PPC Bid Management Tools

I recently had to do some research on PPC Bid Management Tools. Here are my findings. there are many other solutions out there as well. Feel free to put in your two sense.

SEM in a Box:

• New Tool aimed at agencies that have multiple accounts to manage or larger accounts. Developer Token is required.
• Non Automatic bidding
• Non-portfolio approach
• Offers insights & recommendations on the keyword, adtext, & adgroup level. You CHOOSE whether or not to implement them
• Imports Google, Yahoo accounts and has easy to use interface
• Allows you to set up on the “Initiative” Level
• Initiative can be set as Target CPC or Target CPA in other words makes it ideal for managing accounts with different price points in a product line.
• Uses developer token on MCC to pull down past report data
• Contains the Following Toolsets within:

1. Campaign Converter – Google >>> Panama
2. Competitive Landscape – Will provide you with what URLs are bidding on your terms
3. Keyword Finder
4. Top Keywords - see the ads for each of your top-performing keywords alongside the ads of your competitors
5. Keyword Grouper – experimental feature

• Reporting – Create Reports based on Initiatives
• Downside – Takes while to manually set initiatives
• Upside – to date the best job of integrating the many area of search marketing into one place.
• Price $399 Per month, per implementation (URL)


Keyword Max: ( I would not Get it)

• Make sure to use the trial first
• Only supports Google & Yahoo
• Keyword minimums & tiers, constraints on actions
• Read the forums before purchasing -

http://forums.seochat.com/seo-tools-75/keywordmax-90528.html


Inceptor Bidcenter or IDEARC

Conceptually I think inceptor comes across as a great solution. It allows you to set targets while taking into account you margins on particular items, or allows you to manage on CPA across many different tiers. Main problem with it is: It overwrites your URLs; this causes a major headache with adwords by causing a serious editorial nightmare. Bottom Line. Lots of Kinks.

• Inceptor integrated Adwords, Yahoo, MSN: A very enticing package
• Uses a portfolio approach - allows you to group terms in your own way. We would suggest by category or price point
• Attempts to service Google, MSN, and Yahoo and allows you to manage not just keyword bids, but adtext, & adgroups.
• Allows you to push over efforts from Google to YSM, & MSN,
• Allows you to set goal targets bases on the following:

• ROAS
• CPA
• CPC
• Traffic

• Rewrites all of your URLS which causes editorial nightmare
• Has a custom tracking pixel that can capture revenue & Conversions on their end, it uses this pixel to make decisions on successes or failures NOT what the engine says
• Has a lot of neat features but overall it is clunky and slow and it is not real time so there is a constant melee with their unresponsive support team
• Conceptually it was on the ball

Omniture Search Center

I have never used omniture, but it sounds good on paper. I think it probably does a nice job of managing bids; I am just unsure of how it works with goal setting, and managing on ROI. I bet it does a good job with maintaining rank and tracking profitability.

• All in one solution does analytics & auto bid management
• Tracks paid search and Organic Data
• Does not provide suggestions
• Automate keyword strategies and processes to your specifications
• Target keyword marketing by demographics, behavior and lifetime value
• Maximize keyword performance with integrated Web analytics
• Improve cross-channel marketing results
• Improve overall effectiveness
• Engines supported:
• Click fraud monitoring
• Allows management across 40 different search platforms