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How to use PPC and SEO together to benefit Each Other

Larry Kim, Founder/CTO, WordStream

SMX East, October 3, 2013

Very Few Companies Do PPC and SEO Well Together

• People and companies tend to focus on one or the

other

• Companies silo PPC and SEO marketing activities

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Case Study: How I use PPC & SEO Together

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• Started WordStream 5 Years ago

• #185 Fastest Growing Private Company in America – Growing at 2500% in last 3 years

• Marketing success almost entirely due to effective use of PPC and SEO together!

What +2500% Growth Looks Like:

• Approaching Half Million visitors / month

• Compound Monthly Growth = 9%. WHAT? HOW?!

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Early PPC Goal: Map Out Keyword Taxonomy

• Pet Store Example!

• Primary Categories

– Dog, Cat, Fish, Hamster, etc.

• Secondary Categories

– Food, Toys, Bath, etc.

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Early SEO Goal: Highly Themed Content

• SEO Rankings

based on on-page

& domain factors

• Initially Domain

Authority is weak

• Rank by over-

achieving in On-

Page Factors

• Target Long Tail

Keywords!

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PPC Campaign Structure = SEO Information Architecture

Use PPC Data to Prioritize Organic Keyword Selection

• If Optimizing for More Web Traffic, Use:

– (PPC Keyword Impressions * Your CPC) /

PPC Keyword Competition

• If Optimizing for More Sales or Conversions, Use:

– Conversions Driven by PPC Keyword / PPC

Keyword Competition

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PPC Keyword Competition ∝ SEO Keyword Difficulty

PPC Ad Groups = SEO Themed Content Pages

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• The Ideal PPC Ad

Group and SEO

Content both …

– Are specifically themed

– Have primary &

supporting keywords

– Create lots of them!

PPC Ads = SEO H1 & Meta Description

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SEO + PPC Success! (Or.. not?)

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Problem 1: Low Visitor Engagement

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Problem 2: Low Conversion Rate

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Traffic Generation Activities

Customer Signup

Offer Sign Up

Key Challenge: The Conversion Rate from Website Visitor to Offer Sign up was in the mid single digits.

Problem 3: Virtually No Branded Searches

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Re-Engage With Previous Visitors

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of people who visit a website

leave without completing

the actions marketers want

them to take

96%

Your Ad

Your Site

X-

of people abandon their

shopping cart without

completing a purchase

70%

Google Display Network Reach in the US

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92% reach across millions of sites, videos and devices

Sites Games VideoFeeds MobileSocial media

Adsense publisher network

• 204M visitors/month

• 92% of U.S. internet users

• 317B impressions/month

• Hundreds of comScore

1000 sites

Doubleclick ad exchange

• Hundreds of premium

publishers, with hundreds of

millions of ad placements

available every day

Google O&O properties

YouTube

• 1B+ video views/day

• 2nd largest search engine

• 5% of all online time spent

Google sites

• Finance

• Blogger 8.1M

Display Network

Typical Reach of Remarketing…

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1. Reach 2. Frequency 3. DiversityOn various pagesReach more users Reach them frequently

Of the typical remarketing audience, find

Reach them on between As they visit 20 or more pages on a typical day across

84%…within a month

10-18 days… or more out of the month

5-10 sites… of which all pages and

sites have ad space available to Google Display Network buyers

Audience Definition Strategy

• Funnel and Product Based List Segmentation

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Results after 1 Year

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Ads Reinforce Brand & Drive to Conversions!

Impact on Repeat User Rate

• New Visitor Rate Fell From 79.8% to 66.63%

• (Meaning, Visitors are Now Returning)

Impact on User Engagement

• Time on Site Increased from 1:33 to 4:35

(TRIPLED!!)

WHAT? HOW?

• 43 Million Ad Impressions in a typical month

• Cost Per Lead for Remarketing Campaigns: 10% Less than our CPA for Google Search

• Site Conversion Rate up by 51%!!

• Display Ads = 50% of PPC Spend

PPC Remarketing = Your Secret SEO Weapon!

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Summary

• Top Down vs. Bottom Up

• Objective of PPC and SEO over time based on

how far along your PPC or SEO is.

• White Hat usage of PPC and SEO is the key!

– How PPC helps SEO: What Content to Produce

– How SEO helps PPC: Creating Huge Audiences to

Remarket to.

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Thank You SMX!

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Larry Kim (@larrykim)

lkim@wordstream.com