It can be a confusing process to find a good Search firm. If anyone has ever been to an SES or SMX show, you probably find every PPC (Pay-Per-Click) vendor says the same thing. They all say they do the same thing, and they are the best.

Many advertising agencies & corporations outsource their Paid Search (PPC) Marketing. They usually will use a PPC Consultant or a large search firm. Very often there is a RFP process that involves questions and answers.

Below, I’ve put together an organized list of questions that anyone can use when gathering information regarding a potential Paid Search partner.

Conversion Tracking:
Do you have integrated tracking across all media types and all the leading search engines worldwide?
Does your platform have the capability for Transaction tracking based on:
- Using server redirects or direct traffic?
- Unlimited types of tranactions?
- Multiple variables (Order ID, zip code, etc.)
- Organic search results

Bid Management:
Can you set up rules based bidding such as:
- Optimum Keyword Ranking
- Bid Gap Management
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA) targeting
- Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) targeting
- Day Parting Rules
- Manual bidding

Reporting:
Does your platform show both reporting and tracking data for the following criteria:
- Campaigns
- Keyword Groups
- Keywords and phrases
- PPC Search Engines
- Destination URLs
- Date Range (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly)
- Latency Reports

Please attach a sample performance report.
Can we export reports as Excel or csv?

Account Management:
Can your platform handle multiple accounts?
Are there single or separate Logins, or dropdowns for each campaign?
Is there a limit on the number of keywords per account?
How many bid reviews per day? Is there a limit?
How many people will be dedicated to our account?
How is your client services team structured?

Keyword Generation Tools:
Do you have a Keyword Research/Generation tool to suggest relevant keywords and phrases for our campaign based on our input, AND through “crawling” our website?
Do you have a Keyword tool that enables us to build large keyword lists specific to our campaigns by utilizing all potential combinations of keyword phrases?

Ad Creative:
Does your client services team write ad copy?

Testing:
Is your platform capable of handling A/B split tests?
Is your platform capable of Multivariate testing?

Portfolio Mgmt vs Keyword level:
Does your platform offer the ability to choose between a portfolio based management, and keyword level bid management?

Pricing:
How is your service priced? Is it full-service client services, or just advice for do-it-yourself?
Are there multiple pricing models?
How is your technology priced? Can your platform be licensed?
What is the pricing structure for 100 campaigns that need full-service?

International Search Feature:
Does your technology support keywords and ad creative in all languages — including Asian double-byte characters?

Competitive Differentiation:
How do you differentiate your company from the rest of the industry?

Share and Enjoy:

Related posts:

1. Organizational Structure of a Search Team
2. Accurate or Not? Fathom’s Keyword Price Index
3. Keyword Overlap Strategy

Properly optimizing a website is a combination effort of both on-site and off-site optimization. The ole’ 1, 2 punch. This post is about the off-site component of SEO to achieve link popularity and link relevancy.

In the past, I’ve written about how to use a Link Optimization and the Criteria & Time Period for Link Effectiveness. Below, I reveal the “secret sauce” on how to properly structure a Link Campaign to achieve high keyword rankings for your target keyword and target url.

I’ve crafted this as powerful, and permanent Link Campaign “package”:

Custom Blog Reviews
We hand pick higher quality blogs from within our network to write reviews about your website/product/service. The blogger posts their review on their blog. As part of the review the blogger links back to your site 2-4 times (randomizing the number of links will avoid creating a pattern). All of these links are considered permanent.

Custom Article Marketing
We provide an SEO friendly, professionally written, fully optimized Article(s) with 500+ words of content. The Article is submitted for syndication to the top Article sites. Package includes a guarantee of 15 placements. The article includes 2 footer links, embedded within content. [eg: ezine, with links in footer].

Article Plus (A couple targeted blogs):
Longer articles & more textlinks.
We write a full article and embed 4 links within the 500+ words of content. This article is then hosted on the homepage of the website for a minimum of 10 days. The article then archives within the site permanently. We will also backlink boost the archived page monthly, to ensure it continues to receive full search engine visibility and continues to gain trust over time.

2nd Tier Links:
This package includes Comment Links and Social Bookmarking Links on sites that have PageRank and dofollow. 100% of these links will point to your newly created link pages to ensure quick spidering and visibility, as well as support the relevancy using the same anchor text .

- Comment Links:
Make a relevant comment on a blog or other Social Media style site and link back to your site within the comment. Get the links on pages with guaranteed Pagerank from 1-5. You’ll have full anchor text and URL control. Sites are 100% SEO friendly (without nofollow).

- Social Bookmarking Links
Hand build keyword links on Social Bookmarking Sites (web-based sites designed to let users share internet bookmarks). This is a great way to build natural looking links in high volumes at low costs.

Premium Directory Links
Relevant, SEO friendly links on Directory Sites. Get the highest PR web directories available. They provide guaranteed SEO friendly links, regardless of the number of submissions.

Pricing:
Prices varies depending on the budget, and how competitive your industry is.

Share and Enjoy:

Related posts:

1. A Bakers Dozen of Link Building
2. Link Aquisition vs. Content Creation
3. Off-Site Optimization

Dunkin’ Donuts — where a 10-ounce cup of joe goes for about $1.30 — will be investing 77 million times that amount – in an ad campaign that launches Monday.

“You Kin’ Do It,” will be the theme of the $100 million campaign for online, TV, and outdoor ads, according to a report on usatoday.com. The theme apparently plays off of Barack Obama’s campaign mantra, “Yes we can,” and the “kin’” from Dunkin’.

The brand will continue its participation in social media, such as Dunkin’ Dave on Twitter.

Studiocom is Dunkin’ Donut’s online agency of record.

A spokeswoman for Dunkin’ Donuts said the company doesn’t break out its media spend, so the portion devoted to online isn’t available.

Viacom and Time Warner Cable have resolved a bitter dispute that threatened to strip TWC customers of Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks channels. Such negotiations are usually handled behind closed doors, but in this case the companies went all out with ads, on-screen pleas and online rebuttals meant to alarm TV fans and rally them to one side or the other.

The LA Times described a newspaper ad featuring a crying Dora the Explorer, taken out by Viacom, as well as an on-screen alert, warning viewers they may lose their favorite shows. A :30 spot, available on YouTube, had a similar message.

Digital media were heavily leveraged by both parties. Over at TheRiver.net, Pamela Parker posted the above screen shot from MTV.com and described bombastic copy (since removed) on a Time Warner Web site at TWCFacts.com.

“MTV please don’t do it!” Viacom is asking “you” to pay “millions” more, the site says, adding, “Those demands would be unreasonable any time, but given the current economic conditions, they are outrageous now.”

It’s not clear to what extent either party used search marketing or e-mail to get their message out. If you noticed either over the past few days, feel free to post them here or email me and I’ll post them here.

Multiple reports have noted that the dispute points to how important affiliate fees have become as the recession takes an increasingly harsh toll on network operators’ ad revenues.

Online marketing news articles about the presidential campaign, social media, industry layoffs, and behavioral marketing were among the most viewed articles on ClickZ in 2008.

Here’s a look at the year’s most popular news items based on page views:

1. Clinton Needed More Search: Q&A with Google’s Greenberger
Google’s top political ad man contends savvy search advertising contributed to the success of both Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s primary season wins.
By Kate Kaye

2. Study: Blogs Influence Purchases More Than Social Sites
Blogs can have more impact on purchase decisions than social networks, a study finds.
By Enid Burns

3. ISPs Collect User Data for Behavioral Ad Targeting
Internet service providers track subscriber activities online for behavioral advertising purposes.
By Zachary Rodgers

4. Obama Spent Most of $3 Million This Year on Google
The search giant scored over 70 percent of money spent on online media buys for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this year through April, according to information compiled from Federal Election Commission filings.
By Kate Kaye

5. McDonald’s Sprinkles Digital Fairy Dust with Happy Meal Game
Fuel Industries developed a world with fairies and dragons for pre-teens, adding a digital element to the next series of kids’ meals.
By Enid Burns

6. Does the New iPhone Hold More Promise for Marketers?
Apple introduces a faster, cheaper model with built-in GPS and makes way for blogging, e-commerce, and other mobile applications.
By Enid Burns

7. Top Social Networking Sites in May 2008
LinkedIn and Yahoo’s Flickr show triple-digit growth compared to a year ago.
Source: comScore

8. ClickZ’s Layoff Tracker for Digital Marketing Jobs
ClickZ’s ongoing tally of layoffs and headcount reductions in the digital marketing and ad-supported media sectors.
By Zachary Rodgers

9. MGM Deal Brings More Premium Content to YouTube
Video-sharing site signs deal that will bring many of MGM studio’s full-length features — supported by in-video advertising — to the Google-owned site.
By Douglas Quenqua

10. Top Real Estate Sites in February 2008
Home values may be sinking, but visitors to real estate sites were as curious as ever.
Source: comScore

ClickZ’s Experts draw from a wide assortment of specialties, including e-mail marketing, search engine marketing, online video advertising, Web analytics, and media buying and planning.

And the interests of ClickZ readers vary widely, too, based on a look at the 10 most popular ClickZ Experts’ columns published in 2008.

1. Seven Top Online Marketing Trends for 2008
Among the trends identified: social network niches, behavioral targeting, more sophisticated analytics.
By Heidi Cohen

2. Online Games Redefine Gaming
As the death knell rings for gaming’s ultimate icon, the console, marketers must transition to the new definition of gaming.
By Kevin Carney

3. How 20 Words Generate a 220 Percent Lift in Response
An old direct marketing trick can help e-mail marketing campaigns today.
By Jeanne Jennings

4. Voter-Generated Content Makes or Breaks Candidates
Voters get out to vote for the next US president after they get out their message.
By Christine Beardsell

5. The Average Conversion Rate: Is It a Myth?
Online marketers have embraced conversion rates of 2 to 3 percent when they should be aiming higher. Here’s why.
By Bryan Eisenberg

6. Brands Build Widget Ads; Will Consumers Come?
Kraft Foods, Nissan, and American Express are the latest to bring advertising to these shareable, downloadable applications.
By Anna Maria Virzi

7. Hotmail’s People Factor Sets the Rules
Even the most sophisticated spam filters have a human component: users who vote with their mice.
By Stefan Pollard

8. Content Optimization: Keyword Suggestion Tools
How to start optimizing your site’s content today using tools from Google, Yahoo, and Quintura.
By P.J. Fusco

9. Never on Sunday? Rethink Your E-mail Schedule
New reports show the best day to send your e-mail is Sunday.
By Karen Gedney

10.Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook
A media planner’s guide to paid advertising opportunities on the social media network.
By Harry Gold

Which were the biggest online ad industry stories of ’08? Readers can wait for my year-end roundup story tomorrow in ClickZ News to find out which we thought made the cut.

One that was certainly important but not necessarily of sweeping impact for the industry as a whole was the ongoing saga of online newspaper advertising. The launch of quadrantOne and Yahoo’s APT platform were probably the most significant events.

In February, Gannett Co., Hearst Corporation, Tribune Company, and The New York Times Company launched quadrantOne. The goal was to grab more national ad dollars from large brands.

The network soon added several new Web sites and publishers to its network, all of which are also partnered with Yahoo.

Now, it’s been two years since Yahoo began signing ad and search deals with newspaper publishers as part of its newspaper consortium project — another one that’s meant to save them through higher display ad revenue from brand advertisers, among other things. Though the partner group has grown significantly, there’s much work to be done, including getting all of Yahoo’s paper partners on its APT ad management platform, which finally launched in September.

The consortium in a way let go of the Yahoo apron strings in August when it appointed a Tribune man, Michael Silver, as its new executive director. The partners also formed deals with Zillowin ’08, creating a real estate related ad network.

Adding another wrinkle to the drama, Centro’s acquisition of McClatchy-owned newspaper ad network Real Cities ended an era begun by the now-defunct Knight Ridder. The buy ended the existence of Real Cities as an entity; Real Cities was a division of Knight Ridder until McClatchy acquired KR in 2006.

Despite the fact that the industry has joined hands in various network efforts, the outlook is grim as paper publishers grapple with falling online ad revenues — the ones that were supposed to counteract the bleeding on the print side.
Indeed, after its first ever reported drop in online ad revenue in Q2 2008, the industry drifted another few notches in Q3. According to the Newspaper Association of America, online paper sites brought in $749.8 million in Q3, a drop of 3 percent from a year before.

Newspaper industry layoffs abound and will probably get worse in 2009. At this point, it’s not clear whether those have affected online ad sales teams. But if digital media is truly a last hope for newspapers, they’d do well to keep their digital ad sales operations strong.

What did I forget?