My presentation from Advanced Search Summit 2019 in Washington DC

1. Lessons Learned from Surviving Bankruptcy
Jacqueline Urick, Director SEM/SEO and UX

2. • Web dev turned digital marketer
• 20 years in the digital space
• @moarinternets
• jacqueline.urick@searshc.com
About Me

4. “We’ve always done it this way.”
“This is the best way to do it.”
“We tested this years ago and it didn’t work.”
“We know better than the customer about what
they need.”
“We need a complex solution because the
business is complex.”

5. “This is going to require a series of meetings to
get approval from every stakeholder.”
“Because of this existing process, we can’t
prioritize this new feature.”
“I’m going to ignore this until someone cc’s my
boss.”
“I need more results reports.”
“My team doesn’t do this, talk to the other
team.”

6. “We’re #1 nationwide.”
“We’re still profitable.”
“This is fine.”
“It’s not our team, it’s the other team.”
“No one is on top forever and we have been on
top for over 100 years.”

7. In order to combat the creep of
Arrogance, Bureaucracy and
Complacency, we must
create a culture of positive
Adaptive Change.

8. Technical Change vs Adaptive Change
Increase
customer care
to handle poor
reviews.
Offer discounts
to entice
customers to
convert.
We can make
up the gap by
spending more
in paid search.
Working with operations,
development and UX to create an
overall better customer experience.
Audit pricing and offers by market,
update prices and exit unprofitable
markets if need be.
Analyze the customer journey and
update and invest in the marketing
mix that aligns to those journeys.

9. Corporate
Psyche
The “soul” of the organization. It’s what the
organization values and how it behaves in
relation to those values.

10. Corporate
Mythology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)#/media/File:Phoenix-Fabelwesen.jpg
The beliefs the organization holds as truth.

11. Adaptive change
requires you to
push the system
out of the current
equilibrium
and into a new
equilibrium.
Business Activities
Mythology
Psyche
You can work to change
the way the business
sees itself.
You can work to
change the things the
business believes.

12. ABCs and
Team
Structure

13. VP, CMO
DVP, 3 Businesses Sr. Director, UX
Sr. Director, 1
business
Me, SEO
2017

14. VP, Sales &
Marketing
DVP, Paid
Acquisition
Director, Member
Marketing
Me, SEO and UX
Sr. Director,
Analytics
2018

15. We need to be able to take an order.
We need to be able to communicate
about the orders.
We need to get more orders.
We need to know how we’re doing.
Breaking
the business
down to
the basics

16. VP, Sales &
Marketing
Director, Member
Marketing
Me, SEM/SEO and
UX
Sr. Director, Sales
Channel & Analytics
2019
Functional Marketing Org

17. If you want to lead people
through adaptive change, give
them a no-lose situation.
Make it an opportunity to grow
their own careers.

19. The Myths
of
Paid
and
Organic
“If our organic was better we wouldn’t need
paid at all.”
“Spending more in paid makes all the
channels perform better.”
“We only bid on brand terms to make our
ROAS look better.”
“Organic investments take too long to see
return.”

20. In the Dark
Big gains in Organic traffic and
conversion, but not enough to
completely offset paid.

21.  Chose some mid-volume areas where we felt
we had good SEO visibility.
 Stopped branded paid search in 5 DMAs over
a period of two weeks.
 Couldn’t measure offline accurately for
organic
Didn’t have Organic keyword conversion data
And then we were forced to switch agencies,
but that is another story…
Sometimes
tests don’t
go as
planned

22. Synergy:
the Future
Acronym’s Keyword
Objects tool

24. If you want to know the
relationship between paid and
organic for your site and your
business, you’re going to have to
test into it.

25. What is the
value of your
brand?

26. SHS Repair Ad
Brand 3 Ad
SHS Repair Scheduler
SHS Tech
Completes
repair
Brand 3 Scheduler,
schedules SHS Repair
Test #1 – SHS Brand vs Brand 3

27. Results
 CTR on the ads were similar despite Brand
3 ad set to always bid below SHS brand ad
 Cancel rate of those scheduling via the
Brand 3 was significantly higher.
 A significant number of those cancels
occurred right after receiving the
confirmation that SHS was going to
complete the repair.

28. Test #2 – SHS Brand vs Brand 3, fulfilled by Brand 2
SHS Repair Ad
Brand 3 Ad
SHS Repair Scheduler SHS Tech
Completes
repair
Brand 3 Scheduler,
schedules Brand 2 Repair
Brand 2
Tech
Completes
repair

29. Brand 2 one hour cancel rate was 8.6%
less than the SHS brand one hour cancel
rate.
 Brand 2 overall cancel rate was 3% less
than SHS brand
Customers indifferent to Sears brand were
far more sensitive to date.
Results

30. Validate your myths.
What’s true for one persona or
cohort may not be true for another.

31. Q: What’s
20% Cooler?
A: 20% more
revenue per
order.
https://www.deviantart.com/missfluttershyshy/art/Rainbow-Dash-20-Percent-Cooler-451060106

32. By removing all the 20% off offers,
we:
Lost some paid search CTR.
Reduced the complexity for
the technicians.
Overall, no change in overall
conversion.
Improved the relationship
between sales and marketing.
$35k average per week
revenue increase.
Myth: We
need to have
an offer!

33. The best solutions consider the
entire ecosystem.
Beware managing to a single
channel KPI.

35. Keep it Simple

36. The lesson learned?
People don’t read the forms they are
filling out. -_-

37. User Surveys
and Tests

38. There are no answers inside the
building. Get out of the building.
- Steve Blank

40. In auditing reports for 1 business unit:
67 weekly reports
28 reports deprecated
The rest were merged and updated.
SO MANY HOURS
SAVED!!
Teams are better aligned around KPIs as
there is a single source of truth.

41. Inevitable Question: What is driving these numbers?

42. Let the data tell the story

43. Fighting arrogance, bureaucracy
and complacency is a conscious
effort.

44. The initiatives you choose, the data
you measure, the story you frame all
contribute to the corporate psyche
and mythology.

45. Adaptive change comes from
changing how the organization sees
itself and/or what the organization
believes.

46. Radical organizational change is
opportunity.

47. What is your contribution?

48. Thank You