Successful Search Strategies for Large Organizations

One of the unique challenges that Rise encounters when working with large organizations that have multiple business units, geographies, or product lines is determining how to manage their paid search campaigns. Given the complexity of organizations that are decentralized, we believe there is a huge opportunity to maximize ROI and gain a competitive edge if your search campaigns run more effectively. In this post, we will discuss the challenges that these types of companies have to deal with on a regular basis and how the right technology can make these issues easier to manage.
 
1. Budget, Goals, and Pacing for Different Business Units
Budget
If you’re responsible for managing the budget of an organization with multiple business units, it can get very complex. And the more business units, the more challenging it can become. For example, we have a client that manages over 1,600 different budgets, which means the digital marketing team has to ensure there is a solid strategy in place to oversee spend for each budget.
 
From our experience, companies with multiple departments tend to have two different philosophies as it relates to budget.

1. Budgets are fluid across different groups and can go to the area that gets the greatest return regardless of the group.
2. Budgets are fixed and must be spent solely in the area it is allocated.

Goals
Similar to each business unit having multiple budgets, each unit may also have unique goals. There are even cases where the goal type is the same across units, but the target is different. For example, one group might want a ROAS of $5 and another group a ROAS of $8. Some departments, though, may have completely different goals where one is focused on ROAS and the other one CPL. When different departments are marketing to customers in various stages of the purchase funnel and using unique KPIs as goals, it is impactful to be able to manage budgets and performance across all initiatives in one view.
 
Pacing
Once you understand the budget and goals for the individual units, it is crucial to be able to manage each accurately on an ongoing basis. Given that most of digital marketing is conducted through a programmatic interface, this is not as simple as it might sound. The need for pacing a client’s budget is to ensure that it is being allocated smoothly during a given time period, while maximizing spend during the times that get the greatest return. And again, the more units you have means the more goals and budgets there are to pace against, and the more difficult it is to have the granular insights needed to see how you are doing for each.
 
2. Keyword Governance
Another challenge is that these companies often have different units wanting to bid on the same keywords. The units either have the exact same products packaged differently or a similar service offering, so both find value in pursuing the same keywords. However, by doing this, the units are only making those keywords more competitive and expensive to win. To solve this, there needs to be a prioritization strategy to determine which business units are allowed to purchase which keywords, as well as a hierarchy for who ranks in what position.
 
3. Multiple Stakeholders
Developing a prioritization strategy can become challenging since there are usually multiple stakeholders with different incentives. For example, the hierarchy created that might be best for the company might not be best for each stakeholder. Understanding how to be an advocate for each stakeholder while still ensuring your strategy is focused on what is best for the company is always a delicate balance. Another challenge when you have multiple stakeholders is that there is a bigger need for strong reporting. Each stakeholder typically needs to have their own reports, and multiple managers will likely need rollup reports.
 
Given the challenges and needs of organizations that are decentralized, it can be difficult for them to find great off-the-shelf technology to solve their complex issues. Conversely, in my opinion, manually trying to create a system to analyze the budget and goals for each department, create a strategy for how to manage multiple business units that want to advertise on the same keywords, as well as ensure that each stakeholder has the reporting and insights necessary is next to impossible. This leaves these types of organizations in a challenging situation.
 
Knowing this is a struggle for many of these types of companies, Rise’s proprietary technology, Connex®, was built to help solve these issues. In one platform, marketers are able to pace against any number of brand categories to more granularly allocate their budget and goals. Connex also allows each stakeholder to create their own reports depending on their individual needs. By having the ability to create personalized reports, everyone is able to see the level of detail needed to ensure their units’ programs are performing well. The best part of all? Connex can do all of this fast. With the ability to manage hundreds, even thousands, of budgets, goals, keywords, and campaigns, Connex can quickly illuminate areas of opportunity to be sure all units are optimizing their programs as efficiently and effectively as possible.
 
If you find yourself struggling with any of the above complexities, contact Rise to learn how we can help tackle these challenges head on.