Make the most effective purchase and management decisions with a holistic approach to paid and natural search.

Back in March, I wrote here about the importance of finding the right measure of paid and natural search optimization services, the point being that relying exclusively on one or the other makes little sense from either a budgeting or strategic standpoint. The goals that smart marketers are driving toward, especially using a highly targeted medium like search, are maximizing brand visibility and customer acquisition while minimizing spend.

Put another way, for marketers, search answers the question of what they want their brand to be known and found for every day. The combined pull of paid and natural search is an effective way for companies to market themselves into the perceptual zone of their target audiences. The larger question is how to optimize the balance of where marketing budgets and efforts are focused.

Many companies approach search from an either/or perspective (i.e., they implement either a paid or natural search campaign). Consequently, the two strands of search largely have developed in independent silos, using different keyword selections, technologies, success metrics and ROI standards. We know that silos are bad, and that they typically obscure the potential for holistic approaches. Sure enough, there is an opportunity for integration to be had here, one that can pay dividends, create efficiencies and lead to a scalable search marketing solution. However, it requires a re-think of the current approach to paid media management, from the research and planning phase right through the campaign lifecycle.

The importance of pre-campaign research and analytics is not to be underestimated. It was a central point that came up at the keynote session I chaired at the DM Days conference in New York City last week. What marketers should be trying to do is pre-qualify the keywords they select based on conversion histories, in essence reducing the need for extensive keyword testing. The tools for performing the analysis necessary for keyword research and selection are improving but what they currently lack is the ability to analyze and quantify pre-click data, link that to post-click performance and then tie the whole package together with cost. As a result, marketers using paid search only get a portion of the picture they need to make the most effective purchase and management decisions.

Let's skip ahead to the implementation phase. Paid media campaigns, once defined, typically are managed on a keyword or keyword grouping rules basis or on a portfolio basis. In any case, keywords or groups of keywords are expected to meet measures of effectiveness or cost, usually according to their return on advertising spend (ROAS). Both of these approaches address scalability issues with a considerable degree of effectiveness. However, what would make them stronger overall is the capacity to take into account the impact of natural search results on traffic and conversions. Fully leveraging historic data on natural search conversion rates can round out a model that can accurately predict ROI, reduce campaign costs and help to build a portfolio of keywords that will maximize performance.

The key to building this more effective model is looking at paid and natural search holistically, so that they share common technology and keyword selection is informed by analytics from both campaigns. Consider the fact that if optimization for a given keyword or set of terms produce the same levels of conversion as a paid media campaign for the same keywords, marketers could reduce their spend on those terms and reallocate monies to other keywords, all without sacrificing the effectiveness of their campaign. While it is true that integration has become an oft-quoted buzzword, there are steps marketers can take with their agencies to make integration a profitable driver of success.

Noah Elkin, Ph.D., is vice president of communications at iCrossing. Read full bio.