REACH THE SUMMIT: Strategies to Boost PPC Performance

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1 4 REACH THE SUMMIT: Strategies to Boost PPC Performance Goals Customers Differentiator Tools #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 1

2 CONTENTS Introduction 3 STRATEGY 1: Define Clearer Goals 4 STRATEGY 2: Pick Your Customer Out in a Crowd 5 STRATEGY 3: Understand What Makes Your Business Unique 6 STRATEGY 4: Know What Is Happening in Your Market 7 Conclusion 8 Exercises 9 #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 2

3 INTRODUCTION Search advertising. If your business isn t already doing it, any good marketing professional will tell you to start soon, and they re right. Search advertising, or pay-per-click advertising (PPC), brings new customers through the door according to Google, 90 percent of website traffic generated by paid search ads is new traffic. People searching for products and services online click on PPC ads, so if you re not using this channel to connect with potential customers, you re missing out. If you are already using PPC but only seeing a few leads here and there, you might not deem it a marketing tool that can offer great ROI. The reason may be that your PPC campaign isn t being managed properly, whether you re handling it yourself or working with a provider. In fact, 25 percent of small business PPC marketing spend is wasted due to simple managerial and strategic errors, according to Wordstream. Not to worry. There are a number of tactics you can use to boost your performance with appropriate planning everything from deciding exactly what you want to get out of your PPC campaign to what tools you can use to monitor how competitors factor into your PPC ad performance. With insights from G/O Digital PPC experts, we ve outlined four strategies your local business can use to improve performance and get a faltering campaign back on track because you don t need to waste any more time or money on a campaign that s not working for you. According to Google, 90 PERCENT of website traffic generated by paid search ads is new traffic. #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 3

4 STRATEGY: 1 Define Clearer Goals Goals are the cornerstone of any marketing campaign, but they re particularly important for PPC campaigns. With a PPC campaign, you must constantly adjust your strategy to drive quality site traffic at a lower cost per lead, and without a clear goal in sight, those minor adjustments can take your campaign in a different direction than what you really want. Suddenly, your ads bring large numbers of people to your website, but they re not qualified leads for your business and this means you re losing money on your campaign. Let s talk about general versus specific goals. A general goal is one that you probably have in mind already, such as, I want more traffic to come to my site, which is a great goal to have, but is too vague to really measure. Instead, think about how much traffic you want to draw to your site within a specific time frame, such as, I want to increase traffic to my site by 15 percent in a two-month time period, with today s current traffic as the benchmark. See how specific that is compared to the first statement? It conveys the same notion, but it has measurable pieces so that two months from now, you will know if you hit the goal. The Importance of the Landing Page Your PPC campaign has to go somewhere, and directing it to your general homepage isn t always the best tactic. Having a landing page that is optimized with copy similar to your PPC ad copy will increase conversions because the messaging is consistent throughout the searcher s experience. But how do you figure out goals that are right for your business? Here are a few things to consider as you re mapping out your business needs: Are you looking for increased traffic or lead generation? What kind of results do you want to see? Do you have a goal for increasing leads or traffic? Or do you want to tie revenue to your goal? By when do you want to see results? How will your campaign differ by targeting leads versus traffic or vice versa? How will you measure your campaign s success? Once you have these items figured out, you ll be able to set measurable, precise goals for your search advertising campaign before diving in. The biggest mistake local business owners can make is not to plan enough in advance of launching a PPC campaign. Having a clear vision for what you d like to achieve will ensure your campaign is always tracking toward your goal. ENDING EXERCISE: Set appropriate goals for your local business #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 4

5 STRATEGY: 2 Pick Out Your Customer in a Crowd business that knows its audience is a business that has a solid marketing plan in place. To be A a successful marketer, you need to know exactly who your ideal customer is. You should know them so well that you could pick them out in a crowd of people. You might be thinking that your customer base is wide and covers a number of different kinds of audiences, which we understand, but you have to know who your ideal customer really is the person who calls, looking to do business with you. Just as with the goals, you need to dig deeper than male, age As you re defining who your ideal customer is, ask yourself these questions: Is your ideal customer male or female? How old is he or she? Be specific, don t use a general range. What kind of job does this person have? What is their annual income? What does this person wear? What do they look like physically? (i.e. Do they have a trendy new haircut and clothes or do they wear only functional attire?) What is this person interested in? (i.e. Do they love sports? Are they interested in movies and TV shows? Which ones?) Does this person purchase your business type of goods and services often? What would make this person more likely to purchase at your business? Ads Help Organic Listings The presence of search ads increases organic click-through rates if a search listing is below the fold (positions 6-10 on the first page of Google searches). Search Engine Land, 2014 Consider who this person is in the world, what his or her pain points are and how your business helps solve them. If you re having trouble figuring out who your ideal customer is, ask other people at your business. Receptionists, sales people or customer care specialists are great resources for figuring out who is calling and why they re calling. Another great technique is to ask your customers. You can easily craft a survey with online survey tools and then send it out to your current customer base. Pick your staff and customers brains for that important insight; it will pay off in the long run as you optimize ad copy for your target market. ENDING EXERCISE: Create your ideal customer profile #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 5

6 STRATEGY: 3 Understand What Makes Your Business Unique There could be thousands of companies in your industry doing PPC, so what makes your business different? If you can answer that question, great! Is your business differentiator messaging in your PPC campaign? If you can t answer that question, then you need to define your business differentiator. In our experience, the most successful PPC campaigns perform for clients that can articulate what makes them different or better and why a customer should choose that business over its competition. Finding what makes your business unique can be a process, but once you ve figured it out, that messaging will be the key to your success in the digital space. What characteristics make your business unique? Here are a few examples: A plumber that offers 24-hour or emergency service A car repair shop that has free estimates A law firm that specializes in tax law in a specific county A toy store with the widest selection of gender-neutral toys in town Your differentiator is essentially your value proposition to new customers. When they re wondering, Why pick this business over a competitor?, you want to answer that question and give them a reason to pick you over your competition. FACT: Search ads accounted for $9.1 billion, or 39 percent, of all online advertising revenue in the first half of When including mobile-related search ads, it jumped to $11.8 billion. Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2014 Once you ve figured out your business differentiator, it will influence all aspects of your PPC campaign, from the ad copy and landing page content to what keywords you choose. Your messaging should holistically speak to what makes your business unique from the moment potential customers start searching for your products or services, to when they click through to your website and make a purchase. A good PPC specialist will see your differentiator as a great tool for optimizing your campaign and edging out competitors for new keywords. Let s say you own a landscaping business in Lombard, Illinois, and your differentiator is that you offer free consultations and estimates to new clients. Your ad copy will speak to the free consultation, which informs your keyword selection. Instead of having typical keywords like Landscaping or Landscape Services Lombard, you can be more specific and say Landscape Services Free Estimate. Your competition likely doesn t have the same differentiator as you, and that better positions your business to attract ideal customers. By looking for your differentiators, you can uncover keywords that your competition doesn t even consider. ENDING EXERCISE: Find your business differentiator #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 6

7 STRATEGY: 4 Know What Is Happening in Your Market You never want to be chasing your competitors marketing plans you want your own strategy that is worth chasing. This adage is so true when it comes to PPC. You can t constantly play catch-up with your competition; you have to trail blaze on your own, finding new paths to success outside of your competitors. How do you do this? First, you have to know where your competition is at all times, which requires constant monitoring. It s easy to think of PPC as an excel spreadsheet, with certain inputs that lead to specific outputs, but it s not like that at all. It s much more like a video game with thousands of players. Each one is trying to win the game, so they re adjusting and improving their own campaigns, hoping to stay on top. Treating your PPC campaign like the former of the two examples will leave your business in the dust as competitors optimize campaigns and yours remains stagnant. Competitors are always looking for ways to hurt your campaign and improve theirs, which means you should constantly monitor their efforts to better optimize and increase your rank. Most digital marketing companies use a service that continually measures how your business stands up to your competition, so the PPC specialists can make adjustments immediately. Very few providers have their own proprietary bidding tools; we have our own at G/O Digital that is designed specifically for local business PPC campaigns. Because it s an in-house tool, these proprietary platforms allow our specialists to make regular updates to the platform, based on its performance in the field, instead of using an external provider that makes updates as it sees fit. With an in-house keyword optimization tool, a provider can determine how a campaign evolves over time and make it better every day for its clients. TOP TIP: Know Your Quality Score Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads and landing pages triggered by a certain keyword. It s a 1-10 ranking system, and having a high quality score means that search engines systems think your ads are relevant and useful for a searcher who is seeing your ad. As a local business owner, if you were to do this on your own, you would have to continually evaluate and reevaluate if your campaigns are performing at their best, relative to your competition. Do you have time for that in your busy schedule? Probably not. Digital marketing providers are AdWords certified and offer PPC keyword optimization and have the right tools to monitor campaigns on a consistent basis, allowing you to focus on your day-to-day business. ENDING EXERCISE: Free tools to measure your competition #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 7

8 CONCLUSION The world of PPC is competitive, with specific keywords that businesses similar to your own want to rank for. This is why you need a strategy and ongoing monitoring of your campaigns. Top campaign performance starts at the beginning with setting your goals, all the way through launching your campaign and staying ahead of your biggest rivals. This is not an ad platform that you can just set and forget; it requires constant monitoring, staying aligned to your goals, reworking ad copy and much more to stay ahead of competitors. But in the end, a sound PPC campaign strategy can be worth its weight in gold when your ads bring ideal customers to your website and eventually in-store for purchase. You just need the right tricks and tools to get your business in front of your consumers. Want to start seeing better results? Get in touch with us today! About G/O Digital The G/O Digital Vision: To Transform Local Marketing and #WinLocal. At G/O Digital, we understand that marketing can no longer be limited to traditional advertising methods and that digital integration is the future. The conversation between consumers and businesses has changed and will continue to evolve, and our team of digital marketing specialists has the expertise to meet these changes head on. Be found, get connected and stay engaged with G/O Digital s team of digital specialists. For more information, visit godigitalmarketing.com. Contact Us For Corporate Communications/PR, please contact: Andrea Parker, Senior Content Marketing Manager G/O Digital Tel: (602) ajparker@godigitalmarketing.com #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 8

9 EXERCISES Steps to Start Improving Your Business Now Tools Differentiator Customers Goals #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 9

10 EXERCISE 1: Set Appropriate Goals for Your Local Business 1. What is your goal? (Pick one) a. Increased traffic b. Lead generation c. Revenue specific 2. When do you want to see results? (Pick one) a. One month b. Two months c. Four months d. Six months e. One year 3. What result do you want to see? Ex. 50 percent increase in website traffic Ex. 10 new, qualified leads each month Ex. 20 percent increase in revenue in the first month 4. Using your above answers, write your goal here: Goals #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 10

11 EXERCISE 2: Create Your Ideal Customer 1. Choose a gender: a. Male b. Female 2. What age is your ideal customer? (pick a specific number) 3. What does your ideal customer do for a living? a. Salaried position Describe: b. Freelance Describe: c. Not working Describe: d. Student Describe: 4. What is your ideal customer s annual income? a. <$35,000 b. $35,000-$45,000 c. $45,000-$65,000 d. $65,000-$85,000 e. $85,000-$105,000 f. $105,000-$125,000 g. >$125, What is your ideal customer interested in? (choose all that apply) a. Sports b. Movies/Entertainment c. Music d. Art e. Literature/Reading f. Pop culture g. Food and cooking h. Parenting i. Other 6. Describe what your ideal customer wears: 7. How often does this person come to your store to purchase? a. More than once a week b. Once a week c. Every other week d. Once a month e. Once every 3 months f. Once every 6 months g. Once a year h. When your services are needed 8. Can this person be swayed to purchase at your business? a. Yes b. No Customers Goals #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 11

12 EXERCISE 3: Find Your Business Differentiator What do you do? Who do you it for? Why is there a need for your service? How are you unique or better than competitors? Write a sentence (or two) that encompasses all of your above answers. Then find a way to say that in five words or less, and you have a tagline for your business. Differentiator Customers Goals #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 12

13 EXERCISE 4: Measure Your Competition With so many free online tools, you can get a general read on what your competitors are doing with PPC and how you can alter your campaign to perform better than theirs. However, because these are free tools, they re limited in the amount of information they will share. Digital marketing providers typically pay for tools or have their own to get a full read on your competition. MozBar Mozbar is a free plugin for Google Chrome or Firefox that automatically measures the domain and page authority of each page you re on and in search listings. So you can go to a competitor s site, click on the different tabs in the MozBar platform, and get insights into what keywords they re targeting and ranking for and the overall domain authority of the site. SEMrush SEMrush is a free tool that helps you compare how your organic and paid efforts are working. It also measures your backlinks, which is important for Google crawling programs. The platforms gives you your top organic and paid keywords and who your top competitors are. You ll have more insight into how they re conducting their campaigns, so you can optimize against it. WordTracker WordTracker is a great tool to figure out what keywords you should be using. You put in a keyword that you might normally rank for if you re a florist in Houston, you could try Houston Florist. What comes up is hundreds of variations on that keyword that come from real searches. This will help you differentiate your keyword set and start ranking for new ones that you didn t even consider before. Differentiator Tools Customers Goals #WinLocal / godigitalmarketing.com / 13