Steve R Gibson as SEO SEM Manager for skinit.com
- How, Where, How Much you have increased sales and conversion through SEO/SEM?
Lexingtonlaw.com
- Increased sales 200% through the use of PPC (SEM) marketing with Google, Yahoo (Overture) and other PPC devices.
- PPC (SEM) became 70% of our online marketing expenditure.
- Daily spend on PPC (SEM) was approximately $5000 a day between all networks.
- Increased conversion rate by 5% with Google and 7% with Yahoo (Overture)
- Achieved and maintained a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) of $35.00. Previous CPA was $70.00.
- Developed and managed over 10,000 key terms (exact match) across multiple PPC networks.
- Maintained top positioning in a fiercely competitive market where key words/terms averaged $5.00 to $15.00 per click.
- Achieved top natural search rankings for high performing, competitive keywords on Google and Yahoo.
- Developed and moderated display and banner campaigns that met or exceeded CPA requirements.
- Optimized website architecture, landing pages, lead collectors, visitor flow, check out process, faq’s, and other site functions and content via in depth analytics monitoring and testing.
UpperDeck
- Increased online conversion rates to e-commerce store by 8% in the first 3 months of optimization.
- Managed key word/term campaigns on Google, Yahoo and MSN for multiple and diverse product lines including:
- Sports related (NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, Golf, Boxing, UFC)
- Entertainment related (World of Warcraft, Jonas Brothers, Marvel)
- Maintained a variable CPA for a diverse range of products that were priced from $10.00 (Cards) to $10,000 (autographed Jordan, Tiger, Kobe items)
- Developed a flexible and fast online marketing strategy that increased or attenuated our PPC spends and key word/term positioning based on variables such as:
- Team winning or losing.
- Particular players performance (or lack of).
- Awards or recognition given to players (Jordan, Lebron, etc…)
- Scandals or negative PR (Tiger, etc)
- New movie announced (Marvel – Iron Man, X-men, etc…)
- Developed SEO strategy that included blog development and content (http://upperdeckblog.com/), Play Marvel (http://www.playmarvel.com/) and others.
- Increased SEO positions on hundreds of products and product category key word/terms on Google, Yahoo and MSN (Bing)
- Set up and managed PPC campaigns on Facebook for products, players, categories and promotions.
- Orchestrated, developed or managed most social media efforts in conjunction with department heads and product managers.
http://stevergibson.com/2009/12/14/upper-deck-social-media-ranked-1/
- Where, When have you built, managed, optimized, reported results on large PPC campaigns?
- Lexington Law 2001 to 2006
- Upper Deck 2008 to 2010
- Contractual Positions (Not quite as large in terms of spend)
- Special Ops Paintball
- POW (Stan Lee)
- XtremeFit and Krav Maga USA
- Contractual Positions (Not quite as large in terms of spend)
- What is your experience with third-party PPC bid-management applications? Which ones?
I have utilized multiple PPC bid-management tools over the course of my career. There is a vibrant debate within the community concerning the effectiveness and level of control bid tools deliver. In the early days of PPC (Overture), bid management tools were the only way to go unless you had a large and well trained staff.
At present, I believe bid management tools are effective as part of your arsenal but should not be relied on completely for positioning. The most significant and actionable data bid tool delivers are metrics across multiple campaigns, accounts and ad groups. This is data that you can only get through the use of a bid tool or PPC monitoring tool as it pulls and interprets data from different networks.
Some of the bid tools I have used are:
- Bidmax
- Omniture (primarily for monitoring)
- Searchforce
- Acquisio (briefly)
- KeywordMax
- Clicksweeper
- A half dozen others that have been bought up by other companies or closed.
- What is your experience with web analytics?
I have extensive experience with web analytics, data mining, pattern recognition, website analysis, business performance metrics, trending reports, click stream paths, visitor insights, site experience improvement, segmentation, filters, demographic relevance, attribution analysis, automation, A/B testing and so on.
In my view, analytics are the most important aspect of any online business.
Some of the analytical tools I have used include:
- HBX
- Omniture
- Social Sphere Analytics
- Clicktracks
- Coremetrics
- Google Analytics
- Yahoo Web Analytics
- Comscore.com
- Nielsen NetRatings
- Quantcast.com
- Compete.com
- Hitwise
- Microsoft adCenter Analytics
- Web Trends
Most of the above are great tools and will deliver a mountain of data. I am a proponent of focusing on actionable insights. In other words, data that can be tested and optimized to increase sales.
I have worked in and with organizations that spent hundreds of thousands on analytic tools and services but were focused on data collection/reporting instead of optimization. The most significant increases I have achieved have came from refocusing teams/companies on finding insights they can test, measure and optimize.
- Have you managed in-store search? Where?
Yes:
- Upper Deck – http://www.upperdeckstore.com/ – In-store search analytics were a big part of our product development and pricing schedules.
- Special Ops Paintball – http://shop.specialopspaintball.com/
- Eforcity – http://www.eforcity.com/ (as part of a consultant package)
- Lexingtonlaw – http://www.lexingtonlaw.com
- Credit Attorney – http://www.creditattorney.com/
- Multiple (although smaller) E-commerce stores on Volusion, Magento, eBay, Overstock, Procart, Yahoo Shops, etc…
