pages, and PPC analytics (CTR, CPC, Ave Pos, and ROAS at minimum).
The issues and twists associated with each of these aspects are significant, and those arising from their interaction and interdependence boggle-the-mind. (I'd list them, but who wants to read a 10-page blog post?) The ways to make really bad mistakes and places to exercise terrible judgment are numerous.
So is paid search management harder or easier than SEO? What in the world is the point of any comparison? Is one better than the other? At least that is an interesting question.
My answer tomorrow.
