www.simbound.com

Student Guidebook Version 1.0b

Student Quick Start Guide

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Activity

You will be advertising insurance services on Baigoo – a fictitious Search Engine. Baigoo follows a similar logic as

do major search engines such as Google©, Bing©, Yandex© or Baidu© when computing results.

Simulation Goal

If you do not have specific objectives as laid out by your instructor you can always follow the in-game objectives

available under the deadline tab.

Your ultimate goal is to obtain as high a Value/Cost Ratio as possible. This involves acquiring as many conversions

(clients) as possible by spreading your campaign budget wisely over the keywords available in the game.

For now the value is fixed at 1000 EUR per conversion and the budget is not limited.

Student Quick Start Guide

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Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing is an umbrella term which includes different forms of Internet Marketing that promote

website visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEM methods include: Paid placement also reffered to as

Pay per click (PPC) Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), contextual advertising, digital asset

optimization, and paid inclusion.

With Simbound you will monitor SEO progress for your website as well as carry out Paid Search Campaigns.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is a process which involves improving the natural (also called organic) position of a

website in the results pages of aSearch Engine.

Having a better ranking position is important as the higher your website is

ranked for a specific search phrase the more targeted (quality) traffic you

will receive from the search engine as users are more likely to click the top

ranking results.

On Baidoo, the websites occupying the

top 3 ranks for a searchphrase receive

more traffic than all the rest of the

ranks combined

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.

In Simbound you will be monitoring SEO progress with the objective to have your website ranked higher for the

keywords you think are the most valuable to your business. You will be able to consult different data points, such

as monthly search volume or ranking difficulty in order to take the best decisions on which keywords you want to

optimize for.

Your available resources are limited so each round you will have to select a small group of keywords that you

want to optimize for and also track.

Did you know many Online

Marketers regard SEO as

providing a better Return on

Marketing Investment than PPC

on a longer term?

Student Quick Start Guide

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Paid Search Engine Marketing (also reffered to as Pay Per Click Marketing)

Millions of searches are conducted over the world’s most popular search engines every day. People are actively

looking for information about brands, products or services. Paid Search Marketing is the practice which involves

getting paid ads to be shown in search results. For each time an ad is shown it’s said it accrues an Impression.

Each click on an ad will cost the advertiser a sum of money – also reffered to as Cost per Click (or CPC).

1. User generated search

2. Organic Search Results

3. Paid Advertisments

As with organic search results an ad with a

higher average ad position will tend to

benefit from a higher Click Through Rate

(clicks/impressions) than a lower ranked ad.

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The position of your ads is determined by numerous factors, including:

Bid price Price you are willing to pay for a click from each

keyword.

Quality Score Score that search engine gives to each advertiser

for each keyword.

Quality Score is a figure from 1 to 10 where 1 means a poor match and 10 means good advertiser performance. If your QS for a certain Keyword

drops below the minimum threshold, Search Engines will block your ad from showing on searches specific to that Keyword.

Did you know most Search

Engines use the Generalized

Second Price Auction mechanism

to sell their keyword inventory ?

PPC Marketing is a good way to offer your website immediate exposure in front of highly relevant prospects.

As people are searching for products and services it is to your advantage to improve brand presence at the

crucial time when they’re researching their options.

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Here is a simple explanation of how Quality Score affects Ad Position – which is the average position of your ads

on the Search Engine Results Pages.

Advertisers Bid Price Quality Score Ad Rank Score Ad Position

Advertiser 1 $5.00 2 10 #3

Advertiser 2 $3.00 5 15 #2

Advertiser 3 $2.00 9 18 #1

Note that Baigoo has positions 1 to 10 open for ads. These are shown on first page of results. If your ad does not reach position 10 it will not be

shown. However with a real search engine there is no downward limit to your ad position, meaning that your ad could show up on the 2nd, 3rd etc

page of results.

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Here is how Bid Price and Quality Score influences price paid per click:

Advertisers Bid Price Quality Score Ad Rank Score Price Paid

Advertiser 1 $5.00 2 10 5

Advertiser 2 $3.00 5 15 2

Advertiser 3 $2.00 9 18 1.66

Cost per Click is calculated by dividing the Ad Rank score of the advertiser directly beneath you to your own Quality Score.

Note this is a scenario with only 3 advertisers. In reality there could be thousands of competing advertisers on a single keyword.

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Quality Score is an important factor in determining your ad’s position and your average Cost Per Click. Quality

Score is determined by:

CTR (Click-Through-Rate) The % of people who see your ad on search engine results pages and click on it. It is calculated by dividing Clicks to Impressions.

Note that CTR impact on Quality Score is calculated for each position. So if you are trying to improve your

Quality Score by increasing your CTR for a specific keyword, you will have to meet the CTR threshold as

set for the average ad position you occupy. E.g the CTR Threshold for position 1 of a certain keyword

could be 15%. For position 2 it could be 10%. If you are increasing your bid to occupy position 1 and you

only receive 12% CTR then you would be in fact hurting your QS.

Ad Relevance How relevant is your text ad for each keyword.

Landing Page The quality of the page that the user gets taken to after they click on your ad.

Student Quick Start Guide

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Setting up a PPC campaign

The below image shows you how campaigns are organized in Simbound

Note each Search Engine may have a different campaign structure, but it is important to group keywords into ad groups that have

specific, closely related themes. In Simbound you can rely on an ad group suggestion tool when creating new ad groups or campaigns

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New PPC Campaign Process

1. Keyword Research –look for the best search keyphrases that potential clients would use in their searches

2. Select which markets to geo-target with your ads - these can be cities, regions,countries etc

3. Write Ads that will provide searchers with a strong incentive to visit your website

4. Track and Optimize Ad performance and costs

5. Obtain as many conversions (responses) as possible from your campaign

A note on how Keyword Targeting works in Simbound

In Simbound you can only bid on exact type match keywords - this means that your ad is only shown on searches

that were initiated by the same search phrase as your selected keyword.

So for example if you are bidding on the word auto insurance your ad will only be shown for searches on auto insurance but not for “best auto

insurance” or something different. Most Search Engines have more options in terms of keyword targeting:

Phrase match keywords – your ad would be shown on search phrases that contain your keyword in its entirety such as “best auto

insurance” or “cheap auto insurance in NYC”

Broad match keywords - your ad would be shown on search phrases that contain keywords similar in meaning to your selected keyword

such as : “car insurance quotes” or “ I want to insure my car” or even “how much does a supercar cost to be insured”

Student Quick Start Guide

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Community

If having problems understanding how the game works please refer to the Simbound community where you will

be greeted with support by other digital marketing learners. Help out other users and you will benefit from

reputation and expert acknowldgement as well as in-game bonuses that will further improve your results.

Further

Look also at the Baigoo model diagram found under course documents (available to registered students) to

understand how the Search Engine model works.