PPC and customer value; intelligent search for publishers
Daniel Wilkinson, search director, Jellyfish, on how pay per click search marketing can help publishers connect with subscribers.
In the context of the rapid and necessary evolution of the publishing model, it’s become increasingly important for publishers to secure paying subscribers to both their traditional print titles and online properties. Even though there currently exists a huge disparity between the average income generated by a print reader compared to an online subscriber (£155 to £5 respectively), both these revenue streams are vital to supplement advertising sales.
But whatever the potential income level, publishers must continue acquiring paying print subscribers, to secure revenue and renew circulation or audience figures to support advertising sales, while simultaneously attracting online subscribers to help monetise online properties and begin to recoup investment.
This can be achieved through the creation of dynamic acquisition strategies, used to identify and engage with potential readers in the most cost efficient manner.
Search marketing has become one of the buzz phrases in the last few years. In simple terms, search marketing seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages. Brands can use a variety of techniques to influence search result ranking, improving the click through of potential customers and delivering them to relevant products, services and offers on the website.
Publishers have heavily invested in various forms of search to drive as much traffic as possible to their sites; but failure to monetise this traffic is compelling them to rethink their strategies and embrace the ability of Pay per Click (PPC) search marketing to deliver tactical traffic generation.
When a potential customer searches the web through a search engine or an affiliate partner, PPC ensures that relevant ad copy for the brand’s product or service is placed in the most prominent, yet commercially viable, position in the sponsored search results; key search terms are monitored and purchased for their suitability at delivering the right customers to the brand.
Thus, consumers who click on these strategically placed text ads are ‘deep linked’ to a website page containing information, services or products relevant to the search term used. The cost of each individual visitor, what actions they take, and what revenue they are likely to generate is then tracked and analysed in order to refine the campaign on an ongoing basis.
The tangible nature of PPC provides publishers with a clear tool to generate acquisitions (print and/or online subscriptions, leads, or even visitors and page views), and volume. A good PPC agency will also be constantly improving and enhancing the search terms associated with the brand’s campaign, to capitalise on those terms which are delivering the greatest ROI.
An additional – and potentially campaign enhancing – layer can also be added to this process; namely, identifying which search terms deliver higher-value customers – the campaign can then begin to evolve to appeal to a larger majority of these prospects.
PPC carried out with a clear view of customer value can work particularly well for publishers because they possess a good understanding on the lifetime value of a new subscriber, whether print or online. In the case of online, and as many publishers are now moving to paid online content, PPC has an obvious benefit in focusing acquisition on subscribers willing to pay for content. This approach can also have a positive impact for print subscription sales, by only delivering potential customers who are willing to pay, and not those simply searching for free content. Paid online content should also help retention; there is little point working hard to recruit a new subscriber and then giving away all the online content they like.
PPC can be used in a variety of other tactically focused ways, perhaps to capture seasonal or event driven editorial and marketing opportunities such as “the budget” for newspapers, “the champions league” coverage for a sports magazine or “the Oscars” for a film mag.
It’s vital for publishers to connect with willing subscribers in order to continue securing revenue for print and online properties. PPC lends itself well to this task, allowing a publisher and its search agency partner to create a highly focused and tactical search campaign, delivering subscribers who are willing to pay, to the most appropriate products and content.
And remember, content is king. If content has value, real or perceived, then a publisher should be able to monetise it, either through subscriptions or ad revenues.