Company X Paid Search Analytical Assessment

March 30, 2006 through Dec 31, 2006January 2007

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Overview

• YTD Overview of PPC Campaign• Engine Analysis• Keyword Analysis• Competitive Landscape Analysis• Diminishing Returns Analysis• Overall Recommendations

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Overview 2006 YTD

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Company X Overall PPC Performance 2006

• Company X has an average weekly spend of $61K across two divisions, resulting in average weighted conversions of 973 per week

• Overall, 2H06 performs better than 1H06 with significantly higher average CVR and lower average CPA• This suggests that during 2H06 a higher percentage of users clicking through were

more qualified visitors which is likely attributed to more relevant messaging and landing page redirects as well as keyword expansion

• Q3 has the highest conversion rate (19% higher than the overall CVR) and generates the most conversions among all quarters, resulting in the lowest CPA at $51.75 which is 16% lower than the overall CPA• The lower CTR of 0.66% in Q3 is expected due to the high impression level

resulting from keyword expansion• Q4 has the highest CTR at 1.06% (32% higher than overall CTR) and the second

highest CVR (4.16%)

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Weekly Overall PPC Search Trending

CPA drops significantly during mid May and has stayed rather steady throughout the year

Total weighted conversion line is trending upwards during Q2 and staying steady afterwards with exceptions during the week of 9/11 and in the month of December when the conversion level plummets, likely due to uncontrollable marketplace factors such as seasonality and competition.

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Weekly PPC Search Trending by Division

ABC Group yields more weighted conversions with lower weekly CPA than ABC Group throughout the year. Conversions and CPA for both divisions follow a similar trends.

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Company X PPC Performance by Division

• Q3 across both divisions is the most efficient quarter with the highest average CVR and the lowest CPA • Although ABC Group spend is 79% higher than ABC Group, ABC Group conversions are 3 times as high

as ABC Group conversions• The CVR of the ABC Group campaign is 50% higher than that of the ABC Group campaign• ABC Group commands much greater campaign efficiencies than ABC Group with average

weekly CPA for the former at $52.60 and the latter at $87.87 • YTD, ABC Group CPA is 4% under the CPA goal of $55, while ABC Group is 60% higher than

the CPA goal • The greater volume and efficiency provided by ABC Group justifies this large budget allocation

• While a 6 week conversion lag is found during both Q2 and Q3, Q4 does not demonstrate a strong lag effect, which may be attributed to the seasonality and higher spend level reaching a broader market with a shorter conversion cycle

ABC Group

ABC Group

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Engine Analysis

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Engine Performance 2006 YTD(combined division activity across engines)

• Google and Yahoo! combined receive the majority of spend allocation (96%) • The heavier budget allocation in Google and Yahoo! has resulted in higher impression and

click volume than other engines (95% of total clicks) • This translates into both Google and Yahoo! driving 95% of total weighted conversion

volume• Yahoo is a more efficient engine than Google

• Yahoo’s CVR is 23% higher and Yahoo’s CPA is 26% lower than Google• However, Google is able to yield a higher CTR, contributing to building brand awareness

(132% higher than Yahoo) and extending the advertising reach to a larger segment of the target audience

• The lower CTR of Yahoo! may be attributed to 76% higher impression level than Google

• Compared with other engines, Yahoo SSP has the lowest CPA of $12.87 and the highest CVR of 4.97%• Currently, it is not a volume driver for the campaign, receiving only 0.5% of the spend

budget due to limitations in inventory availability

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Weekly Engine Volume and Efficiency

CPA VariancesGoogle: 44%

Yahoo!: 19%

CPA VariancesGoogle: 9%

Yahoo!: 6%

CPA volatility has stabilized in 2H06

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Engine Performance 2006 YTD(division break-down activity across engines)

• Engine performance metrics are consistent across both divisions, with Google achieving a higher CTR while Yahoo! presents a stronger conversion rate • Within ABC Group, Google requires a higher CPC and yields a lower average

CVR, resulting in a significantly lower efficiency performance level than Google within ABC Group or Yahoo within ABC Group

ABC Group

ABC Group

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Engine Insights

• Google and Yahoo! receive most of the search budget and generate most of the conversions

• Yahoo! provides a better return on investment for Company X in general • Within Google, focus should be placed on increasing the conversion

rate either through more targeted landing pages or creative messaging that limits undesirable click activity and enhances the conversion flow process• Across both divisions, Google’s CTR is superior to Yahoo! but the

engine appears to be unable to turn those active searchers into viable leads

• Within Yahoo!, focus should be placed on increasing the CTR through more targeted creative and/or higher positioning to capitalize on the vast quantity of searches conducted on Company X keywords

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Keyword Analysis

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Keyword 2006 YTD Performance• Overall, Company X has bid on 2,088 search terms across various campaigns

• ABC Group currently maintains a list of 977 keywords, with 1,780 terms active throughout 2006

• ABC Group manages 817 search terms currently and has run on 1,726 keywords YTD• 1,418 terms overlapped between the ABC Group and ABC Group divisions in 2006

• These cross-divisional terms tend to be broad industry terms encompassing concepts like “loan”, “mortgage”, “credit”, “equity”, and ”consolidation”

• Top 20 search terms in the keyword list (1% of the total keywords) account for 35% of campaign spend and for 65% of total weighted conversions

• 1,377 keywords have received no conversion activity and therefore serve to provide pure brand awareness• While generating no conversions, 807 of those keywords cost campaign dollars

• The other 711 search terms with conversion activity are best evaluated utilizing a matrix assessing volume of weighted conversions obtained against the CPA efficiency

• Applying this volume-efficiency matrix, keywords are classified as one of the following:• Stars terms with high volume and high efficiency• Diamonds terms with low volume and high efficiency• Question Marks terms with high volume and low efficiency• Dogs terms with low volume and low efficiency

• The thresholds for determining “high” vs. “low” may be based on either campaign goals or the median performance of the in-market activity• This analysis was executed twice thereby using both evaluation criteria

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Keyword 2006 PerformanceCPA Goal Threshold

Top 20 Terms by Category

* Goal CPA for Company X is computed based on an overall assessment of the 6 different campaign-specific goals.

* Keywords are sorted by the conversion level

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Keyword 2006 Performance

• 570 keywords are searched on but have not generated any costs

• 807 keywords receive no conversion activities but account for $114,860 paid search cost (5% of the total paid search spend)

• Listed in the table on the left are 24 keywords that have more than $1000 in spend but generate no conversions

• These terms are expensive from an ROI vantage point and should be removed from the keyword list • Those terms in bold were

still active in December

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Search Term Insights

• Establishing bidding rules to ensure the two Company X division campaigns are not artificially accelerating the competitive landscape is critical given that about 80% of terms overlap

• Branded keywords continue to make up a large portion of the keyword pool in the Star and Diamond categories due to their cost-efficient nature

• Company X search keyword list is fairly well balanced with a significant number of “stars” and “diamonds” that work to achieve the CPA goal

• Optimizations should look to eliminate dog performance by either decreasing spend on these terms to shift them into “diamond” classification or removing them from the campaign altogether

• Periodic evaluation of “question mark” terms to determine the cost-ABC Group value of higher spend levels to maintain large volume should be completed in order to control CPA

• Keywords with a high spend but generate no conversions should be eliminated and the spend should be shifted to star performing keywords

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Competitive Landscape Analysis

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Competitive Bidding Insights

• In general, ABC Group appears to be more susceptible to abnormal marketplace dynamics than ABC Group• Bidding for ABC Group demonstrates normal marketplace

reactions to bidding adjustments• Search market bidding within the ABC Group campaigns has

exhibited erratic competitive fluctuations, whereby weekly position does not always correlate with CPC bid as expected under “normal” conditions• During the months of June and July, higher bidding

actually results in lower average positions indicating hyper-activity for terms within the ABC Group division

• However, from September to December, with slightly higher CPC, average weekly position holds between 1-3, compared to 6-7 during June and July

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Diminishing Returns Analysis

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Overall Company X Diminishing Returns

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Diminishing Returns Insights

• Diminishing returns analysis provides insight into how much to invest in paid search in order to achieve the campaign goals and the optimal balance between volume and efficiency

• Across both divisions, to achieve a CPA goal of $55, a weekly media spend level of $52K is projected to generate approximately 941 weighted conversions

• Currently, average weekly spend is $61K, generating 973 weighted conversions per week with an average CPA of $62.74• Average weekly spend for 2006YTD is above the spend level

that will reach a target CPA of $55, suggesting that the balance between volume and efficiency has been passed

• Increasing spend across both divisions is projected to yield more conversions; however, the CPA efficiency will further decline with each additional conversion gained

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Analytical Recommendations

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Recommendations

• The balance between volume and efficiency has been surpassed in favor of a volume play for dedicated search budget. Applying the current CPA goals may lead to sub-optimal campaign management as these thresholds seem to be unattainable at the current weekly spend level of about $61k

• A structural change in both campaigns may be explored to increase conversion volume while reducing CPA • A portion of the campaign budget should be shifted to Yahoo! in order

to improve the overall campaign efficiency • Although Google provides a larger funnel of prospects to the

targeted sites, Yahoo! actually has a stronger conversion rate and lower average CPA

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Recommendations continued

• Expanding investment in additional engines may increase overall campaign performance • MSN and Yahoo! SSP have efficient CPA and high conversion rates,

suggesting that there is potential for additional investment in these engines, provided inventory availability

• Adjusting the keyword list regularly to eliminate dogs, harvest diamonds and enhance other opportunities is critical

• Establishing bidding rules to prevent unwarranted marketplace competition due to the overlap between ABC Group and ABC Group should assist in controlling the CPC bids and the positioning of terms within the campaigns