ARTICLE: Keeping Up to Date on Holiday Keyword Trends

Do you revisit your keyword research every few months or so to see if trends have changed? Do you document the date along with your keyword research? Using the WordTracker Top 500 Keywords Report, I kept tabs on Halloween searches – monitoring the various search terms, the dates and the number of searches for each keyword phrase.

By tracking such data, you can see the different nature of searches that take place surrounding the Halloween timeframe. A month before Halloween the searches revolve around costumes; the week or so preceding Halloween show people looking for pumpkin carving patterns and the days following Halloween show people looking for pumpkin recipes.

How would this be helpful to your PPC Campaign?

By knowing *when* people are looking for costumes vs. pumpkin carving stencils (let's assume that you sell both) you can maximize your money – keep your ads for Halloween costumes a bit lower in rank (and therefore costing you less money) at the end of September, but put more money into that campaign in the first two weeks of October. Starting mid October you could maximize your spend on pumpkin carving templates while you cut back on costume advertising.

If you are targeting the Christmas season online, you may want to begin your research now if you haven't already done so! Check out the tool of the months section below as well as the “Ask An Expert” column where Kirsten responds to Mike about a question on tracking.

View the aggregate Halloween data in PDF format.

	DEFINITION OF THE MONTH

Each month we feature a term or concept related to Internet marketing along with some essential resources related to this feature or term.

Search Engine Marketing: To drive traffic to a Web site by getting exposure on search engines such as Yahoo! or Google. There are several types of search engine marketing, including search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and paid search engine submission. Read more about search engine marketing at Ecom Access

TOOL OF THE MONTH

There are multiple tools this month, all tying into Keyword Research!

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Overture Keyword Selector Tool
• Vivisimo Clustering Search Engine
• WordTracker
  

ASK AN ECOM EXPERT

Each month we will feature a question from you – our readers! So send your burning SEM questions to: Ask an Expert. This month's question comes from Mike:

I hear a lot of talk about the codes used to track ad campaigns and affiliate links. Why are they important? What do they do?

Tracking 101

One of the key elements that makes online advertising different from print advertising is that you can watch the performance of your online ads. By using tracking codes, advertisers can see how many people click on an ad and how many users eventually buy as a result. This is extremely powerful information. Using it to your benefit can make the difference between a successful, or unsuccessful, online advertising campaign.

Tracking codes can be used to gauge the success of different types of online advertising, including: Google AdWords and other pay-per-click advertising, affiliate programs, banner advertising and HTML newsletters.

What are these tracking codes?

There's nothing overly technical about tracking codes. They are simply pieces of code that are included in your linking URL. Tracking codes are also known as cookies or java script. In detail, a tracking code works like this:

1. The advertiser embeds a tracking code in the linking URL of an online ad.
2. A user clicks on the ad and arrives on the advertiser's Web site.
3. The tracking code, or cookie, is stored on the user's hard drive as harmless text data. The cookie has a time limit, set by the advertiser. Then it expires.
4. The cookie then registers the number of times the user clicks on a specific link, and whether he or she makes a purchase or carries out other activities on the advertiser's Web site.
5. Cookies are linked to a database that stores very basic information about when the tracked link was visited and what leads or purchases occurred as a result of that visit. A cookie or tracking code DOES NOT record any personal data about the user.
6. The advertiser can then access the database to view how many clicks, leads and purchases were made by users who clicked on the tracked link. This enables the advertiser to see which ads are generating sales or leads.
7. The advertiser can then adjust the individual ads and overall campaign based on which ads are successful.

What about the database?

It's all very well to use cookies… but what if you don't have your own database to track them? Some advertisers do have their own tracking databases, developed by their in-house programmers. More and more often, however, advertisers – including small businesses – use third party systems to track their online ads. Many of these companies are very affordable and make it easy for you to generate tracking codes for your URLs and view the results.

What can I do with the information I get from my tracking codes?

By adding a unique tracking code to each of your linking URLs, you can find out which of your ads are generating sales or leads. You can also learn what time of the day or week your ads are most successful. And of course, you can also find out which ads are wasting your money and not converting.

Its then up to you to optimize your advertisements based on this data. You can adjust your keywords, ad creative or ad placement according to which ads are generating sales or other desired results.

The Four Rules for using Tracking Codes

For those who are already using tracking codes, here are some fundamental rules that will ensure that you get the most from tracking your online advertisements. They seem simple, but more often than not, tracking goes awry because one of these rules is ignored:

1. Use a unique tracking code for each of your ads and links. This will enable you to compare ads and landing pages, to see what is performing, and what isn't.
2. Test every tracking code. Before you ad campaign goes live, click on each and every tracking code you plan to use. Make sure that it goes to the correct page, and check the database to ensure that it is tracking.
3. Do not tamper with tracking codes. If you are working with an advertising agency or third party who is implementing tracking on your ads, do not change your tracking codes.
4. Learn as much as you can from tracking your online advertisements. You will gain essential information about what works with your Web site and in your specific market.
   Read more about cookies

Sincerely,

Ecom Expert (Kirsten)

Send your questions to newsletter@ecomaccess.com and you may be featured in our January issue!

	IN CLOSING

Once again we hope you enjoyed your issue of the Ecom Express! I will be at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago next month so you won't get your usual newsletter, though I may send out a summary of the workshops that I attend. Have feedback for us? Have a question? Email us at newsletter@ecomaccess.com - we'd love to hear from you!