Rack up another SmartSearch client. The Home Depot launched today, both within Google and Yahoo!, a very store focused and localized SEM campaign. Here is a live search results page that currently features a Home Depot SmartSearch ad and here is the unique dynamic landing page that the user is directed to upon click.
Many thanks to Reprise Media in NYC (The Home Depot’s search agency) for deeply working with the ShopLocal to make this possible. By working as partners serving the same client/advertiser (e.g., The Home Depot), we were collectively able to bring all of the following behind-the-scenes integrations live:
- Reprise Media’s search engine tracking / bidding optimization via Omniture
- Home Depot’s web analytic tracking via Coremetrics
- ShopLocal’s web analytic tracking via WebTrends
Below are a few visuals that show this new localized search program in action.
Here is a screen shot of The Home Depot Google ad for "Garden Supplies" within the Norfolk, VA market.
The SEM ad title is dynamically generated, as well as numerous ad copy points (4 in this case) and the landing page URL
Finally, if a user did in fact click on the Google text ad, they would be taken to this circular page view which features the highest density of "Garden Supplies" items
So from the initial roll out point of just one single market (Kansas City), the JCP search team has seen results worthy enough to increase the size of the campaign by 6X! Wish that we could share more specific metrics of success, but got to maintain client confidentiality. Just use some basic logic here t to think through the fact that no one would dial-up their advertising investment level in today’s economy without solid results.
Even rolled out a small incremental improvement within this expanded SmartSearch campaign that includes relevant and customized per unique word the display URL. So in this example, since the keyword was "Kids Clothing", the display URL shows up as "JCPenney.shoplocal.com/kids"
Live markets for JCP within Yahoo! & Google:
- Atlanta
- Denver
- Houston
- Kansas City
- Milwaukee
- Sacramento
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The team actually did it. After months of internal R&D, the first SmartSearch campaign is finally live on Google for JCPenney (only for the Kansas City DMA currently) and on Yahoo!. This marks a historic day here at ShopLocal as the SmartSearch product allows for fully automated, localized search engine marketing (SEM) on both Google & Yahoo!. Below is an actual screen shot from a Google search result page for the keyword “womens apparel” that comes back with a SmartSearch paid in the top paid position:
The SmartSearch ad on this LIVE Google search result page is the very first paid ad in the top ranked spot. Note that within this particular screenshot the organic search results are from Chicago, but all of the paid ads are from the Kansas City DMA area due to fact that ShopLocal is located in Chicago
And here is what a user would see if they actual clicked on the Google ad:
Notice how the SmartCircular landing page is loaded with localized, relevant content to the search term "womens apparel".
And just to be fair to our good friends over at Y!, here is how the same live SmartSearch campaign shows up within a Yahoo! search results page (SRP) for the keyword “bedding” within the Kansas City geo-location:
The SmartSearch ad for JCP is showing up in the fourth (4th) position in the paid search portion within Yahoo! currently
A few of the most notable differences between this specific search effort and all the rest of the pack of typical paid search campaigns is:
- Hyper-Local Focus so that a retailer’s store foot print drives where the ads will be shown and what content will be within any given ad. So if there are no “shoes” on sale within some store locations, then those underlying geographies of the country would not get targeted with a search keyword of “shoes”
- In-Store Focused Conversion instead of the typical online or eCommerce sale based conversion. This type of paid search campaign is not intended to drive online orders, but rather shoppers into local stores that make purchases offline
- In-Store Sale Based Content as the circular or weekly ad is the underlying source of this promotional store focused set of keyword ads. This helps leverage this core existing offline assets
- Full Automation of the creation of all the localized keywords, ad copy and landing page URLs. Once a set of ad copy templates are setup and agreed to by the client and/or agency, this entire process of determining what keywords should be active for what markets and what the associated ad copy and landing page URLs should be is all system driven. The sheer volume of keywords and associated ad copy and landing page URLs would never be possible to be done by humans on a week in and week out basis
Some of the key features that SmartSearch has built in version 1.0 are:
- Fully dynamic and localized search ad copy that can pull in the correct, localized information in regards to:
- # of Items On Sale within the relevant content slice that the keyword pertains to
- Example: 35 Deals (on womens apparel items on sale)
- Relevant & Exact Keyword
- Price Range, from lowest priced item and/or to highest price item of the all the items within the relevant content slice that the keyword pertains to
- Retailer Location, as expressed via a mixture of City Name, State Abbreviation, or ZIP Code
- Example: Shop Your Local K. C. (Kansas City, MO)
- Retailer Name
- Sale End Date of the in-store promotion that this content is being drawn from
- Example: Sale Ends Jun 30
- Auto ad copy template selection so that when some of the above dynamic ad copy variables get too long (total # of characters), the systems gracefully falls back through a series of alternate ad copy templates selecting the one that best fits the dynamic data being thrown at it and at the same time attempting to maximize all available allowable characters within both the headline/title and the description line(s)
- Client specific business rules can be created and applied so that each unique advertiser can tune the ad copy templates and associated landing pages (very powerful)
- Fully dynamic and localized landing page (via a precisely relevant click thru URL) that takes the user deep within the ShopLocal hosted SmartCircular site
- Support for third party bidding and management tools so that search agencies can still use their same tool sets to manage these localized paid search campaigns in a native manner
- Support for both Google and Yahoo! paid search campaigns. The other search engines are not supported currently, but that doesn’t mean too much as they all collectively only represent less than 15% of the overall US search volume as of May 2009 (comScore data)
Here is a practical break down of how the two JSP example (live) ads from both Google and Yahoo! actually breakdown according to the ad copy specifications imposed by each search engine:
- Google AdWords
- Keyword: Womens Apparel
- Headline (25 characters max): Apparel At JCPenney
- Line 1 (35 characters max): 35 Deals Starting At $4 Visit
- Line 2 (35 characters max): Your Local JCPenney By Jun 30
- Yahoo! Search Marketing
- Keyword: Bedding
- Title (40 characters max): Bedding From $5
- Description (70 characters max): Shop Your Local K.C. JCPenney Store. Sale Ends Jun 30.
For another look at what the SmartSearch product looks like in action, you can personally check it out by using the Google Preview Ad Tool. Just click the image above and make sure to enter a keyword of "womens apparel" and select a State location of "Missouri ---Kansas City MO" and you'll get to see localized search in action.
Finally, a special thanks to the JCP and 360i (JCP’s search agency) teams for all working really hard on this launch and making hyper-local paid search a reality.
The built out and launching of the SmartSearch product line has produced some great by-product capabilities. One of which is the on-the-fly, real time creation of dynamic landing page within the SmartCircular sites for paid search visitors. This means that for any given keyword ad (AdWord) within Google for example, a custom assortment or collection of weekly ad items could be assembled within the destination landing page to best fit the keyword(s). Furthermore, SmartSearch clients will be able to choose one of two types of landing pages.
- Result Set Based - This type mimics a typical gridded result set of items that nearly all eCommerce sites on the planet us to display search or browse results. The content shown in this ‘Hollywood Squares’ type of 3 X 3 grid is either category based, brand based or a mix of both category and brand together
- Circular Page Based – This type plays to the traditional printed weekly ad metaphor and drops the inbound visitor within the the circular page that is the best match for the paid keyword search ad that they are coming from
Custom dynamic landing pages allow for on an individual keyword basis, the ability to create an unique assortment of items that span across potentially multiple categories and/or brands so as to maximize the potential of a positive click-thru experience of the visitor that comes to the SmartCircular site via a paid search ad
Specifically, this new dynamic landing page (or one could call it a form of deep linking) capability now allows ShopLocal created SmartSearch ads for Google & Yahoo! to drive any click-thru traffic to the following areas within a SmartCircular site:
- Category Browse Pages which takes the user to the gridded results set page for the requested category(ies) of item(s)
- Brand Browse Pages which takes the user to the gridded results set page for the requested brand(s) of item(s)
- Category + Brand Browse Pages which takes the user to the gridded results set page for the requested category(ies) AND brand(s) subset (or union of all the different content segments) of item(s)
- Circular Page Based Upon A Category which takes the user to the highest density circular page that contains the requested category(ies) of item(s)
- Circular Page Based Upon A Brand which takes the user to the highest density circular page that contains the requested brand(s) of item(s)
- Circular Page Based Upon A Category + Brand which takes the user to the highest density circular page that contains the requested categor(ies) AND brand(s) subset (or union of all the different content segments) of item(s)
There are a few important notes to understand about this new capability:
- Only ShopLocal can setup and use this SmartSearch exclusive feature at this point. This means clients that are not SmartSearch customers will not be able to benefit currently
- Even hidden categories and/or brands can be accessed and made visible via this powerful new method of assembling the right content for the right keyword
- The more unions that are requested, the greater the chance of less or no content. So by trying to find the union (or the overlapping portion) of where Electronic category items AND Homewares category items AND Nike brand items, you will probably only end up with a few items at best.
- Since these custom & dynamic landing pages are all triggered by a simple parameter (called an AdGroupID), the underlying URL does not have to change to change what content is displayed within the landing page. All of this assignment logic of keyword A – gets – content 1 + content 2 + content 3 has been abstracted to a back end ShopLocal system thus allowing near complete flexibility on where any given URL resolves. Making changes to where a link goes no longer requires changing the link itself, but rather just the back end system that manages this mapping and assignment process
Ever wonder how paid search (SEM) could be used to drive shoppers in-store, in a fully localized, dynamic and nearly 100% automated manner? The answer to this key question is SmartSearch by ShopLocal. This is a brand new product that the team has been working on for months and months. Drawing from ShopLocal’s own internal high-volume SEM activity and years of experience dissecting the complexity behind localized (versioned) in-store promotions, the team has really been able to come up with a very flexible and unique approach to create:
- Campaign segment creation within the engines that mirror local price and product assortment versioning
- Building of very dynamic ad copy loaded with location, price and category specific references
- Extremely relevant landing page URL generation
- Automated activation of keyword campaigns so as to be able to “pause” and “un-pause” sets of words based upon that type of item being actual available and on sale locally
So the first public “sneak peek” of this product happened just a few days ago in a recent webinar that Greg Sterling (Principle at Sterling Market Intelligence) and Vikram Sharma (CEO of ShopLocal) hosted on local search.
Greg did a great job of summarizing the insights shared during the webinar in two different blog posts:
Also here are the two presentations that were shared with the wide range of agency and retailer attendees:
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