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Hey everyone! What is your take of search engine marketing, specifically buying Google or Yahoo! keywords on a pay per click model? Is this a tool that HR is using, and, if so, how are you using it and tracking it? What would prevent you from using it? Thank you.
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At Indeed, our recruitment advertising offerings are exclusively pay-per-click, and most clients put us in the SEM category. Clicks mean nothing if they do not convert into applications and hires, so candidate source tracking is incredibly important to us so clients can clearly see their results and ROI from Indeed. Per Steven's point, this is a big challenge (maybe even a crisis) in the industry today, and we are working very hard to educate clients about how to properly track candidate source.
We have had great success in PPC with corporate clients that have the proper tracking, with case studies and strong, ongoing relationships as the results. But it will always come down to tracking when you are using a pay-for-performance model.
Great discussion,
Jason
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Mike,
Great point about how your employer clients would prefer to pay for postings and other recruitment advertising on a for performance basis so that they only pay if they hire someone from the ad. I'd love to get there as well as it would ensure that the interests of the candidate, employer, and CollegeRecruiter.com would be well aligned but we can't get there until the employers make the proper investments in their applicant tracking systems.
Of the hundreds of clients we have, we'd be hard pressed to count on one hand how many of them are properly tracking the source of their hires. It is really pathetic, actually. We have one client who spend $200,000 on an applicant tracking system but didn't spend $20,000 to add the module that would give them fully automated tracking with unique URLs. So instead they have those horrid drop-down boxes. You've probably seen the study published by Don Firth at JobsInLogistics.com showing that 83 percent of candidates misidentified their source when they clicked directly from the job board to the employer site and the job board was actually listed.
I can only imagine how much higher the percentage would be if the study included candidates who saw the posting on sites to which it was crossposted. For example, if an employer posts a job to our site then we crosspost it to thousands of other sites in our network. It is part of our selling proposition so there's full transparency with our clients. If a candidate sees the posting on one of our partner sites and then applies on the employer site, will the candidate know to identify CollegeRecruiter.com? No way.
The only solution is fully automated tracking where the employer provides a unique URL to every board and other source to which they post the opportunity. Then regardless of where the candidate sees the posting the source will be properly tracked. Of course, that assumes that the ATS is setup to properly track those URLs and that the HR people using the ATS are properly trained on how to make that work.
We're talking with a client right now about a pay-per-hire deal. We are confident that the client is properly tracking. We'd welcome more such deals as they're great for all concerned, but I suspect that we'll get a lot of interest from employers whose systems don't measure up to their desires.
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GREAT STUFF! Very interesting comments and ideas for those of us trying to fiqure out the "BEST WAY" to grow.
Keep it coming. Thanks, Ralph Steeber Medicalreps.com
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Steven your idea is cool in terms of the client paying for clicks, but what clients really want is quality applications. I speak to hundreds of Job Board owners, and people who want to open Job Board per year, what most seem to want to do is have the client pay for the advertising and if it fails to get the applicant, this is hard luck for the client.
I am not saying you are that person just what the general market seems to say, this attitude ultimately was the downfall of print media and of course the introduction of online
The net result is clients are starting to realise that if they optimise their own career centres, they can do without the Job Board, Web 2.0 and in particular Long Tail SEO fits perfectly for optimising Jobs. Million are going to the Google interface and searching for the job they want and the location they want it in, having looked at your sites the SEO seems to be about 9500 terms Google has you ranked for in the top 20 links which is well very cool.
What you might want to take a look at is the job plus the location combination, since in our experience the bounce rate for an actual live job is almost nil, in which case your pay per click model would not only work for you but these results would also work for the client. Example take a look at your bounce rate for the term "accounting entry level jobs" these tend to be quite high in most cases we see typically 70%, your #1 in Google for this term, but what is more likely for a College Leaver to put into Google is "accounting entry level jobs boston" or that is to say they will place a location of choice, the bounce rate for users of this kind of search is less than 10% in our experience. Your site is not in the first 10 link of Google for these kinds of location based searches.
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Steven-
Your comment posted on 7/25 read:
�??Question for Mike and the others in that camp: is your affection for SEM because you feel it is important for your clients to appear on the first page of the Google etc. search results or is it because you prefer to pay for performance (i.e., pay per click) versus paying for placement (i.e., flat fee per 30 or 60 days)?�??
I think you have asked a fair and good question. My affection for SEM is due to its inherent ability to better optimize a company�??s reach to the desired target audience and optimize ROI. This is achieved through both improved positioning within search engine results and allocating the investment to a visitor who has been engaged enough to click deeper.
I do believe in working to get results on the first page of a search engine if possible. I subscribe to the thought that progressively more job searches are beginning on search engines and/or aggregators like SimplyHired and Indeed, etc. I also subscribe to the thought that info needs to be attractive and easily accessed due to both short attention spans and the fact that many job searches are quickly and covertly conducted at work.
I also like the paying for performance nature of pay per click models. For a visitor to click on an ad, it would appear that some level of interest exists and even though nothing may come from it, it is one more opportunity the employer has to impress their name/logo (one could argue brand) upon a candidate and position them for viral marketing.
I have always liked pay for performance models and am interested in staying updated on CollegeRecruiter.com�??s development. There are some sites along that line of thought such as RealMatch.com where you only pay for the candidates with whom you contact. The challenge does continue for job board providers to roll out solutions that are performance based and ultimately put some of their skin in the game by putting renewal revenue at risk.
Hiring managers are continuing to question whether they should pay for a posting with no explicit guarantee of finding a qualified candidate. I have no doubt as to the innovative minds that drive creative solutions at the job boards and am always curious to see what they develop. If (hypothetically) all resources were measured on pay for performance, ROI would become much more transparent and further innovations would evolve in order for their business to survive. I believe we have more cool stuff ahead in talent acquisition.
Regards, Mike Jenkins Manager of Business Solutions First Advantage
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We've owned CareerSites since 1997 with the launch of PharmaceuticalJobsUsa.com, and now with SpanglishJobs.com and LeadingDiversity.com, SOXpros.com. We have never used a PPC model; I would be curious to see how that works for you Steve, as I know you have been at this as long as we have.
We have found success in the changes made over the years to our sites, now up to 10+ niche careersites. We have moved to a Social Networking model and partner with Indeed for crossposting upgrades. This seems to work very well for our clients, but I am always open to improvement, and am interested in the PPC, and other avenues.
BTW, anyone know of strong business developers and recruitment adv sales reps who want to grow with us and work virtually? If so, email thru ERE.
Continued Success
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Google recently reported that there were over 100 million job related searches performed in June. So when the question is raised about how job seekers are using the internet in their quest for employment related information, the resounding answer is the search engines. What this means for companies looking for talent is that the single, most important, place to be is in the search results on Google/Yahoo/Ask/MSN.
Most search results for �??jobs�?? list job boards in the organic listings- mainly because they have the most content pertaining to a wide variety of opportunities. But how can an individual company compete against a job board? Search Engine Optimization is an option, but this is usually very high in cost and requires much re-designing of the career page which might not be a cost effective option for many companies initially. But Search Engine Marketing is. Not only are these results usually highlighted at the top of the organic listings, but it functions on a pay per click model- so you only pay for your results!
At Shaker, we�??ve been working with companies for over five years on developing effective search engine marketing campaigns specifically tailored for recruitment purposes. Across all industries this has been a leading media in not only building up a branded presence online, maintaining a stream of candidate flow, but also a leader in lowest cost per hire. Don�??t get me wrong, search engine marketing is not the �??be all and end all�??. Any recruitment strategy has to be inclusive of many avenues, but SEM offers a unique and cost effective way of getting potential candidates quickly and directly to your website.
From a tracking perspective, there really is only one major limitation- the culprit�?�a client�??s ATS. An ATS is great for tracking what I consider �??vintage online media�??, but when it comes to �??contemporary online media�??, such as SEM or social media, the technology has not caught up yet. However, there are a variety of workarounds that we�??ve developed internally and have found extremely successful. When looking at data, the most important metrics any client wants to see are conversions. However, if we look a little deeper, the major metric that needs to be examined is how well your content is engaging your audience to cause a conversion. This is often an area that many recruiters forget to analyze. So we look at how users are interacting with a landing page and track through to the conversion. This allows us to have a full picture view from start to finish.
Overall, SEM is a great platform for any company to use. My only disclaimer is that you need experts to manage the campaigns, going it alone is often a high cost learning curve that could diminish your goals and ROI.
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It seems that the majority of the comments in favor of search engine marketing (SEM) are somewhat like the comment by Mike Jenkins in which he closely linked it with pay per click advertising. Question for Mike and the others in that camp: is your affection for SEM because you feel it is important for your clients to appear on the first page of the Google etc. search results or is it because you prefer to pay for performance (i.e., pay per click) versus paying for placement (i.e., flat fee per 30 or 60 days)?
The reason that I ask is that it seems to me that job boards are slowly, ever so slowly, moving towards a pay for performance model. We re-launched two months ago with all new software and can now sell postings on a per click or even per lead (per application/resume) basis but have not yet started to market that capability. With so few boards offering PPC or PPL options, it is difficult to establish a price point that is fair both to us and to our clients.
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According to my estimates, there were over 200 million "jobs" related searched that were done on Yahoo, Google and other search engines.
I started my career in investment banking on wall street and I learn of a concept called "arb" or arbitrage, this means you buy low from one and sell higher to another and make the spread (with no or minimal risk). It seems like that�??s what job boards do with SEM. You "buy" the candidate from the search engines and sell it to the employers at a higher price. This works if you are sophisticated at tracking the buy/sell prices and it also works since most employers don't know or want to be bothered with SEM. But the competition for keywords has increased since the early years as more job-boards and employers have started doing this... So the spreads has narrowed or disappeared all together. Get someone that really knows how to do this or start small and measure, measure!!!!
Maybe you can redirect some of those 200 million searches to your site.... Maybe you should consider SEO (searh engine optimization) too (or instead).
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Hi,
The marketing department uses Google Ad words for sponsored links. I think they allow 20 keywords, and you can bid up any amount so that your sponsored link shows up first(google usually gives you some results on how your campaign is shaping up, you can always re-orient the campaign depending on the enquiries you might be receiving). Ofcourse your competitors can bid up more amount than you so that their link shows up on the top.
These links are typically on the right hand side of the search page or on the top of the page just above the search results.
HR does not use this at all.
If you do not intend to spend money, you can design your company's website so that is very search engine friendly and accessible as well to get your company name in the first page of a search result.
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Reva-
I am a believer in Search engine Marketing (SEM). It seems (unofficially) like a majority of searches start with either Google or Yahoo!. SEM is leveraging the ability to hone in on targeted words and therefore relevance to the user itself. The idea that ads are served up in relation with something typed in to a search engine positions your impressions to be more effective and receive a higher click through rate.
The beauty of pay-per-click is that when someone clicks on the ad, chances are there is some preliminary interest in your message. The key then is destination of the traffic (which is where your measurement question would be answered). If they do not click on the ad, they still may see the image/logo/message and make a mental note. The impression also provides an opportunity for viral marketing pick-ups which are tough to measure. For a company looking to take advantage of the prominence of search engine usage in daily life, then SEM is nice short term strategy compared to the long term, high investment approach of Search Engine Optimization (which I also advocate).
Good to hear from you, Reva. Hope all is well.
Mike Jenkins Manager of Business Solutions First Advantage Recruiting Solutions
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