At Razorfish Search we’re wincing in anticipation of the day Larry Page snuffs out Exact Match, a beautiful bit of engineering that delivers EXACTLY what we paid for. If yesterday’s post on the Google Blog — announcing the new default option of including misspellings and plurals with exact match — is any indication, Google is going to slide into evil with a level of transparency and a sense of history that would make an oil company blush.

The post didn’t mention that Google’s new matching is exactly the same as Yahoo’s unlamented “Match Driver,” a factor in advertisers’ preference for Google back in the days when the two companies competed in search. The post also didn’t mention the likely impetus for this change: a surprising 8% year-over-year CPC decline that put a damper on GOOG’s Q4 earnings call. Seems a few too many Google customers found out you can get more conversions for less money with a smart keyword strategy of multiple-match-type buys of the same keywords. (Razorfish didn’t see the 2011 CPC decline – presumably because our clients have been enjoying these discounts for years.)

Rolling back the glorious precision of exact match is one way to “earn” more per click. If Google were our client, though, we’d point out angering your best customers and being less than straightforward about the decision is a tough way to win Likes and Friends. Oh, right — we mean +1s. Whatever.

There are so many Google product releases and industry news bulletins about their implications, it’s easy to miss a big one. We’re calling attention to www.focusontheuser.org, a project designed by interested Google-watchers, to highlight a monumental decision by the search giant: to overrule its ranking algorithm in promoting Google+.

The product in question – “Search Plus Your World” – was marketed as simple elevation of relevant social links in search results. The people behind focusontheuser built a widget to demonstrate that, actually, the new product cherry-picks Google’s own social results from Google’s index, no matter what the holy algorithm has deemed most relevant to the user’s query. It does indeed look very much like “Search Plus Your World” lifts Google+ results above Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn results that Google’s search algorithm correctly ranked higher.

This flies in the face of Google’s culture, core to which is the belief that optimal engineering is the optimal business plan. No wonder the decision is causing a wave of disgust in the developer community. It’s fascinating that Google has released no statement defending the decision (we requested a comment and waited 48 hours before publishing this post). Google resisted the business case for advancing its own properties via search throughout Eric Schmidt’s 10-year tenure as CEO. It seems co-founder Larry Page feels differently now that he’s the one reporting quarterly earnings. The fact that Google’s communications department doesn’t have its story straight yet suggests this huge decision wasn’t even thought through.

How Google Could Sell More

Many of us at Razorfish Search enjoyed the pep talk Google’s John Nicoletti delivered to search marketers in this week’s AdAge. We hope we will indeed be perceived by clients to be “masterminds” and “the next generation of Mad Men.”

Nicoletti’s point is that SEM, an oddball medium for many years, is starting to look like the first 21^st-Century marketing channel. Client interest in “always-on” campaigns is suddenly intense. The value of search marketers’ ability to orchestrate real-time interaction with engaged customers, utilizing creative informed by rigorous quantitative measurement, is intensifying right along with it. We’d quibble with Nicoletti’s characterization of accountable digital display as new (it’s new to Google, foundational for Razorfish), but couldn’t agree more with his conclusion that the emerging market for integrated digital services rightfully belongs to those who’ve already driven great results through strategic activation in an auction environment, mastery of optimization technology and actionable analytics.

It occurred to us, after reading the piece, that Google’s position mirrors that of its agency partners. That is, Google must also transition from a search-centric approach to meet rising demand for stellar mobile, social and display performance. So we thought we’d return the favor and try to pep Google up for the parallel challenge it faces.

The reigning chief organizer of all the world’s information has a dazzling product roadmap but no guaranteed advertiser dollars beyond search. It’s less clear what Google is selling in 2011 than today’s hot media product, Facebook. Everything Facebook creates will be placed in the trendy “Social Media” category. To compete long-term, Google is going to have to bring the same degree of focus it brought to selling search to selling a much broader array of ad units. The company’s tradition of hiring only the best and brightest should serve it well during this period of transition. Google can thrive by paying more attention to how media decisions are actually made, and by operationalizing a more nimble approach to sales.

Identify the best customers. When presenting its display, mobile and social innovations to large organizations, Google is selling into a maelstrom of competing client and agency interests. To navigate the churning waters of this volatile new market, Google should place strategic bets on certain organizations and individuals, investing in multi-sales-cycle relationships by gradually earning trust. Specifically, Google should put its relationship chips on executives and agencies most likely to own integrated measurement.

Appreciate the toolset. Until large marketing organizations integrate their online, offline, short-term and lifetime-value measurement platforms, the business sense of any cross-platform or social advertising initiative will be less than clear. Google has in the past seemed to want to own measurement, and Facebook might make the same mistake – a non-starter for enterprise clients. The best approach is to provide free tools that help with measurement, and train your sales team in all the tagging and tracking tools their clients utilize. A free, enterprise version of Google Analytics would be ideal. If that can’t happen, Google should make sure its sales pitches come with tailored tracking instructions for the client’s toolset.

Leave Analytics to the Consultants. The notion of a major advertiser changing its media mix because of a free study conducted by an interested publisher is so obviously silly, it took a company of engineering geniuses to try and bring it to life. We love Google’s PhDs, but positioning a custom analysis to satisfy the political needs of a big company is outside their skill set. Agencies are experts in client politics, and lots of companies get paid for an unbiased perspective on large data sets. If a client can’t invest in digital media without an expensive analysis he won’t pay for, that’s a big problem – but it’s not a math problem.

Innovate downstream. Google’s engineers seem determined to address every possible scenario of consumer curiosity with a handy utility. At times, it looks like Google hopes to market this wildly diverse suite of products according to plans designed without client contact in Mountain View and Chelsea. What works better for Google are sales experts empowered to meet large advertisers where they are. By lending its client-facing sales reps more control over what they sell, when and to whom (and which agency they partner with and even what they call the products), Google can reap valuable feedback that a more pushy approach bypasses. By reducing top-down directives, they’ll also learn who on their staff has what it takes to read the changing market and reel in big sales.

Rethink C-level access. It’s not quite enough for Google to contact the right customer, customize pitches for clients’ platforms and position advertising products squarely against client goals. There’s also a question of timing. Google can seem careless with its access to bigshots. Experiences over the past two years should clarify for Google the difference between being the hot media property and having a real chance to influence the way large marketing organizations operate. The good news for Google is that their brainpower guarantees them credibility as the aura of hotness inevitably moves on. The trick now is to treat executive access as a non-renewable resource, and exhibit the courage to hold off on big pitches until the preconditions for organizational change have been met.

The vision of users digitally engaged as they research, shop, kill time, travel, advise, complain and socialize is already realized. Every consumer-focused company is working toward an upside for them, but none are as well positioned as Google. Seizing the opportunity to transcend its success in search could be a simple matter of partnering better.

Last month, Razorfish Search kicked off Practical Steps Towards Integrated Direct-Response Marketing, a POV series written by Adam Heimlich, Group Search Director at Razorfish, in collaboration with Google and vertical experts within Razorfish.

This month, we’re pleased to bring you Part Two of the series: Integrated DR Marketing for Multi-Channel Retailers. Co-authored by Adam Heimlich (Razorfish) and Brett Goffin (Google), the whitepaper outlines steps to integrate digital into the existing acquisition and retention efforts of multi-channel retailers. We want to hear from you, so read it and share your thoughts.

In case you missed it, here’s Part One of the series: Google’s Development Roadmap: More Info in More Places

Practical Steps Toward Integrated Direct-Response Marketing is a series of whitepapers offering clear instructions on how to improve ROI this year. Developed by Razorfish Search in collaboration with vertical experts from Google and marketers from Razorfish’s Media, Analytics, CRM and Ad Exchange departments, the series aims to cut through the hyperbole surrounding new advertising technology by telling executives exactly what they need to know. Razorfish believes a rare opportunity is at hand, and that sound guidance on measuring cross-channel activity, unifying views of the customer, testing contact strategies and optimizing creative are required for early success. Practical Steps… brings the broad experience of digital natives to bear on the core challenges of large marketing organizations.

Part 1 of the series is “Google’s Development Roadmap: More Info in More Places,” currently available at Razorfish.com. Forthcoming chapters will focus on specific verticals, starting with retail. All whitepapers in the series take an evolution-not-revolution approach, delivering recommendations on how to enhance offline direct-response efforts with online data. Razorfish believes success at integrated marketing is less a matter of tearing down traditional DR than of achieving the ability to learn new tactics that provide reproducible results.

We want to hear from you! Post comments or email us at razorfishsearch@razorfish.com

A few weeks ago Razorfish Group Search Director Adam Heimlich and VP Josh Palau were fortunate enough to speak at the Search Insider Summit at Captiva Island, FL. SIS is a great event that brings together a lot of the leading minds in the industry. This year’s format provided a breath of fresh air in the form of a series of 15- and 5-minute presentations. Quicker pacing allowed for a diverse group of presentations and plenty of new faces.

Crowd favorites included Chris Copeland’s “What if There Were No Google” and Mike Moran’s “Online Transparency and Authenticity”. Copeland provided a realistic plan to diversify out from a world that is currently Google-dominated (he also managed to work in references to Brokeback Mountain and Tiger Woods).  Moran’s presentation distinguished myopic search “optimizers” from strategic “connectors.”  Connectors do what’s best for the user, which leads to better long-term performance. Optimizers chase the algorithm in the moment.

Here’s what the Razorfish guys presented:

Prospect Expectations and Loyalty

Heimlich went full-on college professor with a thesis and three points — no slides – to challenge the notion that search can’t build loyalty. He said users are so loyal to search itself that advertisers who support search experiences on their site can have a loyalty advantage over competitors who don’t. Heimlich’s support was anecdotal, though he promised data in a Razorfish POV later this year:

-          Bounce Rates – Bounce rates provide a view into the mindset of searchers. People abandon search landing pages early and often because it’s jarring to move from the user-centric design of a SERP to the non-user-centric design of most search landing pages. If a site doesn’t serve a user, she quickly goes back to search. Bounce rates evidence users’ confidence that someone else will serve them better.

-          Digital Natives – Heimlich implored marketers to understand that young searchers have good reasons to expect experiences designed for them. We’re not spoiled — we just grew up in a world where information has always been at our fingertips. Marketing messages that only exist outside the world of free entertainment and utilities don’t deserve to be heard.

-          Google’s Development Road Map – Heimlich pointed out that despite Bing’s promise of easier decisions, Google’s “extensions” strategy will make the leading search experience even more info-rich and quantitative than it already is. Paraphrasing a Google developer who claimed “Influence can only occur in the context of meeting users’ criteria for engagement,” Heimlich said it’s up to advertisers to figure out the role info experiences play in building brand affinity.

Marketing in a World of Search Everywhere

Palau talked about how to elevate the search conversation within a client organization. He followed a string a talks about how search has changed — blue links are out, universal search is in. Palau claimed search didn’t really change as much as marketing in general. He advised the search-industry pros in attendance to wrap their heads around the big picture or forever be banished to the kids table.  Palau concluded with these five ways to make search matter to the CMO:

-          Speak the Language – The boss doesn’t care about match types. They care about revenue, fame and solutions to business problems.

-          Don’t Disparage Other Tactics – Search is great, but not in a silo. Advertisers need effective broadcast and display media in order for Search to perform as well as it can. Talk about how search works with these channels.

-          Transcend Direct Response – Search does so much more than DR. If you focus only on click-to-conversion, search will get a fraction of its due.

-          Enable Stories Everywhere – Engage the audience and make it easy for them to share. The stories they tell become the brand stories prospects find via search.

-          Learn to Forget ROI and Remember the Audience – If you focus on keywords that meet ROI goals, you end up ignoring many customers who want to engage. When you pay attention to the user and what he wants, new horizons open up. 

If you’re ever looking to go to an online marketing conference, we highly recommend the Search Insider Summit. As long as you’re willing to engage during the breaks and share your challenges, the payoff is well worth the fee. And Captiva is beautiful in April.

In Geekfight, a Razorfish expert challenges the published wisdom of another search pundit. Today, Razorfish Group Director Adam Heimlich takes issue with a recent blog post by Charli Rogers, UK Client Services Director for Efficient Frontier.

Rogers’ post “Strike the Right Match Type” has a lot of good search-geek information on multiple match type buying. We wholeheartedly concur with her main point: Search marketers should avoid over-reliance on broad match, and, whenever broad match is used, run query reports regularly to find new negatives and minimize irrelevant matches. Razorfish search clients benefit from this best practice.

But in Part 2 of her post, Rogers gets into the crucial “how to” of query report expansion, and gives a bit of advice that rips the “best” right out the practice!

She says not to triple-match all keywords – sensible enough given how big that can make an account – and explains as follows:

“As a rule of thumb, consider how many words make up the keyword.  If there are more than three, there is no need to add exact/phrase match versions to begin with. Use your common sense to inform what does/doesn’t need to be triple matched; cheap flights is a high volume generic which needs to be on all match types, but find a three star hotel in Paris probably only needs to go on broad match in the beginning…”

Rogers seems to be saying that buying long phrases on broad match alone doesn’t cause the same loss of advertiser control that we know occurs with short phrases on broad match alone. She implies that “find a three star hotel in Paris” won’t broad match to a high-volume query like “Paris hotel” or even “Paris.” Readers of the Efficient Frontier blog who took its advice can learn quickly from query reports that they’ve been misled.

In fact, token length doesn’t mitigate the risk of unwanted broad matching. Advertisers who experimented but later chose not to bid at all on “Paris” and “Paris hotel” would be most in danger of broad matching into those extremely expensive auctions. The matching algorithm is designed to fill up SERP inventory! If an advertiser with established relevance wants the power to opt out at will, all his broad match keywords must be reigned in, regardless of their length.

The smarter strategy is to build on exact match and either double up on broad, or, if account size is a factor, restrict broad match to short phrases. You don’t actually need long phrases broad matched: “Paris hotel” alone will broad match to all relevant variations omitted from the account. Adding these ON EXACT through regular query-report expansions maximizes advertiser control.

Confusion about match-type strategy is widespread in the industry. Until recently, even Google advised against the most efficient method. We thank Charli Rogers and Efficient Frontier for raising the issue, and cordially invite their response.

Have an idea for GeekFight! Email us at razorfishsearch@razorfish.com