August 2012

Turning
Complexity Into
Opportunity:
Seven Factors to Consider
When Choosing a Search Bid
Optimization Platform
A White Paper for Large-Scale Search Marketers and Agencies

White Paper
Seven Factors to Consider When Choosing a Search Bid Optimization Platform

Contents
Executive summary

3

The increasingly complex search marketing landscape

3

The critical role of automated bid optimization

3

The bid optimization process

4

Evaluating a bid optimization platform

5

Factors to consider when selecting a bid optimization platform:

5

1. Can I state my goals to match how my business really works?

5

2. How fresh is the data that’s used in making bid decisions?

6

3. Is your platform smart enough to make a difference in my campaigns?

7

4. Is your platform fast enough to make a difference in my campaigns?

8

5. How often do you refine your algorithms?

9

6. How much control will I have?

9

7. How do you help me get better results?

10

Performance Bidding Suite from DoubleClick Search

10

Conclusion

12

3

White Paper
Seven Factors to Consider When Choosing a Search Bid Optimization Platform

Turning Complexity Into Opportunity:
Seven Factors to Consider When Choosing a Search Bid Optimization Platform

Amidst a continually changing and increasingly complex digital landscape, search marketers, more than ever, are turning to search management platforms to streamline workflows and deploy high-impact campaigns. This paper gives an overview of the search bid optimization process and its benefits, and then discusses seven key factors that marketers should consider when evaluating different search bid optimization engines.
The increasingly complex search marketing landscape
In its early days, search marketing was relatively simple: all campaigns were aimed at the desktop, and search marketing offerings were basic. As technology evolved and search matured as a medium, however, new opportunities rapidly became available. Today’s campaigns run on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, with a multitude of new ad formats and targeting options to connect with users in even more relevant ways.
All this, against a backdrop where the overall scale of search continues to expand. Since 2003, 450 billion unique queries have been answered by Google alone.1 Further, 16% of these searches seen by Google each day are new,1 meaning marketers must constantly refine and expand their keyword lists. Today, the average large-advertiser account has close to 100,000 keywords,1 while some of the largest advertisers are managing keywords in the millions.
For a search marketer, these new opportunities translate to more complexity, more tools to choose from, and more campaigns to manage than ever before. Yet the goal marketers are looking to achieve is largely the same: to run high-impact campaigns that deliver strong business results for minimal time and effort. At the core, this means mapping the right keyword to the right ad linked to the right landing page to deliver the best possible results at the lowest possible cost—and do it all effectively as part of their broader digital marketing efforts.
But human staff trying to use manual methods for bid optimization are quickly overwhelmed: manually navigating the complex permutations needed to find optimal bids across thousands of keywords is nearly impossible. This is where bid optimization platforms can play a critical role.

The critical role of automated bid optimization
The scale of today’s search marketing demands an automated platform with powerful bid optimization that can analyze massive amounts of data across millions of keywords, and generate smart bids that maximize results—all in the blink of an eye.
1

Google internal data, 2012

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White Paper
Search optimization platforms can turn this complexity into opportunity. Ideally, these platforms provide a suite of functions that help search marketers take advantage of new opportunities and, at the same time,
streamline