Integrate Search and Display Advertising to Boost ROI

By Paul M. Wilson

When integrated, search engine marketing (SEM) and online display advertising can deliver far greater results than the same campaigns planned in isolation. In fact, a recent study from Forrester and iProspect (my firm) shows exactly that.

Conceived to examine the relationship between search and display, the study found that almost as many internet users initially respond to an online display ad by conducting a search (27 percent) as directly click on the ad (33 percent). Furthermore, not only are their searches related to the company, product or brand in the ad, but when latency is factored in, that 27 percent jumps to 49 percent.

These findings underscore the importance of integrating SEM and display advertising. Clearly, display is driving demand, while search is capturing the demand it creates. This dynamic has important implications for marketers. To fully capitalize on it, marketers should support display efforts with SEM to boost overall return on investment.

In other words, consider search as a form of insurance for your investment in display ads. Failure to integrate the two could result in missing nearly 50 percent of your audience.

Seeing it in Action
A luxury bath, body and hair care retailer was struggling with the same challenge many marketers face today: its SEM and display campaigns were managed by separate teams who rarely communicated their efforts to one another. By working closely with the two teams, we were able to outline an integrated approach that would achieve each of the team's individual goals (this element was crucial to attaining their buy-in).

The campaign was designed to retarget customers who visited the company's retail website but didn't convert on the site. It had two core elements: (1) an open ad network for better control over the sites to be used for display ads, and (2) message and product offerings were integrated between the display ads and SEM creative.

Ultimately, this integrated campaign produced a 185 percent increase in conversions compared to the search-only campaign that ran prior to this effort. This represented a $1 million increase in revenue over six months.

Making it Happen
Here are five tips to help you integrate your SEM and display advertising efforts.

1. Start with integrated planning. Think about what you're trying to accomplish with your marketing campaign. Often, marketers view display ads as a branding mechanism and SEM as a capture mechanism. Actually, each is more versatile and can be deployed in creative ways to help you achieve a unified marketing goal. When integrated effectively at the planning stage, they enable you to achieve greater overall ROI. Don't plan display and search campaigns in isolation. The key is to outline your overarching campaign goals, then align the specific display and search execution in a complementary workflow towards those goals.

2. Define your funnel coverage. When you set up your campaign, structure it to sufficiently cover the customer funnel. Cover the upper part of the funnel by driving awareness and expanding your reach via display ads, video ads, a content network and site targeting in a branding capacity. In parallel, test broader "head" terms in your search campaigns. Address the middle part of the funnel by supporting consideration through your search campaign, as well as through behavioral targeting and display retargeting. The lower part of the funnel focused on the purchase is best supported by a long-tail search campaign. Post-sale retention can be addressed through search and nonsearch retargeting campaigns.

3. Ensure a consistent user experience. Consistent messaging throughout an online marketing campaign typically produces higher conversion rates. To that end, make sure the theme of the search campaign is in line with the display campaign. Check that the messaging of the display campaign and the language used in the copy match the keywords you're buying for search. Make sure the keywords searched for will have appropriate creative and will lead to landing pages designed to guide searchers to their desired action. And close the circle by designing the landing pages of the search campaign to be aligned with those of the  display campaign.

4. Leverage search remarketing/retargeting. Google and Yahoo enable you to target defined audiences of searchers through follow-on display advertising, matching the ad to the searcher's expressed interests. This means you can advertise to people who've qualified themselves by conducting a search on keywords that matter to you. Search remarketing/retargeting enables you to target those who don't convert with appropriate offers, and to upsell/cross-sell those who do convert. With Google, you can target display ads at searchers who click on your search ads. With Yahoo, you can take it one step further by targeting searchers for whom your ads have merely appeared on the search engine results page.

5. Track and analyze across channels. Track across channels and analyze the results of your search and display campaigns holistically. Analysis of online marketing campaigns is often done in silos, but this can lead to misinformed decisions. For example, a display ad may not produce clickthroughs, yet may still play a critical role in influencing a purchase. Therefore, establishing attribution models to track search, display, direct navigation, email and other channels is critical to drawing the proper insights into what's actually working and how it fits into your broader marketing mix.

The Bottom Line
Integrating search and online display advertising campaigns will deliver more revenue than executing them separately. Marketers who fail to integrate the two aren't maximizing their potential revenue and are leaving money on the table. In today's economy, who can afford to do that?

Paul M. Wilson is chief revenue officer at search engine marketing firm iProspect (paul.wilson@iprospect.com).