What We've Learned Managing Mazda USA's Enterprise SEM Over 5 Years by Tad Miller

5 YEARS,

30,000,000 CLICKS

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Tad Miller

SearchMojo

@JstaTad

#SMX #32D

October 3, 2013

WHAT WE’VE LEARNED

MANAGING SEM FOR

MAZDA

#

SEARCH-MOJO.COM@searchmojo

OUR HISTORY WITH MAZDA USA

• 5 Years

• 30,000,000 + Clicks

• Generated hundreds of thousands of Quote Requests

• Grew the budget over 265% in that 5 years

• Worked for 5 different agencies

THE GARAGE IS A GREAT PLACE FOR

AUTOMOTIVE PPC

• Search Mojo literally started in the room

above my Garage in 2006.

• It was in that room in 2006 we began managing Mazda USA SEO and later in 2007

that we began managing Mazda USA PPC.

WE GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE…

THE AGENCY BUREAUCRACY

THE MAZDA REVOLVING DOOR

• With attrition it’s hard to tell the players

without a program…the only consistency over

5 years was us.

We reported to all of these people over 5 years

THE PROBLEMS WITH ENTERPRISE PPC

• Serving many masters

– Internal Departments

• Legal, Marketing, Branding, IT, etc.

– External Agencies

• Lack of Communication between Silos

• Lack of Understanding of the Ad Medium

– “Media Buy” mentality

– “Push media” vs. “Pull media”

THE ENTERPRISE PPC ENEMY - HIPPOS

• They make the decisions

• Opinion/Ego based

• Not based on data or facts

Highest Paid Person’s Opinion--Avinash Kaushik


KEYS TO ENTERPRISE SEM SUCCESS

KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS –

BUILD TRUST

• Build Trust

– We earned Mazda’s trust by doing SEO for them

first

– Deliver results

– Give them data that shows them how they are

saving money

• Cost Per Conversion Savings

• Cost Per Click Reductions

• Get more clicks for the same amount of budget

• Shoot down costly “ideas” from Search Engine Reps

that don’t deliver ROI


DON’T MAKE DECISIONS

• Take your direction from the massive amount

of customer PPC search and conversion data

at your disposal

KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS -

BEING DATA-DRIVEN

• Mazda drank the “Analytics Kool-Aid” early

– Established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

and surveys to see which KPIs impact purchase

– Willingly surrendered control to searchers and

customers to determine what works (more

importantly what doesn’t work)

– Had a willingness to test and accept the results

DATA GUIDED VS. DATA DRIVEN

Data Makes The Decisions

• Frequent correlation surveys

and after purchase studies

about what on-site KPIs lead

to purchase

• Massive amounts of click data

on a daily basis

• Massive amounts of sales data

• Quick sales cycle

Data Guides Decisions

• No consistent correlation

between on-site actions and

purchase

• Small scale click data

• Small scale sales data

• Long sales cycle

• Sale’s are highly dependent

on the sales person

KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC - FOCUS ON

THE FUNNEL

• Low Funnel Shopping KPIs for the

Ready to Buy

• Mid-Funnel KPI to get in the

consideration set

• Upper funnel KPIs – “Hey we exist”

• Hard to justify spending budget on

upper funnel keywords like

competitor trademarks when

budget is need for the ready to buy

Mazda 3 Invoice Pricing

Mazda 3 Dealers

2014 compact cars

New compact car finance offers

Compact cars

Honda Civic

THE FUNNEL MIGHTIER THAN THE HIPPO?

• Getting Buy-in on the “Funnel Strategy” is vital

• What delivers the best low funnel conversion volume?

– It gets fully funded budget

– It gets the highest bids

• The Funnel determines priority – Creates “Sacred Cows” that

HIPPOs will yield to

• Data-driven Execs want their ideas tested – but they don’t

want to jeopardize results on the best performers


YOU DON’T WIN ARGUMENTS…

• Don’t argue with Executives or

Agencies – Let the data do the

arguing for you

• Insist on testing ideas from up

above

• Keep the results in a ready

spot…You will need them

again, and again and again…

KEYS TO ENTERPRISE PPC SUCCESS – BE

A HISTORIAN

• When you outlive all of the executives and agencies you start

over again with the replacements

• Be prepared for the same old bad

ideas. Carry the equivalent of a

Batman Utility Belt for Analytics

Reports

• You can usually stop the bad ideas in

their tracks and not get diverted from

the tactics that produce results


SITUATIONS TO PUT THE KEYS TO USE

Uhhhhh…Yeahhhh. We’re going to

need you to change a few things.

Mmm’ kay?

I’VE HEARD SOME GOOD ONES…

I want our ads to show for a search on

“Spirited”

Those keywords don’t fit with our “Brand Guidelines”

This doesn’t say Zoom-Zoom to me.

I know the conversions are great, but I just care

about Impressions

What do you mean our Quality Scores will be low advertising on

competitor trademarks?

Don’t call it a Hatchback. It’s a “5-door”.

I don’t care what it costs I want…

What do mean? Thousands of people call us “Mazada” when they search? What’s next “Mooz-Mooz-Mooz?!”

Oh Boy. Here it

Comes…

I was up late last night and searched for___________ and our ad didn’t

show…

More Emotion!

I want an AdGroup about our Flag

DEALING WITH THE “BRANDERS”

“Fun to Drive”

“The Emotion of Motion”

“Spirited”


FEELINGS

Write a 25 Character Headline That Makes Me Feel Like This:

NOW CONVEY “EMOTION” IN AD COPY!

• With Nagare as a basis for creativity and exploration, Mazda's approach

is now evolving. The underlying design philosophy for the next

generation of Mazda cars is adding the power and beauty that one

sees in the instantaneous movement of animals or humans. This is

the form displayed in the moment motion begins – for example, the

instant when a cheetah pounces on its prey, or the moment of a

sword strike in the ancient Japanese martial art of kendo. It is this

moment where accumulated force is released that contains the most

finely-honed balance of strength and streamlined beauty. It is in this

instant – which requires maximum concentration – that we feel

instantaneous power, speed, a dignified tension, a sophisticated

beauty. It is, in its way, highly seductive.

• Now put that in a 25 character headline and two 35

character description lines and SELL! SELL! SELL!


LET’S GET OUR CREATIVE PEOPLE ON

THIS PPC THING…

BRAND VS. RELEVANCE IN AD COPY

• We gave the “Branders” and “Creatives” all the rope they

wanted and tested our ads that emphasized the keyword

searched vs. ad copy that said things like:

“Rip the road a new pot hole anywhere you please”

• Our Findings: Unless creativity and cleverness is

rewarded by the searchers with higher click through

rates – which it almost universally is NOT – Relevant and

seemingly dull usually performs much better with Click

Through Rate and Conversion performance

• Tag lines don’t work

• “Zoom Zoom” is wasted space in ad copy


HOW YOU WANT TO BE SEEN AND WHO

YOU ARE…

BRAND VS. REALITY

• Sometimes what you want people to call

your product and what people actually call it

are two different things

MAZDA3 5-door Mazda 3 Hatchback

Vs.

SAVING THE HATCHBACK

• Brand managers and copy writers were

appalled that we would call the car a

“Hatchback” -– “Brand Guidelines”

• Reality: almost 2000% more search for

“Hatchback” over “5 door”

• Used the same memo twice in 5 years

to save the word usage on ads and

pages


RUN YOUR RACE, NOT SOMEONE ELSE’S

FOCUS ON THE COMPETITION

• All of my clients are obsessed with their

competitors

• Mentality – spend anything in Advertising to squash

competitors. But won’t spend a dime to improve

sites, CRO, or landing pages

• “Conquesting” – Bidding on competitor names or

product names

• Keeping “Focus on the Funnel” when budgets were

tight allowed us to maintain budget on tactics that

work better long term

SHORT TERM CONQUESTING

• We convinced the client to avoid long-term

conquesting as a tactic with data

• Then convinced them with data that a short-term

event-based conquest was a better way to get

bang for the buck with left-over media budgets


CONTACT

Tad Miller

[email protected]

800-939-5938 x 102

Twitter: @JstaTad

@SearchMojo

Facebook: www.facebook.com/SearchMojo

THAT’S THE

END!

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http://www.facebook.com/SearchMojo

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What We've Learned Managing Mazda USA's Enterprise SEM Over 5 Years by Tad Miller