You've probably heard about the "long tail" in search engine marketing -- the numerous, highly specific, less popular keyword phrases that are a great source of targeted, low cost and high converting visitors.
Executing a "long tail" strategy is critical to campaign success, but don't let it distract you from the power of search's "short head" -- that handful of keywords that drive most of your
cost and conversions.
Leading Search Marketing Software firm Engine Ready analyzed data from a number of Google AdWords accounts to find the average percentage of PPC spend that is generated by an account's
top 10 highest spending keyword phrases.
Based on sample data from the Engine Ready study, the 5 highest spending keyword phrases in a typical account comprised 52% of the total account spend. The 10 highest spending keyword
phrases meanwhile accounted for 60% of the total PPC account spend.
"The results of our study confirm that every search marketer should know what his top 10 highest spending keywords are and be aggressively testing, measuring and evaluating numerous ad
creative and landing page variations," reports Engine Ready's VP of Marketing, Brian Lewis.
Engine Ready's CTO, Jason Miller, goes on to add, "A combined approach of appropriately managing the 'short head' and the 'long tail' of your accounts is obviously a sound strategy."
Mr. Miller's message to online marketers is, "Be sure not to get carried away by the seemingly endless possibilities of the 'long tail' at the expense of your highest spending 'short
head' keyword phrases. Allocate your time and testing resources based on the potential return."
The entire study can be found at http://www.engineready.com or phone: 1 (888) 283-0882