Brand's Impact on Paid Search

A successful Paid Search Management campaign for a school is centered around program and location keyterms. However, branded search campaigns are a key component of a robust interactive marketing plan. They almost always return the highest conversion rates and inquiry volume and have the lowest CPCs and CPIs. A study by Blizzard Internet Marketing proved the value of branding on a pay-per-click campaign. They found the brand terms in the PPC campaign:

• Increased click-thru-rates by over 100%
• Increased the number of phone calls from PPC visitors by over 500%
• Increased the number of their “web events” by 1000%
• Cost-per-visitor by decreased over 50%
• Online revenue from PPC increased by over 300%
• Overall online revenue Increased by 30%

Fair enough, but what happens when you apply this to education? Get this. From 2008 to 2010, branded searches in the educational sector grew about 25%, while brand CPCs grew over 35%. Simply put, students are going online to research education and take action. That brings us to some good news and bad news. Good news: interactive marketing tends to be more cost effective than other advertising venues Bad news: competition and cost per clicks are rising as more advertisers are realizing the value of paid search marketing. In light of this, PlattForm has three recommendations:

1. Maintain a paid search brand campaign. Do not just rely on organic listings. By combining paid and organic search, you take up a lot of real estate in the Search Engine Results Page. This leaves less room for your competitors and makes your brand look more credible.

2. Do not discount your traditional media or direct mail efforts. People know your brand because they see it on TV, on a billboard, hear it on the radio, etc. These efforts increase brand awareness and drive your paid search campaigns.

3. Maintain a presence on other interactive channels like Facebook and YouTube. While these may not generate lots of direct inquiries, they do push overall volume and help brand awareness, especially with a student audience shown to frequent social networks.  The bottom line is this. Paid search, particularly for your brand campaigns, remains a vital source of high quality inquiries for education marketers. But as competition increases and bids continue to rise, the need to work with a partner who can extract the most value from a budget while achieving KPI goals will become more of a necessity.