AdCenter Blog

Use keyword targeting to get more visitors to your web site

In our last blog post, we talked about using the Custom Report feature to see how many visitors you were attracting to your web sites.  Today, we'll talk about the Targeting Options to help you get more visitors.  We'll also talk about how to use targeting to narrow or expand the audience you are reaching with your ads.

What is Targeting?

So what is Targeting, anyways?  It's a fancy marketing term we use to identify which prospects you want your ad to be shown to.  By using different types of targeting, you reach a different audience.  When it comes to advertising, audience is everything -- you want to reach potential paying customers and new visitors.  That's your audience!

In the LookSmart AdCenter, you can reach different prospects in several ways.  In this blog post, we're going to focus on visitors who are using web search on LookSmart's network of partner sites.

When you target your ads to display on web search results pages, we say you are using Sponsored Search.  Customers are looking for something when they search -- maybe they're looking for the product or service you offer on your web site.

Using Targeting Options to Expand or Narrow Your Audience

Sponsored Search can be targeted in a few ways.  In the text below, we'll use a ficticious ad for a site called MP3 Reviews (see Figure 1 below) to illustrate our examples.

• Broad Match

  Broad Match  is the most common way to reach your prospects through Sponsored Search.  You'll use this option to get access to the broadest audience possible.

  Let's say you've got a web site called MP3Reviews.example.com and you want to reach all visitors searching for mp3 players.  Using Broad Match, you can add the keyword "mp3 player" to your campaign, and any visitor searching for "mp3 player", "flash mp3 players", and "80 gigabyte mp3 players" may see your ad.

  We call this Broad Match because you only have to choose a few words, like "mp3 player", and this will broadly match any Search.com visitor using those words in any combination.  It's a great way to get access to a big audience quickly.

• Negative Match

  Negative Match is used in combination with Broad Match.  So-called "negative keywords" narrow your audience by filtering out visitors who use certain keywords in their searches.  This helps refine your targeting by limiting the scope of how broadly your ad is shown.

  In our example, let's say we want to reach Search.com visitors who are looking for "portable media players" (see Figure 2).  But portable media players could include prospects searching for antique 8-track players or simple cassette players.

  To refine the audience of your advertisement, add negative keywords like "cassette" or "8-track".  Now, a visitor might search for "portable digital media players" and see your advertisement, but they will not see your ad if they search for "8-track media players".

• Smart Match

  Smart Match is the most refined of all targeting, and the most restrictive.  When you bid on a keyword like "mp3 players" with Smart Match, you'll reach only those visitors who search for that term exactly, plus a view minor variations.  A visitor searching on Search.com for "mp3 player" or "mp3 players" would see your advertisement, but a visitor using "portable mp3 player" would not.

Yes, that was a mouth full.  There's a lot to learn about targeting, and we've just skimmed the surface.  Here are few tips to guide you.  We'll also go deeper into this subject in our next few blog posts.

1. Use Broad Match keyword targeting to increase the number of visitors to your site.

2. Use Negative Match keywords to refine (reduce) the number of visitors coming from your Broad Match keywords.

3. Use Smart Match keywords to be extremely precise in your targeting. 

Use LookSmart's keyword suggestion tools to get ideas for as many terms as you can.

We welcome your comments and your feedback.  LookSmart's customer service is available by e-mail and toll-free by telephone at 877-512-LOOK, so give us a call if you need help figuring out how to get the most of your advertising dollars.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Figure 1: Review Targeting

Figure 2: Add Targeting

How can I tell if my ads are getting clicked on?

The LookSmart AdCenter has a feature called Custom Reporting that lets you see just how many visitors you've reached with your pay-per-click text ads.

Each time your ad appears on one of the sites in LookSmart's network, your future customers have the opportunity to click on that ad to check out your offer.  Custom reporting tells you how many prospects did this and for which of your campaigns or keywords.

Custom reports come in a variety of forms (see Figure 1 for an example):

• Account reports give you a aggregate view of all of your clicks from all of your open accounts.  If you have only one account, the Campaign and Keyword reports will provide information specific to campaign and keyword clicks.
• Campaign reports show total clicks and costs for each of your campaigns.  This report is a great way to get status on all of your efforts to reach new customers.
• Keyword reports show you performance detail down to the targeting level.  LookSmart supports keyword targeting for search results pages, and contextual targeting for content pages your prospects visit.  Use this report when it's time to optimize your campaigns at a very detailed level.

Custom reporting helps you figure out how well your advertising as doing and can give you insights into where you need to spend time optimizing your ad copy, changing your keywords, or modifying your bids.  In our next blog post, we'll look at ways to improve your keyword targets to get more visitors to your web site.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net

Figure 1: Custom Reports

Can I update all of my bids at one time?

The AdCenter makes it easy for you to update your keyword bids through the Bulk Tools system.  With Bulk Tools, you can download all of your ads and keywords into a spreadsheet, make the changes you wish, and upload them back into the system.  The system uses comma-separated-values files which open easily in many popular spreadsheet programs and text editors.

To make bulk changes to your keyword bids:

1. Log into the LookSmart AdCenter using your e-mail address and password.
2. Click on the Manage Ads link that appears at the top of the page when you click on the Ads tab.
3. Click the Bulk Upload Tools button near the ad listings that appear near the bottom of the screen.
4. Under the heading labeled Step 1: Download choose Edit Targeting from the pull-down menu and click the Download button.
5. Your browser may prompt you with a download window.  If you are asked, save the file to your desktop or wherever you commonly save files you download from the Internet.  Keep your browser open for now.
6. If you are downloading a large number of keywords, the system will add your request to a queue that will be processed by the server.  You will be taken to a page called the Bulk Upload Tools: File Status.  From this page, you'll be able to download your file once your request has been completed.  When the download is finished, click the Bulk Upload Tools button to return to the Bulk Tools screen.
7. Edit the file you downloaded in your favorite spreadsheet or text editor.  For each bid you need to update, make your change in the Max CPC column and save the file.  Repeat this as necessary until you have changed all of the bids you wish to.
8. In your web browser, locate the heading labeled Step 2: Upload.  Make sure the pul-down menu has Edit Targeting selected.  Use the file upload form to locate the file you edited and click the Upload button.
9. You will be taken back to the Bulk Upload Tools: File Status page.  You may reload this page to see the status of your request update.  When your bids have been processed, you will see the word Complete appear in the Status column for your request.

Check out this video to see an on-screen of this feature.

Allen Hammock
Product Marketing Manager
allen.hammock@looksmart.net