What Happens to Direct Search When You Add Programmatic? | Adam Mark

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Here on Simpli.fi TV, we highlight thought leaders in digital marketing, providing you with wisdom that will help your clients grow, help your business grow, and help you grow as an individual. Our guest today is Adam Mark. Adam has been working in digital advertising since Yahoo's paid search business was larger than Google's. He started his career with the Yellow Pages, and from there he spent over a decade in TV advertising, transitioning over time from traditional advertising to digitally focused roles. He has been with 2060 Digital since 2017. As an area manager, he works with 2060's team of client development specialists to build holistic digital marketing strategies for hundreds of businesses across the country. Adam, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Adam Mark: Thank you, David. David McBee: I'm excited to talk to you about this concept of combining search engine marketing and programmatic media. And I want to let our listeners know that you and I already kind of chatted about this briefly, but the conversation went so well I felt like it would make for a great episode of Simpli.fi TV. So talk to me about your insights for combining SEM and programmatic media. Adam Mark: Well, it's kind of funny, when we did have that brief conversation, I hadn't even thought about the idea that we would do paid search without other elements. Paid search is a tactic, and it's a valuable one, and it's one that's the strategy for many of our clients, if not almost all of them. But we never do it by itself because it's not a strategy. So that really had me thinking since we spoke about adding programmatic isn't really something that we do. It's part of what we do almost every time. David McBee: All right. So if that's your go to, why? Why do you believe so strongly that those are two things that need to be a part of every campaign? Adam Mark: Well, I mean, for us, and we've talked about this briefly, since around 2018, I think the first thing that we see as a must, and our clients are mostly local, regional, mostly brick and mortar businesses or service industry businesses. So map rankings are a huge thing for us. It's one of our focal points. That's usually step one in the process. And then budget, need, current strengths and weaknesses is where we start to piece together the rest of those elements. And whether it's programmatic display or video on YouTube, our ability to get in front of the right people with the right data, and based on Google search, everything starts with Google search, but our budgets typically go further in programmatic and allow us to get more visibility for our clients than they do in paid search. So with paid search with toys and exercise that we do, you've got 30.4 days on average in a month. So when we look at our forecasting tools and we see what the cost per click is and what the competitive nature of that market, that industry is, you have to start to do that daily map and say, do we have enough budget to sustain a pay per click strategy? And a lot of instances, a smaller advertising and digital budget doesn't necessarily lend itself to having success in that, what is inevitably a low percentage math equation of turning pay-per-click budget into traffic, and then into leads. David McBee: I like how you said everything starts with Google search. And I agree, I've kind of told the story that at the very top of the purchase funnel, somebody does a Google search, but they're not ready to buy. That's just them diving into the topic or the product. And then we have all this time and energy that they spend as they narrow down their decision. And that's where programmatic plays its role. But then you've got to have a good presence on Google in order to capture them at the very bottom as well. Do you agree? Adam Mark: Yeah. And it's different from industry to industry. You look at two very, very similar services that cross over in a lot of instances, plumbing and heating and cooling, which we do a lot of work. Plumbing's pretty immediate. A lot of times we're not branding plumbers as much as we want to be there when somebody has an emergency. Heating and cooling's a different thing. The consumers tending to put band aids on things with their furnace and HVAC, and they're in market longer. So it definitely changes from industry to industry. And some have a higher need and more importance placed on that lead based, immediate, that type of advertising that we see in pay-per-click. But it all has its place, it's just really about the ratios and how it fits into the program. David McBee: Can you share an example of a time when you had a client ad programmatic and it helped their campaign, or maybe they took away programmatic and you noticed it hurt it? Adam Mark: Yeah, I think we've seen, as I mentioned, we look at maps and we look at the data that Google's been providing for the last four or five years in terms of direct search, people looking specifically for that business by name, discovery search, which is keyword based, and then branded search, which is the brands that they carry. And when we see programmatic added, we've seen many, many times where everything else is the same store in terms of their marketing mix, then we see an increase in that direct search, which people are looking for them by name, which is what every every outreach type of advertising, whether it's programmatic or TV or radio, is designed to get more people to look for you by name. And we've definitely been able to draw lines to that. David McBee: You said something last time we chatted about the click-through rate of an SEM campaign. And even if it's good, it's not that good. What was that again? Adam Mark: Yeah, the search, like I said, everything starts with a Google search, but it's not all about paid search because paid search is just a piece of that puzzle. You have in many industries, local service ads, then paid search, then maps, then organic. And if you're only focused on that one thing you might be in trouble elsewhere. And I think what we say on our team is, even when you're winning, you're losing at paid search. Because a good click-through rate on a non-branded, non-direct search, it's 8%, 10% in a lot of industries. And you're not showing up for a hundred percent of the searches. So you start to do the math on that, 95% of the time, someone's definitely not clicking on your ad. So you need to be strong in those other places. And part of that is showing up with targeted advertising, using the right data after they've done the search for the next two or three weeks, whatever the time period is that somebody's in market. So yeah, it's not a fix it all for us by any means. David McBee: I really love that. Thank you for sharing that. All right. One final question before I let you go. Do you have a favorite book, podcast, or mentor that has influenced your success? Adam Mark: I listen to a lot of podcasts, and Freakonomics is one that, it's been a favor of mine for a long time. And I think it doesn't necessarily dive directly into marketing and what we do, but if you think about things as an economist and the way they frame many, many different types of topics, I think it's definitely affected my work over time and the way I think about things. So that's, I'd say easily my favorite podcast. David McBee: And that's all based on a book too, right? I think I remember reading that a decade ago or something like that. Adam Mark: Yeah, yeah, they've written a couple of books and the podcast continues to be produced, so that's a good one for sure. David McBee: Awesome. All right. Well thank you very much, Adam, for being my guest today. I appreciate you Adam Mark: Absolutely. Great talking to you. David McBee: And thank you guys for joining us. I'm David McBee. Be awesome and we'll see you next time.