13 Jul 2011: A survey of 300 UK-based digital marketers in April this year discovered that the majority of recipients admit that they don’t know which words gain optimum returns campaign-wise. The ‘Natural Search, Paid Search & Social Media Integration’ report looked into the benefits to sharing keywords and phrases across digital channels, the role of technology in managing, reporting and implementing digital campaigns, and the need to simplify benchmarking against, and understanding of, competitor data

Measuring performance for terms at a granular level and discovering new high value keywords is always challenging for most marketers. However, the survey shows that teams sharing terms between disciplines display greater confidence in dealing with them when compared to their peers working in isolation.

Those that do are more confident with the keywords and phrases in their campaigns reaching their target audience (73% vs. 64% of the general sample and 54% of those that do not share keywords). Additionally, their team is 'on trend' when handling new keyword trends (47% vs. 42% of the general sample and 28% of those that do not share terms).

Although most respondents (55%) answered 'no' when asked about knowing which new words or expressions are worth spending money on, there was a noticeable difference between these subgroups: of those that share terms, over half replied 'yes' (54%); whereas a great majority of those that do not share terms answered 'no' (80%).

The use of technology in online marketing has become ubiquitous.  However, marketers are in need of a more consolidated technology landscape where single-task tools can be replaced by more comprehensive multi-functional systems. Some 29% of respondents to Hydra’s survey indicated under 50% of their needs are met by their current toolset.  Unsurprisingly, however, those with a greater number of tools (10 or more) had the highest percentage (39%) of replies within the '75+% of needs met' band. In contrast, a resounding majority (90%) saw an advantage in having digital teams use a common reporting and campaign implementation platform. 

Benchmarking performance against competitors is crucial for most online marketers, says Hyrda,  yet there is a need for facilitating access to competitor information. The majority of respondents (77%) regularly benchmark their site against competitors.  This was relatively consistent regardless of the number of keywords they managed. However, 56% admitted accessing competitor data was either 'moderately difficult' or 'difficult'; the most prevalent answer across the whole sample was 'moderately difficult' at 45%. Those with tens of thousands of keywords displayed the highest percentage of respondents finding access to competitor data 'moderately difficult'.

“Hydra's survey shows teams that share terms and work collaboratively have greater confidence in their success than those who don't because they can consider the whole picture”, says Ruth Zohrer, Solutions Consultant at Hydra. “Across the board, however, there is an obvious desire to gain greater insight into competitor data easily and efficiently. These two challenges justify their request for better, more comprehensive technology that meets most of their needs: an all-encompassing solution that can replace a set of multiple tools.”

In response Hydra has launched the One Platform to enable enterprise marketers to strategically and proactively monitor, report and participate in the conversation existing and potential customers are having about their brand online.