Secondary Search: Search Marketing’s Best Kept Secret
Secondary search—the implementation of a secondary SEM team to complement existing search campaigns—can do wonders for an organization. But it’s still under the radar for many marketers.
For example, say a large company has a rigorous SEM program that it keeps in-house or out-sources. To gain the benefits of secondary search, the company would engage an entirely new SEM team to bid on keywords with different ad text and landing pages.
There are distinct advantages to such a division of efforts. Primarily, organizations that do so can expect to dominate search engine positions, outmaneuver industry competitors and maximize syndication when the search engines display ads in different media. The idea is similar to a country that puts its best foot forward to win Olympic gold…but also works hard to shore up some silvers and bronzes as well.
Having a second, walled off team allows organizations to do things that would be impossible under a single roof. For example, the major search engines make it very difficult to lock up multiple paid positions within a single search campaign. But a secondary search team makes this an easy-to-achieve goal. An organization’s primary SEM team can concentrate on gaining top placement for primary keywords while a secondary team can focus on lower positions.
Testing is another advantage. Any time an organization can see its primary SEM efforts (the control) compared against an entirely separate campaign (the test), great insight can be gained. Remember, the goal of SEM is not about search engine positioning—it’s about return on investment. What delivers the highest ROI? Paying a premium for higher placement? Paying less for lower placement? Or having both? Only testing can reveal the answer.
And, of course, having multiple suppliers for any business process is the best way of keeping vendors honest. This is even true (maybe especially true) when the ” vendor” is an in-house team. Our clients that utilize secondary search have no qualms about letting us know that our work is being gauged against that of others and that they have readily available benchmarks by which to compare our success or failure.
You may wonder if secondary search is logical in the auction environment that is SEM. Is it really wise to bid against oneself? But consider that since you are bidding up keywords in order to get multiple placement rather than simply premium placement it can make perfect sense. And, if you go into the process with discipline and specific goals—such as your primary team aiming for positions 1-3 and your secondary team aiming for positions 4-6—you can eliminate conflicts.
You might also question whether the search engines are onboard with the whole practice of secondary search. They are. While they don’t care for an organization jamming up primary keywords within a single campaign, they are fine with separate teams with separate budgets on separate campaigns working toward the same goals. When search becomes more granular it facilitates users to find the exact information (and landing pages) they seek. In short, since the user experience is improved, the search engines are content with the practice.
Currently, organizations with large online presences are the ones utilizing secondary search the most. In some cases several different vendors are used, depending upon the scale and complexity of the SEM programs. The central tenet that they follow is that search continues to grow. Since they usually dominate top positions already, they want to be included in that growth as opposed to simply seeing the introduction of more competitors.
Larry Organ is CEO and founder of ConsumerBase LLC.
