24/7 Real Media's SVP of search walks you through the five pitfalls to avoid when planning a search campaign for the holidays or any other time.

In an October podcast, JupiterResearch forecast a record $32 Billion in online holiday retail sales for 2006.

Did you attract your share of the estimated 114 million online buyers? If you answered "no," consider five big mistakes many online search marketers make-- both during the holidays and after.

1. You started planning too late
It's easy to assume that autumn is early enough, but it takes much longer to properly plan and launch an effective holiday search marketing campaign.

Knowing what you'll discount -- and when -- should be the cornerstone of your campaign. With the extreme copy limitations of search, your creative offers must really ring consumer bells. Your network of landing pages -- who sees what sales offers, and why -- has to be worked out well in advance.

Unlike Santa, you can't do that overnight-- particularly the page mapping and design. Even the elves start in June. You should, too.

2. You didn't have a strategy for the long tail 
You probably know that highly-specific search terms -- even down to a product's model number -- garner sky-high conversion rates at a very low cost per click.

So why don't you have a bigger stable of these highly-productive tail terms, particularly during the holidays?

Maybe you're not sure where to begin. At the very least, you should include terms visitors are using on your own website's search feature.

Take your search logs, hand them to your search marketing provider, give them relevant landing pages and tell them to bid appropriately. Then continue to add new terms as they come in.

Feed-based programs, such as Yahoo!'s Search Submit Pro program and the many Shopping Comparison Engines, can be great sources of highly qualified traffic as well as providing huge lists of tail terms you would never have thought of yourself.

3. Your campaign was overloaded with head terms
If head terms are less productive, why not eliminate them altogether?

Because ruthless efficiency results in a tiny campaign. You want a big voice at holiday time, when shoppers at both ends of the purchase funnel -- many of them new to online shopping -- are searching for gifts.

The solution is a well-balanced portfolio: buy terms above and below your efficiency goal to both cast a broader net and get the performance numbers you need. Think "little head, big tail."

Experience shows that this yields a campaign that pulls in everyone from "just looking" to "buy it now."

4. You didn't pay enough attention to competitors
Things get rough around the holidays. Competitors bid on each other's brand names. Affiliates underbid their partner's keywords. More companies (gasp!) are using automated keyword bidding.

Still doing bid management by hand? Next holiday, leave the handicrafts to Santa's elves, and bid management to your search marketing provider. You have far more important things to do… like pricing and promotions, making your selection, shipping, rebates and categories sparkle. Get really specific with those 70 characters, and budget properly.

The buyers are out there. If you don't get them, someone else will. Count on spending 75 percent more on keywords in November and 200 percent more in December than you did in October.

Save some for January, when post-holiday sales help you unload holiday inventory. Consumer demand may slow for a few days just before Christmas, but it picks up powerfully on the strength of day-after sales.

5. You didn't integrate SEO, SEM, and display
It seems obvious that your SEM, SEO and display campaigns should present a uniform look, feel, and message.

So why do so many holiday marketers drop the ball when it comes to integrating the strategy or results?

If one of your offerings is already garnering great organic search results, you shouldn't be paying for them. Shift the dollars to the terms that need it.

Your search marketing provider should be integrating keyword data across SEO and SEM to help you identify waste, so you can use every dollar efficiently.

To recap, here's how not to get Scrooged in next year's holiday season or at any time between now and then: start early with a carefully-crafted plan, offers, and landing pages. Build a better keyword portfolio, with a smaller head and a bigger tail. Get hip to competitor's tricks. Budget properly. Integrate performance results to sharpen your campaign's effectiveness. 

Do all that, and you won't be able to hear Jingle Bells over the sound of your cash register next year.

Matt Kain is SVP, Search Marketing Services for 24/7 Real Media, Inc. Read full bio.