There is no denying that the competition is fierce in PPC today. From small in-house accounts to ones with millions of keywords, it's the new advances in SEM technology that might just make the difference between success and failure. Are there tools you could be using right now to help double your conversions, lower your costs, or save your team hours of time every week?

SES London has brought together 4 search advertising tool experts, including our very own Paulo Maranhao from the UK Microsoft adCenter team, to discuss the merits of the latest SEM tools out on the market today.

The Panel:

• Paulo Maranhao, Search Media Strategist, Microsoft
• Constance "Connie" Stack, VP, Sales & Marketing, WordStream
• Thomas Bindl, SES Advisory Board & Founder & CEO, Refined Labs GmbH
• Kristjan Mar Hauksson, Dir. Search & Online Comm./ Managing Partner, Nordic eMarketing

Paulo Maranhao - Microsoft Advertising

Paulo quickly outlined the search opportunities in the market place today. NNR independent research found:

• 57% of conversions originate from PPC vs SEO
• 50% of the user sessions last 30 minutes or longer
• During search sessions 42% of the time further keyword refinement was needed

With these insights in mind the Microsoft Intelligence Tool can help target these opportunities faster and more efficiently. Examples of functionality Paulo demonstrated included: quickly building out relevant keywords lists and monitoring historical and forecasting future trends on this set of keywords. Reports come with the latest KPI metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTR and the CPCs by match types to help you make more informed decisions regarding your campaigns.

Microsoft Intelligence Tool is free to use and download and sits as a plug-in within Excel. You can learn more about the tool at: LetSearchMakeYouSmarter.com.

Paulo also talked about the Microsoft adCenter Desktop tool (similar to other search engine's tools, so very easy to use and intuitive) which can help you make changes to your adCenter/Bing campaigns in a quicker more time efficient way.

Connie Stack - WordSteam

Great search advertising is like building a house. A good campaign should have a good foundation to start with. Tight structure, effective landing pages, conversion tracking and bids. Having a good structure is mission critical between success and failure.

In the past, keywords tools have found it hard to harness search query reports. Connie spoke about how WordSteam is a keyword tool which simplifies keyword research by pulling data from various sources. It does this by algos which categorises keywords into keyword taxonomies so that a user can then build out campaign structures quickly.

Thomas Bindl - Refined Labs

Thomas spoke about how using web tools was no longer rocket science. Today tools are much more efficient because they:

• enable team-work
• centralised systems (keyword research and management on the go!).
• Save on human resources, more campaigns can be managed by one person.
• Parity across platforms

Kristjan Mar Hauksson - Nordic eMarketing

Kristjan talked about the importance of understanding the competition and being able to harness tools which enable work across different languages. He spoke specifically about how competitive intelligence is key when you want to understand and/or outsmart the opposition. 

More insights to follow at 1.30pm at SES London when Julie Warburton, Client Service Director, Microsoft Advertising (UK), will be partaking in a panel discussion on Paid Search, Content Networks & Display.

Thanks

Kate

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Update: added link to WordStream