It was Christmas in April at CBUSDAW! Not because it has been snowing again, but because Rob Barto from Search Discovery came down from the far north (Cleveland) with the gift of paid search knowledge for any big event on your business’ calendar. But really, it can also stop snowing now.

Speaking of calendars, before Tim introduced his fellow Discoverer Rob he ran down our local upcoming analytics events:

• • Columbus MeasureCamp — 4/28 (Saturday), spread the word!
  • Market Research Exchange of Central Ohio Spring Event — 4/20 (tomorrow!) at Ross Auditorium
  • CBUSDAW’s May event — 5/16 with Mike Amer
  • University of Cincinnati Analytics Summit — 5/14-5/16

First Rob ran down some quick hits on overall strategy like: plan ahead as far as you reasonably can, but be prepared to pivot quickly once your campaigns actually get going (so is he Santa Claus or Clausewitz? I’m getting my metaphors mixed up). Then Rob ran through a set of 3 detailed case studies showing some pretty incredible holiday results in both paid search and SEO.

Rob pointed out that while indeed some of these results were pretty eye-popping (1,000% lift anyone?!?!) good results are not usually the result of a single magic marketing bullet, but a full-court press across all possible angles of paid search and SEO. Want to do great on Black Friday? Well, you better start thinking about how you might approach that this Friday, and start thinking about all the different things that might help you do so, like maybe:

• Offline conversion tracking
• AdWords dynamic search ads
• Timers in ads showing how long until an event happens or how long an event has left
• More logical and actionable account structures
• Smarter retargeting (like not showing ads to someone who has already purchased, or bidding more on existing customers, etc.)

Getting fantastic results like the ones Rob showed might require getting all of those items right and then some, or it might be something totally different for you! It’s a question of taking best advantage of the tactics that might fit your campaign and product best and then testing those ideas and working with the client.

To complete the holiday theme Tim then proceeded to hand out gifts for good questions from the audience, though let’s face it, they all were pretty good questions!