Gary Truitt:

Four simple steps to help your search marketing campaign keep up with new searches.

I know I’m not the only person that remembers the line “just set it and forget it”. Those were the good ol’ days—the days when you could just set up a search marketing campaign and leave it alone.

Not anymore. Users are more sophisticated in their searches now, and we’ve seen that up to 20% of searches in any given month can be search queries never seen before by a search engine. This means if you leave your campaign untouched, you could be missing 20% more traffic.

So what’s the best way to keep up to speed with the changing search tide while maintaining your sanity? Here are our four simple steps that will help your Search Engine Marketing campaign keep pace.

1. First, let’s set up the campaign properly.

Start by making sure you have selected the proper match type-(Google) or if Yahoo, make sure your campaign is opted into Advanced Match (this is the default setting). Broad Match types in Google can be used if you need more traffic but can’t seem to find it, and when used with negative keywords can get you maximum traffic.

Advanced Match campaigns in Yahoo will display ads for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions,than you may have thought of yourself. Thus taking the guesswork out of keyword research. (although I would continue to do the research)

Yahoo uses very sophisticated keyword or phrase intelligence which includes concepts that are related to your keyword, but that do not necessarily contain your keyword. Think of Advanced Match as the sales guy that’s going above and beyond to bring in great leads where you least expected them.

Which keywords should you start with first? Well, if you have a big budget and want to focus on driving traffic, then you may want more high-volume search terms (e.g. car) in your campaign. If your objective is getting higher conversions, you may want to include more tail terms as they are more product specific (e.g., new 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car). Make sure to use excluded words (or negative keywords) to avoid matching to terms that are not relevant to your product or service.

2. Monitor your campaign regularly

Because search habits constantly change, you should tune your campaigns as regularly as possible. The frequency really depends on you and what your objectives are, and if you’re meeting those goals or not.

The best way to determine your campaign’s performance is through the myriad of reports available through the search engines reporting tools. It’s kind of like when you check traffic in the evening to determine the best route to take home. You may choose to take the shortest route but sit in a little bit of traffic (or a lot if you’re on highway 101). Or you may choose a route that is longer but less traveled, and gets you home 15 minutes earlier. The same logic applies to your campaign. Know your objective, and look at the reports to help you get there.

Once you have some insight about which campaigns and keywords are performing, here are some things you can try:

* Work with your consultant or search engine account manager to identify additional keywords and bid opportunities.

* Take advantage of our keyword suggestion tools & discovery tools to supplement your existing keywords. I recommend Keyword Research Pro. Its inexpensive and easy to use.

* Use organic search results to optimize campaigns and expand your keywords or add excluded words to avoid future matches. Google Analytics provides the keywords used when people find your website.

3. Tune your campaign

By now you have a pretty good idea which keywords are doing well in your campaigns, and which ones are lagging. It’s time to take action. Separate lower performing keywords from higher performing keywords so your high performers aren’t dragged down by your low performers. Create a “low budget” campaign that includes all of your low performing keywords, and use lower bids so that you continue to participate in the marketplace.

Another tuning technique is to separate keywords that get a lot of clicks from low-volume keywords. This allows you to tweak your ad copy for the greatest impact on the high-volume terms. Mixing the two may dilute your campaigns overall performance, and make it difficult for you to determine which keyword is negatively affecting your campaign’s Quality Index.

4. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor…but don’t get too comfortable

Now that you’ve tuned your campaigns, give it some time to see how each campaign performs, but don’t let it simmer for too long. The duration really depends on how much traffic you’re getting. You may notice changes taking effect immediately, or you may have to wait a few days or weeks to see the full impact.

At the end of the day, where does this cycle of keyword addition, monitoring, separating, tuning, re-running your campaign take you? It allows you to improve your ad quality and your campaign performance. The better a campaign’s performance, the less it’ll cost you to participate. And who wouldn’t want a few extra dollars back in their pockets?

Besides, if you’re not managing your campaign regularly, you can bet your competitors are—and possibly taking traffic away from you. To protect your traffic and your business, we encourage you to actively manage your campaign. Don’t just set and forget it!