This guide unveils the 10 best PPC agencies in the industry, along with their strengths, notable clients, and more. For any business that’s seeking the best PPC agency to meet their PPC advertising, PPC marketing, or PPC campaign goals, this list is a roadmap to finding that perfect fit.

#1 Power Digital

• Specialty: Building intelligent, data-driven strategies using the power of the in-house marketing analysis software platform, nova. Power Digital’s focus is growing brand recognition and revenue by using marketing budgets as efficiently as possible. Brands that work with Power Digital grow fast—up to 2.4 times faster than the industry average.
• Industries: SaaS, beauty, B2B, B2C, eCommerce, fashion, private equity, and retail.
• Strengths: Delivering personalized PPC service campaigns tailored to each client’s PPC ad needs that drive maximum ROI.
• Pricing: Scalable, custom pricing packages.
• Headquarters: San Diego, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C.
• Notable clients: Bob’s Red Mill, Berkshire Hathaway, Lord & Taylor, Jenny Craig.¹

Power Digital is a full-service, tech-enabled marketing firm known for strategic growth. The performance marketing firm has been recognized 5 times in Inc. Magazine’s annual list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the US.^2,3

What sets Power Digital PPC management services apart is the innovative use of data intelligence to create customized branding and marketing strategies for every one of their clients. Their proprietary intelligent marketing software analyzes data across customer acquisition channels to help clients identify gaps in their current marketing strategy and find ways to scale efficiently and sustainably.

#2 Cleverly

• Specialty: Building targeted prospect lists and driving lead generation through customized LinkedIn outreach campaigns.
• Industries: B2B companies across a variety of sectors, including SaaS and retail.
• Strengths: LinkedIn profile optimization, lead generation, crafting and executing cold email outreach campaigns.
• Pricing: Customized pricing plans based on the services selected.
• Headquarters: Los Angeles, California.
• Notable clients: Uber, PayPal, Postmates, Unilever.

Cleverly is a marketing agency that focuses on using LinkedIn as a revenue-driver for B2B clients. They support clients with their team of account managers who provide reporting, strategy calls, and ongoing campaign monitoring and improvements via A-B testing.

#3 Moburst

• Specialty: Mobile-focused strategies including app store optimization, mobile user acquisition, and mobile engagement campaigns.
• Industries: Mobile apps, technology, SaaS, B2B.
• Strengths: Mobile app marketing that rapidly increases downloads and active users.
• Pricing: Customized for each client depending on industry, goals, budget, and other factors.
• Headquarters: New York, with offices in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, and London.
• Notable clients: Samsung, Shopkick, Uber, Calm.

Moburst is every mobile app developer’s best friend. They’re an award-winning marketing agency that offers services such as UX consulting, media buying, and web and mobile development.

#4 Audiencly

• Specialty: Connecting brands with their network of over 5,000 well-known influencers to create buzzy social media messaging on platforms like TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.
• Industries: Gaming, lifestyle, technology.
• Strengths: Turning influencers into brand advocates.
• Pricing: Pricing varies depending on the industry, influencer, services, and scope of the project.
• Headquarters: Dusseldorf, Germany, with offices in Hamburg and London.
• Notable clients: Wix, Square Enix, Philips, IGG.

Audiencly started as an advertising agency specializing in the gaming industry. The start-up soon expanded into influencer and social media marketing for brands in the lifestyle, gaming, and technology spaces. Audiencly now boasts a worldwide network of thousands of influencers and a track record of creating successful viral campaigns.

#5 Pearl Lemon

• Specialty: SEO services including site audits, WordPress SEO management, and eCommerce site optimization for retailers on Amazon, Etsy, Walmart, and BigCommerce.
• Industries: eCommerce, finance, technology.
• Strengths: Technical SEO know-how to back up creative PPC campaign management aimed at improving conversions and boosting site traffic for brands in a wide range of industries.
• Pricing: Packages start around $4,000-$14,000 USD per month depending on the project scope.
• Headquarters: London, England.
• Notable clients: St. Emilion Capital, Asterria, Indie Law, Selfie Booth.

Pearl Lemon is an award-winning full-service SEO Amazon PPC management agency, and PPC agency that works with clients in a variety of industries, but has particular expertise in working in the eCommerce space. They pride themselves on a track record of taking clients to the first page of Google, and driving traffic while improving user experience.

#6 Open Moves

• Specialty: Media buys, PPC advertising, lead generation, and marketing automations to help grow small-to-midsize businesses. Also offers a proprietary enterprise email platform where businesses can create and manage their own email marketing campaigns.
• Industries: B2B, B2C, eCommerce, education, healthcare.
• Strengths: OpenMoves offers expertise in PPC, CRO, paid search, and paid social campaigns, along with email marketing and SEO services.
• Pricing: Pricing plans are customized based on the services provided.
• Headquarters: Huntington, New York.
• Notable clients: ADP, JustWorks, Atlas Obscura.

In business for 20 years, OpenMoves is full-service agency that offers expertise in paid media and social media marketing, design and copywriting services, and an array of SEO services.

#7 Directive Consulting

• Specialty: Growing B2B and enterprise companies through SEO, PPC, content marketing, and social media advertising built on a careful understanding of the customer lifecycle.
• Industries: Technology, SaaS.
• Strengths: Paid media, Google Ads, SEO, design, video marketing strategy
• Pricing: Flat-fee monthly retainer which varies depending on the services provided and the complexity of the campaign.
• Headquarters: Irvine, California, with offices in New York, London, Toronto, and Sydney.
• Notable clients: Adobe, Amazon, Uber Freight, Sumo Logic.

Directive Consulting is a performance marketing agency specializing in SaaS and technology brands. Their hallmark is a lifecycle marketing approach that focuses closely on streamlining the customer journey and optimizing sales funnels.

#8 Stryde

• Specialty: Stryde specializes in working with eCommerce brands whose primary customer base is women. They offer SEO, Facebook and paid social marketing campaigns, paid search, Google Ad campaign management, SMS, and email marketing services.
• Industries: eCommerce, particularly fashion, apparel, home goods, and sporting goods brands.
• Strengths: Careful vetting to ensure they’re the right fit to work with each client, and a transparent, direct approach that keeps clients fully informed on marketing strategy and results.
• Pricing: Packages vary based on the client’s needs and goals.
• Headquarters: Lehi, Utah.
• Notable clients: Lands End, ErgoBaby, Laurelbox, Lizard Tail, Keter.

Founded in 2013, Stryde is a boutique woman-owned agency located in Utah. They focus on working with 7-figure brands to develop PPC ad and marketing strategies to grow brand awareness, reduce customer acquisition costs, and improve ROI.

#9 Smart Sites

• Specialty: SmartSites is known for their award-winning website design services. They build sites for everything from brick-and-mortar clients like medical and dental clinics, salons, and car dealerships to eCommerce brands. They also provide PPC, SEO, Google Ad campaign management, and email/SMS/social media marketing services.
• Industries: Healthcare, hospitality, automotive, retail.
• Strengths: SmartSites excels in website design and functionality. For clients seeking both a sleek, speedy custom website along with SEO, Google Ads, and PPC marketing services, SmartSites could be an ideal fit.
• Pricing: The cost of SmartSites’s services depends on the scope, complexity, and functionality of the website or marketing project, but clients receive a flat-fee quote before work begins.
• Headquarters: Paramus, New Jersey.
• Notable clients: Lenox, Agile Data, Intra Home Systems.

Founded by two brothers from New Jersey, SmartSites started small but quickly became a fast-growing, award-winning digital marketing agency. They specialize in helping clients identify their customer base, lower acquisition costs, and build more organic website traffic.

#10 Ninja Promo

• Specialty: NinjaPromo specializes in data-backed marketing strategies tailored to B2B software brands and startups in fintech, crypto, and blockchain.
• Industries: Fintech, blockchain, cryptocurrency, SaaS.
• Strengths: Crafting memorable and creative brand stories based on a careful understanding of the client’s business and target audience.
• Pricing: Flexible pricing plans that vary depending on the client’s needs and goals; prospective clients receive a quote after discussing the scope of work.
• Headquarters: New York, with offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
• Notable clients: Bitcoin, BitForex, Dash, BankSocial.

NinjaPromo offers custom ad strategies for brands in cutting-edge tech spaces. They provide a full slate of marketing services, including campaign strategy, ad design and creation, audience targeting, and ongoing reporting and performance analysis.

Trust Power Digital for PPC that packs a punch

With a PPC campaign in motion, you can ensure that buyers with high purchase intent looking for your products or service can find you. And one of these 10 handpicked PPC agencies could be the ticket to meeting your marketing goals.

Every PPC services agency brings unique strengths and a different point of view to the table, and Power Digital recognizes that the client-agency matchmaking process is a personal one. If you’re looking for truly innovative marketing that harnesses the power of data to make the most of every advertising dollar you spend, Power Digital is the best PPC management company and digital marketing agency for you.

Get in touch today and let the PPC and Amazon PPC agency experts at Power Digital work with you to build a PPC strategy that delivers real results.

Sources:

1. San Diego Union-Tribune. Top-ranked small company: Power Digital Marketing has flexible work rules but serious dedication. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2019-11-17/profile-of-power-digital-marketing
2. Inc. Magazine. Inc. company profile: Power Digital. https://www.inc.com/profile/power-digital-marketing
3. San Diego Times. MarketInk: Power Digital wins 3 new clients, including virtual therapy startup. https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2021/09/06/marketink-power-digital-wins-3-new-clients-including-virtual-therapy-startup/

The post 10 Best PPC Agencies appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

From a business standpoint, potential customers can support a company by clicking on either. But each has its associated pros and cons, and knowing the difference is crucial for brands seeking to hit a new stage in their growth.

No need to Google any further. Businesses looking for answers on how paid and organic fit into a successful digital marketing plan will find the full breakdown below.

Organic and paid search, defined

When a user types “why is my cat so painfully unloving towards me?” into a search bar, they’ll be whisked off to a page full of all the grumpy cat-related content they can hope for. Along with answers that closely meet their query, they’ll also be met with some advertisements.

The first few results will display an ad tag hidden somewhere inconspicuously near their metadata. These are paid ad results and differ from the organic search results  beneath them. But what separates them, and how do they receive their respective spots?

• Organic – So, what is organic search? Organic searches operate solely by comparing the content of the user query with the information available on the searchable internet. Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to determine the best matches between what the user is looking for and the quality content available online.³
  
• Paid – Paid searches connect companies that invest in organic SEO (search engine optimized) advertising with users who look for similar products or services. These results will generally pop up due to specific keywords the company has targeted for its advertising, even if they aren’t as closely matched to user queries as the organic results.⁴

In practice, that user who typed “why is my cat so painfully unloving towards me?” may first see semi-related cat-centered advertisements, like paid spots for wet pet food brands. This would likely occur due to a company choosing “cat” as a target keyword for advertising. After scrolling past the paid results, they may see something more obviously relevant, like how-to pages outlining how to convince a cat to like you.

How do paid and organic search compare for brands?

There are countless reasons for companies to invest in paid and organic advertising online, but let’s take a look at the unique benefits of each and why it matters for businesses.

The benefits of organic search

Whether they intend to or not, every website that standard web crawlers access participates in formulating organic search results. If their content is publicly visible, Google and other search engines take them into consideration when assembling results—even if they end up on the third (or twentieth) page. 

Optimizing organic searches presents a myriad of benefits to businesses, including:

• Cost-effectiveness – It can cost exactly $0 for a company’s page to show up as the first organic option on a search engine results page (SERP). You read that right: there are no inherent costs associated with Google selecting a company’s page as the top result. That said, brands who keep up with SEO trends and invest in SEO marketing services are best poised to earn that coveted position (but more on that later).
  
• Earning user trust – Put simply, most people do not like being advertised to, with a whopping 96% of consumers reporting believing ads to be untruthful.⁵ That means, when they see that tiny sponsored tag next to a result, they’re highly likely to scroll past it. The numbers don’t lie, either: 94% of SERP click-throughs occur on organic links, even if users have to venture past the top results to get to them.⁶
• Perpetual returns – Paid search can be useful, but when a company stops paying for Google’s top spot its pages will quickly fall to wherever their place in the organic order is. An organic result that ranks highly on SERPs, though, can drive traffic for the entirety of its lifespan on a website.

Even more impressive? Highly-ranked organic results can have a snowball effect on website traffic, as the vast majority of users click on one of the top few results.⁶ 

How does organic search work?

The higher a business’s page appears on SERPs, the more website traffic will come its way. Maximizing organic traffic flow is a strategic method of driving curious customers to a company. Users who come across a page organically means that they are sincerely invested in their query and, correspondingly, will probably be more interested in whatever the business is offering. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the name given to the game of trying to appear at the top of searches. Both organic and paid searches employ SEO tactics. SEO refers to a field of consistently changing, complex techniques that can help a page rank higher on SERPs. 

Writing posts and pages to outrank others is a complicated task, and that’s why many businesses opt to hire an SEO company to get the most out of their search results.

The benefits of paid search

Google and most other search engines offer paid options for companies to promote their pages via sponsored search results. The prices each engine offers vary, but the benefits hold true across different platforms:

• Skip the line – When a company pays to have their search promoted to users, it appears as the first (or one of the first) results on the SERPs. Browsers who crave quick results are likely to click the first link that pops up on their screen. Ergo, paid searches can be a method for driving traffic to a company’s site. A study from Google itself noted an 80% increase in brand awareness for companies that used paid search advertising.⁷ 
• Matching user queries – Paid searches generally return results based on specific keywords typed into the search bar. Promoting relevant language centered around a company’s products and services means that customers will see ads that are more likely to align with their interests or the problem they want to solve. 
• In-depth analytics – Google will give you a basic breakdown of the traffic driven to a company’s page through organic searches. But if a business is after a richer, more nuanced analysis of how often their ads are being viewed, who’s seeing them and what keywords are prompting users to click through, a paid search package is how they’ll get that data.⁸

How does paid search work?

One of the primary ways businesses can purchase ad space on SERPs is through Pay Per Click (PPC) auctions. 

PPC auctions function similarly to other auctions, but with a few twists (also, no auctioneers). To begin:⁹

1. Advertisers create accounts and campaigns with search engines detailing specific keywords, markets, and demographics they want to target in paid results. 
   
2. Companies decide how much they’re willing to pay to reach their target audience and set the rate on their profile.
3. When a user searches, the engine determines how well their keywords and profile match the requisites of different companies with similar targets.
4. The displayed paid searches are those of the companies willing to pay for that particular customer, and they get billed for the click if the user decides to navigate to their site.

Determining how much to bid on ads and which keywords and demographics to target are the primary tasks of advertisers considering paid searches. When these queries become too complex for in-house staff, consulting a digital marketing agency or content marketing agency can help businesses steer their campaigns. 

Find your SEO spotlight with Power Digital

Whether you’re paying to be the top search engine result on Google or anxiously waiting for your page to explode organically, customers will be quick to click away from your company’s site if they find the content drab, boring, and uninspired.

If you want to revitalize your brand’s online presence with click-worthy ads and electrifying content, join our roster of clients who’ve seen over 700% increases in traffic to their sites. At Power Digital, we specialize in the full suite of digital marketing services, from Search engine optimization to the creative that’ll earn you new traffic and captivate your current followers.

Want more info on what we offer (paid and organic)? Schedule a consultation to hone your online presence and start getting cozy in those top SERP spots.

Sources: 

1. Pew Research Center. Search Engine Use 2012. https://www.pewresearch.org/
2. Internet Live Stats Google Search Statistics. https://www.internetlivestats.com/
3. Search Engine Journal. What is Organic Search?. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/
4. Search Engine Journal. What Is PPC & How Paid Search Marketing Works. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/
5. Forbes. 7 Reasons People Hate Your Ads And What To Do About It. https://www.forbes.com/
6. Search Engine Watch. Organic vs. Paid Search Results: Organic Wins 94% of Time. https://www.searchenginewatch.com/
7. Think With Google. New research shows search ads drive brand awareness. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
8. Google. About measuring paid and organic searches. https://support.google.com/
9. Search Engine Journal. What Is PPC & How Paid Search Marketing Works. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/

The post Organic search vs paid Search: what’s the difference? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

For companies, this means it’s advantageous to send strategic messages to leads in the form of email retargeting and email remarketing—two marketing strategies that are designed to bring momentum to the company-customer relationship. Without them, the e-commerce landscape would be a graveyard of abandoned carts and every user would become “the one who got away.”

Retargeting and remarketing can both be vital features of any digital marketing campaign and strategy, though the two terms are often mistaken for one another. Let’s unpack the key distinctions between the two and how brands can decide which to leverage to reach their next stage of growth.

What is retargeting?

Retargeting is the act of advertising to a consumer after they’ve visited a business’s website or social media profile, bounced, and are out and about online. (They can also be used to retarget consumers who already exist in a business’s database, like a newsletter subscriber.) Paid retargeting ads for the business will continue to pop up on partner sites within seconds, all with the goal of keeping the brand at the forefront of a user’s mind.²

There are two main ways a company can initiate a retargeting campaign strategy:

• Pixel-based retargeting – Pixel-based retargeting refers to targeting ads shown to users who’ve already visited a company’s website. They may already be a part of a business’s database or they might be a completely new potential customer. This strand of retargeting can be used any time a user clicks “Accept Cookies” or if they have a pixel installed on their browser. Cookies and pixels track online behavior and allow for relevant ads, like pop-ups or banners, to be displayed on the other sites they visit.³
• List-based retargeting – This form of retargeting involves zeroing in on users who may already have a foot in the funnel (e.g. being part of a lead database).⁴ Like remarketing, it can only be employed if a company has a user’s email or mobile number, but it can enable ads to be displayed on platforms from Instagram to LinkedIn. Common list-based retargeting strategies include offering users a free trial or discount on a first purchase.

It might seem that showing an ad again and again would trigger feelings of intrusion, if not prompt a consumer to complain. And while this certainly can happen, the data shows retargeting is remarkably effective for two reasons:

• The “mere-exposure effect” – The success rate of retargeting is attributed to what’s known as the mere-exposure effect. The basic premise here is that the more a person sees something, the more affinity they’ll develop for it.
• Brand awareness – Retargeting enhances a business’s exposure. The more familiar and recognizable a brand becomes, the greater a users’ trust, and the higher their likelihood of converting.⁵

What is remarketing?

In some ways, remarketing can be thought of as a form of retargeting that’s executed vis-a-vis a single communications channel: email. 

Instead of “targeting” a new consumer on the sites and platforms a user frequents after pausing on a business’s page, this strategy involves sending out an email to previous customers and/or email subscribers that says, “Hey, remember me? Here’s why you need me in your life.”

In sum, remarketing campaign efforts are  used to reignite the interest of inactive users, subscribers and/or followers. They’re useful in various scenarios, most commonly:

• Reminding users of an abandoned shopping cart.

• Alerting them to an upcoming sale or promotion.
• Introducing them to a new (or new to them) product or service.

Remarketing campaign tactics have been around long enough to appear somewhat blah—but they remain incredibly effective. Even so, email can be a tremendously versatile channel for businesses that wield it wisely. 

Some other ways to drive favorability with users include:

• Offering complimentary shipping.
• Inviting a recipient to an exclusive loyalty program.
• Telling a user how many loyalty points they’ve accrued, and how to cash them in.

Remember, users encounter remarketing frequently—a birthday email from the retailer we bought from two years ago, or a reminder praising our good taste with the six cute tops we just added to our shopping cart all fall under the umbrella. But when brands can deploy the tactic in a way that’s helpful (rather than annoying), it can be a brilliant tool for compelling users to follow through.

Key differences between retargeting and remarketing

Ultimately, the distinction between retargeting and remarketing comes down to three main factors:

• Messaging channel – Retargeting uses targeted, relevant advertisements that surface across multiple sites and social media platforms. The strategy can be executed in paid ads as well as more organic channels like email.
• Target – Retargeting is primarily used to attract users who are newer to a business, whereas remarketing is used to rekindle engagement with existing ones. Where retargeting focuses on acquisition, remarketing is geared toward retention.
• Paid vs unpaid – Retargeting employs paid advertisements; remarketing does not. That said, this doesn’t necessarily mean remarketing is a more economical choice for brands (marketing dollars are routinely spent on remarketing campaigns, from seasonal promotions to introducing a new product).

Benefits of retargeting

One of the biggest boons of retargeting campaigns is in helping businesses connect with entirely new consumers. And even aside from expanding reach, retargeting can also teach brands about who their customers are with greater nuance.

In addition to helping foster and refine customer relationships, this strategy is a smart business decision for brands who want:

• Marketing precision – Posting targeted ads in the vast, bottomless internet sans strategy can all too easily translate to dollars down the drain. Retargeting speaks directly to leads and brands’ target audience, which can help stabilize and grow brands’ marketing ROI.
• More exposure – From Twitter to Facebook, retargeting grants businesses the ability to showcase their ads on some of the most high-traffic platforms online.
• More user engagement – A well-placed, customized banner ads that speak to a specific niche of users can increase their likelihood of exploring a business’s site. In some cases, merely appearing in a digital venue a target customer frequents can establish a sense of common ground between brand and user.

Benefits of remarketing

Remarketing is the go-to strategy when a brand is looking to bring consumers back into the fold. It’s also an advantageous tactic for businesses that want: 

• More variety – Remarketing campaigns can be sculpted to champion whatever KPIs a brand has set from quarter to quarter. Email remarketing presents a nearly infinite canvas for incentivizing engagement creatively. From sending a fun quiz to users’ inboxes to letting VIP members peek into an upcoming subscription box, brands have limitless freedom to create campaigns in response to data as they acquire it.
• CTA follow-through – …aka, no abandoned carts. There are dozens of reasons a user might abandon their cart, from comparing prices with other brands to simply getting sidetracked. Remarketing helps nudge them in the right direction—sometimes by providing a simple reminder, and others by incentivizing the shopper by offering a discount or letting them know the item is low in stock.

The main benefit of remarketing is helping companies nurture the relationships they have with their customers. And because modern marketing revolves around relationships rather than coercion, it’s a crucial strategy for brands to keep in their back pockets.

Remarketing vs retargeting: which one should a brand use?

So whether you choose to target a new website visitor or an existing customer, retargeting and remarketing can both be great strategies. Deciding between remarketing and retargeting is a matter of context:

• When a brand’s main goal is to broaden its user base and amplify brand awareness, retargeting is an excellent tactic to use. 
• When a brand’s main goal is to improve customer retention with a cost-effective strategy (since retaining existing customers often requires less spend than attracting new ones) remarketing may be the way to go.⁶

For many brands, however, using both strategies is the best way to fast-track growth marketing when looking at the big picture, for the long haul.

Retargeting and remarketing: discover Power Digital’s difference

Retargeting and remarketing are both viable practices for businesses that are serious about increasing their visibility online. But without a marketing strategy locked in, it is possible to be overexposed (or exposed to the wrong audience).

At Power Digital, we help brands bond with customers by devising growth marketing strategies tailor-made for our clients. Whether it’s revamping your paid marketing strategy pr retargeting joining the latest surge on TikTok, we leverage data from our proprietary technology nova, and call on award-winning creative to help companies find their voice and charm their audience.

If you’re a business looking for a full-service marketing partner with a 360º of the digital playing field, keep retargeting, remarketing, and much more on target by scheduling a consultation with us today and discover how our comprehensive marketing services can elevate your strategy.

Sources: 

1. PR  Newswire. Study: 92 percent of consumers visiting a retailer’s website for the first time aren’t there to buy. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-92-percent-of-consumers-visiting-a-retailers-website-for-the-first-time-arent-there-to-buy-300390086.html
2. Forbes. What is retargeting and why is it important?  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/05/20/what-is-retargeting-and-why-is-it-important/?sh=3f553c3e7212
3. Indeed. Retargeting vs. remarketing: definitions and differences. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/retargeting-vs-remarketing
4. SEM Rush. The 5 rules of retargeting: personalization and customization at its best. https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-5-rules-of-retargeting-personalization-and-customization-at-its-best/
5. Forbes. To convert more customers, focus on brand awareness. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/22/to-convert-more-customers-focus-on-brand-awareness/?sh=259b5c872075
6. Forbes. 12 smart ways to lower the cost of customer acquisition.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/11/16/12-smart-ways-to-lower-the-cost-of-customer-acquisition

The post Retargeting vs remarketing: what’s the difference? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Retargeting does precisely that via the combination of strategic positioning and knowledge of users’ behavior—conveniently placing ads in front of potential customers who are still likely interested in a brand and its offerings. As a result, retargeting keeps potential customers interested, encourages engagement and helps drive sales.¹

But what does Google Ads retargeting mean, exactly? And what are its potential benefits? 

Let’s dive into the topic.

What is retargeting?

In the broadest terms, retargeting is a marketing technique that reminds a consumer of a brand’s promise, mission, products and/or services after they have expressed interest but have yet to complete an action.

Let’s put this into context:

• A user hops onto their device and visits a company’s website, social profile or mobile app. Maybe they’re performing research. Perhaps they’re conducting a price comparison on running shoes or searching for a salon’s brick-and-mortar address. Or maybe they’re just checking out the site after their colleague recommended it.
• Even though they visit a company’s web page, social profile or app, they don’t take any sort of definitive action—perhaps they abandoned those running shoes in a shopping cart or left the site after something interrupted their browsing. Regardless of the reason, the user stopped their engagement but may still be interested in your company or offerings.
• For pixel-based retargeting—a topic that will be delved into shortly—the user’s online behavior is leveraged to the brand’s advantage. Pop-up ads, banner ads and other forms of paid advertisements are displayed on the websites they visit as they continue to navigate the internet.

A retargeting campaign is intended to boost brand salience—and, ultimately, propel a consumer toward conversion. In a world that is positively saturated with businesses and their advertisements, it can be an effective means of making a lasting impression and standing out from the competition.

Why is retargeting deemed such a powerful, even necessary strategy?

Because visiting a brand’s website, social profile or app certainly isn’t the same as committing to engaging with the brand—whether that’s through a purchase or subscribing to their email list. 

Indeed, data shows that 92% of prospective consumers who visit a site for the first time aren’t actually there to make a purchase.² At the same time, MailChimp reports that an astonishing 97% of users who visit a site for the first time never return to it.³

Retargeting ads attempt to convince them otherwise and urge them back toward making a connection. 

And what is Google Ads retargeting?

Google Ads retargeting is the same process as retargeting in general, only the third-party host of the paid advertisement is Google. 

With Google Ads retargeting, those potential customers who ended their session before completing an action see customized ads among the results whenever they use Google’s search engine. The ad content is customized like Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) ads and based on the user’s pageviews and actions on the brand’s webpage or social platform.

This marketing initiative can be run either through Google Ads (formerly AdWords) or Google Display Ads. The latter was deemed one of the five most effective retargeting ads by Forbes, as it enables brands to reach a prospective consumer at a fraction of the cost of traditional Google Ads.⁴ 

With the former, paid advertisements follow the user wherever they go and, hopefully, nudge them back in the right direction. After all, a common refrain in the marketing world is that a consumer must be exposed to a brand five to seven times before it makes an impression that lands.⁵

Naturally, Google isn’t the only platform that offers retargeting. Other heavy hitters worth considering include:

• Facebook.
• Twitter.
• Instagram.
• LinkedIn.

Does all of this sound familiar? That’s because top brands ubiquitously use retargeting—which explains why checking out a pair of bamboo sheets on a website one minute results in targeted ads for the same sheets popping up the next, even on a completely different site or even on a social media app.

How does Google Ad retargeting work?

Whether a business is using Google Ads retargeting or Facebook retargeting, the strategy has two forms:⁶

• Pixel-based retargeting – When a user visits a site, a pixel, or piece of code, is installed on their side of the equation (unless they opt out of Cookies). This gives the business, or in this case, Google, the ability to follow where the potential customer may travel next on the internet. (It’s important to keep in mind that this is done anonymously, and no other personal data is collected or retained.) With Google Ads retargeting, Google is alerted by the pixel and displays advertisements for the business when the user visits Google Display Network websites or searches for similar terms on Google.  It’s almost as if a custom audience list is automatically created based on each visitor’s activity that is then used for Google retargeting ads.
• List-based retargeting – List-based retargeting is geared exclusively to consumers who have shared their email address (or phone number), whether it’s part of a business’s existing database or because the user signed up for an email newsletter. While considerably less prevalent than pixel-based retargeting, list-based retargeting has the advantage of being able to send super-customized advertising to a consumer who seems to need only a small push of encouragement to convert.

What are the benefits of Google Ad retargeting?

As the world’s largest search engine, chances are high that a consumer will be utilizing Google as they explore the vast expanse of the internet after leaving a business’s web page or social site. 

Also, as mentioned, Google Ads retargeting approaches the consumer through two angles: through advertisements on Google Display Network websites and when the user searches for related terms as they’re browsing through Google. 

Specifically, the plus side of Google Ads retargeting includes:

• Cost-effectiveness – Google Ads retargeting can be substantially more budget-friendly than other forms of advertising. And since the targeted ads are directed toward a user who has already conveyed at least some interest in a brand’s product or service, it has the potential to be more effective than blindly, non-discriminately featuring advertisements widely across the internet. Google Ads also uses a pay-per-click structure, so a business will only have to pay if a consumer does click through.
• Increased brand awareness – It’s estimated that 30,000 new products are released per year—and that’s a conservative number that doesn’t take into account existing products.⁷ As a result, consumers are constantly—if not relentlessly—exposed to new brands on a regular basis. If a brand surfaces again as they’re reading a blog post or staying apprised of the news, it has a much greater chance of leading to conversions.
• Tailored lists – A business has the ability to craft and display ads that are perfectly aligned with the user’s behavior. Take the above example of running shoes, for example. An advertisement for the same shoes the user just browsed, as well as shoes in a different color and the right socks to wear with them, can be shown to them. This gives businesses the chance to upsell and cross-sell while still keeping costs low.
• Enriched control – Google Ads retargeting allows a company to decide who to add (and keep) on their retargeting list and how long they should be advertised to. Retargeting a customer for nine months after they visited a brand’s social profile a single time wouldn’t make much sense; a lag that long likely indicates the user has officially moved on and is no longer interested. This grants businesses the opportunity to control their advertising costs and ensure they don’t cut into their bottom line.

Is there a difference between Google Ads retargeting and remarketing?

While Google retargeting and Google remarketing may get mixed up, they are not necessarily the same. Retargeting and remarketing do, however, share several similar objectives. 

That said:

• A Google Retargeting campaign utilizes paid advertising and is generally geared toward consumers who have visited a site or social profile but haven’t committed to an action. 
• A Google Remarketing campaign, on the other hand, uses email marketing to ignite interest from former customers and individuals who have subscribed to their email list, newsletter and/or similar engagements. (Interested in learning more about remarketing? Leading email marketing agencies like Power Digital have the answers.) 

Amplify brand awareness and enhance customer engagement with Power Digital

Google Ads retargeting can be a smart, expeditious and efficient way to lure consumers right back to where you want them: In front of your product and service, being persuaded into giving your business a try or learning more about it. Even better, with ad retargeting, you know there’s a strong chance the individual is interested in making a purchase or has already been exposed to your brand—meaning it’s a much easier conversion path than before.

So, the question is less whether you should adopt an ad retargeting strategy, and more who manages it.

You could attempt to handle all of this yourself. Or, you could keep concentrating on other aspects of your business while handing over the reins to a top-notch, tech-enabled growth marketing agency—like Power Digital Marketing, who fuses creativity with analytics to deliver optimal, measurable revenue growth.

With nova, we have the ability to determine precisely what’s working and what’s needed to help your company reach its potential, whether it’s through retargeting, remarketing, influencer marketing—you name it.

Book a consultation with us today to understand the full power of beautifully-executed Google Ads retargeting and more.

Sources: 

1. Forbes. What is retargeting and why is it important?  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/05/20/what-is-retargeting-and-why-is-it-important/?sh=3f553c3e7212
2. PR Newswire. Study: 92 percent of consumers visiting a retailer’s website for the first time aren’t there to buy. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-92-percent-of-consumers-visiting-a-retailers-website-for-the-first-time-arent-there-to-buy-300390086.html
3. MailChimp. What is retargeting?  https://mailchimp.com/resources/what-is-retargeting/
4. Forbes. Five effective types of retargeting ads that work on a small budget. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/12/04/five-effective-types-of-retargeting-ads-that-work-on-a-small-budget/
5. Small Biz Genius. 50+ eye-opening brand statistics – 2022 edition. https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/branding-statistics/
6. Google Ads. What are retargeting ads? https://ads.google.com/intl/en_uk/home/resources/retargeting-ads/
7. Forbes. How to launch a new product or service: what the latest research teaches us about successful launches. https://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2019/10/17/how-to-launch-a-new-product-or-service-what-the-latest-research-teaches-us-about-successful-launches/?sh=6c5c3314412a

The post What is Google Ads retargeting? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Targeted towards prospective consumers who have shown interest but have yet to convert, this strategy is widely employed by brands in various industries for flourishing results. LinkedIn retargeting works to stoke user interest in both a product or service and the brand that sells it. 

What’s unique about the LinkedIn platform? Which businesses are best served by marketing on this channel? Keep reading to unpack the answers to these questions and learn more about this promising advertising strategy.

Retargeting basics

Used by marketers across the board, retargeting is a strategy employed to address the estimated 97% of prospective consumers who never visit a site again after checking it out for the first time.¹ The practice uses paid advertisements on host sites to remind a user of their initial interest and aims to persuade them to act.

What’s the dream outcome of a retargeting campaign? To snag a user’s attention, redirect it and secure a conversion—whether that’s making a purchase, subscribing to an email list or signing up for an app’s free trial.

Retargeting in the real world

Virtually anyone who roams the internet is probably (if not positively) familiar with the experience of retargeting—even if they’re not versed in the mechanics that make it work. Retargeting can take place on a social media app, a blog post or wherever they might roam the internet. 

Say a user hops online to search for a software tool that helps edit podcasts. Their search is met with a post from Ogee, an (imaginary) audio editing company that has secured one of the top SERP spots on Google. They click on Ogee’s website, scan their prices and bounce, for whatever reason—their food delivery arrives, the price is outside of their budget or they’re late for a ZOOM meeting.

In a retargeting campaign, here’s what might happen next:²

• The next time the user goes online, whether it’s seconds or hours later, advertisements for Ogee catch their eye. Ogee ads appear on their LinkedIn feed when they’re checking out updates during the day.
• Later, they see the brand on a Facebook ad when they’re responding to a message from their aunt.
• That evening, in the margins of the blog post on content marketing, they spot a review ad on Ogee’s podcast software. 

The more they see it, the more real estate Ogee begins to take up in their mind—making it a top-of-mind solution for what they’re looking for. When they’re ready to make a purchase, who do they head towards?

You guessed it.

The basics of LinkedIn retargeting

LinkedIn retargeting employs the same philosophy and shares the same objective as retargeting writ large. The only distinction is using LinkedIn as its host site. On LinkedIn, brands can make another overture toward potential consumers and followers with whom they’ve already crossed paths.³

So, why LinkedIn? 

Because it’s one of the biggest networking platforms on the planet. Here are some of its stats:

• LinkedIn has more than 800 million users in over 200 countries.

• 45 million people hit up LinkedIn per week to search for a job.
• 82% of B2B marketers report the highest rate of success on LinkedIn.

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn retargeting functions as a particularly effective way to reach a specific set of more professional prospective customers. It allows businesses to zero in on potential consumers according to their:

• Industry.
• Role in a company.
• Seniority in their role.
• Company size.
• Location.

The specificity of these LinkedIn retargeting ads, coupled with the social media app’s immense number of users, increases a business’s chance of a successful second attempt with a potential customer.

How does LinkedIn retargeting work?

LinkedIn marketing has created new opportunities for companies to reach their target audience, especially through LinkedIn retargeting ads. LinkedIn retargeting uses what’s called the LinkedIn Insight tag, a small piece of JavaScript code that a business can easily install on each page of its website.

Whenever a user passes through one of these pages, this tag will leave a Cookie in their browser. For those users who have a LinkedIn account, it enables a business to find them again on the platform—and give them a push of encouragement through a paid advertisement or another form of messaging. 

Because this tag stores all of the aforementioned details (e.g. their occupation, role or geographic location), it further allows a business to assess its performance within these demographics. It’s also a cinch to install and requires only a few minutes to do so.⁴ 

So through a video ad, a gathered list of emails, and LinkedIn users who have visited your website or viewed your post, brands are able to create custom audiences for their retargeting ad or campaign efforts.

Which users can be retargeted through LinkedIn?

Anyone who has demonstrated interest of some kind in a brand that also has a LinkedIn account can be retargeted on this platform. These could be:

• Website visitors. (Note: A business or brand must rack up 300 LinkedIn visitors before they can create a retargeting list for a specific page.)
• Users who have viewed a brand’s video (or a portion of a video) on LinkedIn.
• Users who have completed a lead generation form.

What are the benefits of LinkedIn for retargeting?

LinkedIn retargeting has a slew of potential advantages for businesses, from boosting brand awareness and credibility to participating in more meaningful conversions. 

The LinkedIn retargeting campaign tactic also has an edge when it comes to:

• Creating refined, customized advertisements – LinkedIn retargeting enables a brand to tailor their ads and messages based on the user’s behavior. If a user checked out a pair of the business’s winter boots on their company site, for instance, they can display a LinkedIn retargeting ad for the same boots (along with a slightly higher-end pair and the skirt that looks fabulous with it). This gives a business the opportunity to upsell and cross-sell, while remaining in the realm of the user’s presumed interest.⁵
• Building credibility as well as visibility – Users encounter dozens, if not hundreds and thousands of new businesses on a regular basis. But which ones will actually stick in their minds? 

It’s generally believed that a consumer must be exposed to a brand’s message five to seven times before an impression is made.⁶ Retargeting fosters this impact and helps eliminate the incredibly high possibility that a user may never visit a business’s website again.

• Leverage timing – The process of retargeting may be somewhat complex but it all occurs in milliseconds—even if a user only briefly paused while gliding through the internet, they may still be shown an advertisement for that product. 

Psychologically, because the brand is still fresh in their brain, it can feel serendipitous and far less aggressive than seeing an advertisement for a product that has never crossed their mind. While deliberate and strategic on a business’s part, users who aren’t analyzing the mechanics behind advertising may read it as fortuitous—and all the more persuasive.

Is LinkedIn the only option for retargeting?

Definitely not. While creating a LinkedIn ad campaign can be beneficial in retargeting efforts, other popular and valuable avenues for retargeting include:

• Facebook 
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Google Ads

…and these are just the titans of the internet. A broad range of retargeting options—including many niche, smaller channels—can be viable. Marketing analytics can help select a brand’s best suite of retargeting channels depending on their objectives, where their target audience hangs out online, their budget and so forth. 

Is retargeting the same thing as remarketing?

Retargeting and remarketing are often used interchangeably but they employ different tactics:

• Retargeting uses either a pixel-based approach (like a LinkedIn Insight tag) or a list-based approach to pursue leads. The former relies on installing code on their browser; the latter requires the user’s contact information.
• Remarketing is slightly more limited in terms of access to the user. However, it also comes with the capacity to be hyper-customizable.

The technique is performed exclusively over email, and a business must have the user’s email address to execute it. This could be secured in a transaction, by inviting users to complete an online order or inviting them to a newsletter list outright.

To phrase it differently, retargeting is typically employed to acquire new customers. Remarketing is used to retain leads or reanimate inactive users.

Bullseye: for LinkedIn retargeting, pair up with Power Digital

LinkedIn retargeting is one of many ways to attract prospective users and start building a long, beautiful and mutually rewarding friendship. Brands looking to leverage the potency of this platform need a growth-first approach—precisely what we do best at Power Digital.

If you’re looking for a full-service digital marketing agency offering retargeting strategy and execution on LinkedIn and a spate of other platforms, we want to work with you. Whether your goal is to build up leadership online or connect with followers on a more personal level, reach out today, schedule a consultation, and let’s explore how you’ll hit your brand’s next stride in growth.

Sources: 

1. MailChimp. What is retargeting?  https://mailchimp.com/resources/what-is-retargeting/
2. Forbes. What is retargeting and why is it important?  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/05/20/what-is-retargeting-and-why-is-it-important/?sh=3f553c3e7212
3. HubSpot. Everything you need to know about LinkedIn retargeting.  https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/linkedin-retargeting
4. LinkedIn. The LinkedIn insight tag– faqs. https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a427660
5. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Retargeting for LinkedIn ads. https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/ad-targeting/retargeting
6. Small Biz Genius. 50+ eye-opening brand statistics – 2022 edition. https://www.smallbizgenius.net/by-the-numbers/branding-statistics/

The post What is LinkedIn retargeting? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Businesses can’t come out on top in the world of SEM by just donning some chainmail and leading their ranks in a ground-shaking rallying cry. So how can they create strategies that work?

Let’s break down just one element of any SEM battle plan: PPC strategy. PPC (or Pay-Per-Click) advertising is just one critical tactic in a diversified digital marketing strategy, and nailing it can be the difference between online domination and crushing obscurity.

PPC in a nutshell

First, it is important to understand what PPC is. We recently posted an in-depth guide to the basics of PPC—for a super detailed brief on pay-per-click, check it out.

But since this guide is more focused on marketing strategy, we’ll start with a simple recap:

• Brands pay PPC platforms for every click or impression that an ad generates.³
• On Google’s platform, for instance, four paid ads appear as the top four results on the SERP (the search engine results page)—a coveted spot for brands looking to usher in new site visitors.
• Brands choose which keywords they want their search ad to appear in, pay a “bid” price for each keyword, identify the negative keywords they don’t want their ad to appear for, and review their impression share to see just how well their search ad is actually performing.

PPC is a super straightforward SEM strategy—and, done right, it can generate fast results, even on a shoestring budget.

Key elements of a killer PPC strategy

As magical as the outcome above is (a rapid increase in visibility with limited spending), it requires an airtight plan. Let’s break down critical elements that should inform brands’ PPC strategies.

#1 Bid optimization

There are three to four PPC spots at the top of each SERP—and scoring one of them is critical for brands that want peak interaction metrics (and the highest possible ROI).

However, ranking for the right keyword is arguably more important.

If a brand that sells political campaign management software is ranking for “campaign management,” but the users searching this keyword might be looking for something else. Perhaps they’re interested in career information or a sponsored product for a different kind of PPC campaign (like an ad campaign instead of a political one). For those searches, the brand’s software ad probably won’t generate very many clicks.

So, what are brands to do? Consult their impression share data, and make the following tweaks:

• If the software company above isn’t generating a positive ROI from the keyword “campaign management,” they should either reduce their bid or remove this keyword altogether.
• If the brand ranks third or fourth for the keyword “political campaign software,” they should increase their bid in an effort to increase their rank.
• If the ad ranks first for “political campaign software” but still doesn’t generate positive ROI, another factor might be at play. Maybe this ad isn’t positioned on the right ad platform, to begin with, or perhaps the ad copy could be snappier.

It’s not all about the bid—but for brands working on tight budgets, optimizing cost can help maintain longevity and fine-tune other elements of their PPC strategy.

#2 Placement choice

Google might be a household name, but it’s not the only platform for PPC ads. Other high-performing options include:⁴

• Microsoft Ads
• YouTube
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Pinterest

To choose the best platform (or platforms) for their PPC campaign ad, brands should consider:

• A platform’s user base – Who’s using the platform (i.e., who’s going to see the ad)? What are those users looking for? While Google users might be looking for text-based intel, Pinterest users might be more likely to click on an image.
• Their budget – Each platform offers unique features, opportunities, and ad formats—naturally, their prices will vary. Brands must balance visibility and conversion with cost.
• Formatting – Instagram ads are photo- and video-based—if a brand sells a service rather than a physical product, it might make more sense to prioritize more text-focused platforms, like Google or Microsoft Ads.
• Ad volume – How many ads does a platform display per search? How likely are users to see a paid ad, even if they never use the search function (on a platform like Instagram or Pinterest, for example)? If a platform only sparsely shows ads, or if the competition is steep for highly coveted spots, brands should consider adjusting their bid (or their strategy) accordingly.

#3 Snappy ad copy

Depending on the platform, ads must meet certain formatting criteria. But copy can’t just survive in a format. It has to thrive and:

• Slow down fast-scrolling searchers
• Take advantage of ad extensions (more on this later)
• Provide the information that users are actually looking for when they search a keyword

It’s a tall order, especially for Google ads, where brands have to get their message across in a meager 270 characters.^5<7suP>

In the last bullet of the bid optimization section, we suggested that if a brand’s ad is ranking highly, but their ROI is still in the red, there might be something else going on. Dull or generic copy is a possible culprit.

In the pursuit of the perfect paid ad, the SEO and content marketing teams should experiment with the copy to find out what gets clicks—striking the right tone, using the right vocab and painting the perfect picture in a confined box is tough, but it’s crucial to PPC ad success.

#4 Playing the long game

PPC tactics can create fast results—as soon as they pay, brands can post their ads, potentially ushering in new impressions and site visitors from day one.

But content marketing teams shouldn’t expect overwhelming popularity in a matter of days. Like any other digital marketing method, brands must be willing to spend time observing what works and what doesn’t.

Businesses should expect to spend time on the following in their long-term pursuit of PPC perfection:

• Analyzing impression share metrics, like:
  • User demographics
  • Time spent on the SERP
  • Clicks vs. impressions
  • Conversion rates
• Fine-tuning their keyword choices.
• Tweaking their copy.
• Researching new strategies, trends, and advancements in PPC industry-wide.

Of course, time is money. And PPC can have a steep learning curve, but to overcome it (and avoid spending money on ads that don’t convert), consider teaming up with a professional, like a digital marketing agency.

Know the angles: Explore these 4 PPC tactics

So, what’s new in PPC strategy? What practices have been around for a while but still seem to work for budding brands? Let’s break down some new angles for businesses to experiment with as they build (and adjust) their PPC strategy:

• Google responsive search ads – Instead of tweaking headlines and descriptions manually, opt for automation. With responsive search ads, brands can write multiple headlines and descriptions, and Google Ads will test each one, learn which combinations perform the highest and automatically adjust ads accordingly.⁶
• Remarketing – On Google and other platforms, brands use remarketing functions to specifically target users who have already visited their site.⁷
• Prioritizing mobile – Smartphone users are a critical demo—and 50% of smartphone users would rather use a brand’s mobile site than their app.¹ When developing landing pages, businesses should invest in mobile-optimized content.
• Niche-ing down – High-intent, long-tail keywords can take time to unearth. But, they’re less competitive, searchers who use them demonstrate a higher user intent to buy, and they represent a massive portion of search engine queries.⁸

Between the basics of PPC, the major considerations explored above and the more specific ideas in this section, creating a strategy that produces a positive ROI takes significant effort. That’s why so many brands use professional PPC services—partnering with a marketing expert can give a company a massive leg up on the competition.

Breaking down the barricade to PPC superiority

Trying to implement PPC without a strategy in place is like heading into battle without a sword—or without an organized formation, an objective, or a place to meet up for turkey legs and run the victory lap.

But, the moat between digital marketing newcomers and PPC success is wide and full of crocodiles (or, at the very least, wasted money spent on keywords that don’t convert). Brands ready to breach the learning curve partner with the experts at Power Digital.

We’re already swashbuckling beside the likes of Casper, Dropbox, Square, and more. Our full-funnel, digitally-powered services can profoundly impact company growth—and its bottom line.

Discover digital marketing success, and reach out to us today.

Sources:

1. Think with Google. Marketing Strategies. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/global-consumers-search-statistics/
2. Forbes. Understanding Generation Data. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/02/understanding-generation-data/?sh=3b705f7536b7
3. Investopedia. Cost per Click (CPC) Explained, with Formula and Alternatives. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpc.asp
4. Search Engine Journal. The 8 Best PPC Ad Networks. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ppc-guide/best-ppc-ad-networks/
5. Google. About Text Ads. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1704389?hl=en
6. Google. About Responsive Search Ads. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7684791
7. Google. Remarketing and Audience Targeting. https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/guides/remarketing
8. Search Engine Journal. Long-Tail Keyword Strategy: Why & How to Target Intent for SEO. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-research/long-tail-keywords/

The post How to Develop a PPC Strategy appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

In 2021, Google generated results for 3.5 billion searches per day, on average.¹ Moreover, 98% of global consumers shop online, and 60% of smartphone users have used search engine results to contact a business directly.²

Search engines are the gateway to researching and making purchases, so businesses need to leverage these platforms as much as possible to increase awareness and conversions. One approach is paid advertising—like pay-per-click (PPC). What is PPC, and how are brands using it to attract website visitors with high purchase intent? Let’s break it down.

Making sense of pay-per-click advertising

Pay-per-click (or PPC) is an advertising pricing model that ad platforms use—brands using PPC pay platforms for every click or impression that an ad generates.³ Accordingly, PPC is sometimes called “cost-per-click,” or CPC.

Anyone responsible for even one of the over 3.5 billion Google searches per day has likely seen a PPC advertisement recently.

In a perfect utopia, where brands generate a click every time someone sees their PPC ad on a search engine, the process looks a little something like this:

1. A user plugs a relevant keyword into a search engine—like “best hair brushes for fine hair.”
2. The engine generates a search engine results page (SERP).
3. At the top of the SERP, the user sees three to four paid ads for hair-related brands.
4. Since they’re at the top of the search results, the user clicks one of these search ads and purchases a product that meets their needs.

Sounds simple, right?

PPC is pretty straightforward. But there’s a lot going on behind the scenes for the brands publishing (and paying for) the search ads that users see at the top of the SERP. Let’s take a peek behind the curtain.

PPC terminology to know

We’ve already defined some terms—SEM, PPC, and SERP. But, to really understand PPC, companies should get familiar with a few more:

• Keywords are the actual words users type into search engines, and there are two types:
• Short-tail keywords are just that—short. Searches like “hair brush” or “fine hair styling” are two examples.
• Long-tail keywords are chains of multiple words—they can even be full sentences. “Best hair brushes for fine hair,” our hypothetical search in the previous section, is a good example.
• A bid is the price that a company pays the PPC platform for each keyword click or impression. These prices vary based on tail length, popularity, and other factors. Businesses will set what budget they’re willing to spend on certain keywords for a PPC campaign.
• Impression share describes how well a brand’s PPC advertisement is performing—metrics include the number of clicks, impressions, and purchases made.
• Negative keywords are the searches a brand doesn’t want its ad to appear for. If a business sells hair brushes for humans, for instance, one of its negative keywords may be “horse hair brushes.”

We can use this lingo to better answer this guide’s central question—“What is PPC?”

In PPC advertising, brands pay for their ad to appear at the top of the SERP when users search certain keywords. In order to keep their bid costs down (and their impression share up), businesses choose which long-tail and short-tail keywords they want to appear for—and which negative keywords they want to avoid paying for.

PPC’s place in SEM

It’s hinted at above, but PPC marketing is only one SEM strategy that brands can use to increase brand awareness, generate website visitors or entice searchers to make a purchase.

SEM marketing approaches generally fall into one of two categories:⁴

• Organic SEM – Organic SEM tactics don’t require brands to pay ad platforms or search engines, but it can take longer for brands to reap the rewards of their organic SEM efforts. One organic SEM tactic is search engine optimization (SEO)—the process of (gradually) making a business’s brand more visible on the web.
• Paid SEM – Paid SEM requires businesses to pay search engines, online shopping tools, and other platforms for high-visibility ads. PPC is one example of paid SEM, and brands typically see results much quicker than they would if they only relied upon organic SEM.

An experienced digital marketing agency would likely advise a brand to diversify its tactics—a combination of organic and paid SEM is typically the key to success.

Where PPC shines

Why do businesses invest in PPC? What makes this advertising method so attractive for brands looking to amp their digital presence? Let’s break down some advantages of PPC.

#1 It produces speedy results

PPC works fast, especially in comparison to SEO.

A good SEO strategy has a lot of moving parts. Brands have to do market research to produce impactful content that will rise to the top of the SERP and invest in technical, back-end efforts to create a vast search network of optimized content across multiple platforms.

While PPC isn’t effortless, it’s certainly simpler—and faster-acting. Instead of waiting for quality content to gain traction, brands can write an ad, pay to post it, and watch the impressions rack up right away.

And ultimately, both tactics cost money. While brands wait for their organic content to reach the top of the SERP, it probably behooves them to get their name in front of a potential customer in the meantime.

#2 It meshes seamlessly with other SEM strategies

We compared the speed of SEO and PPC above, but since it generally benefits businesses to gain a foothold in both worlds, let’s explore how these two tactics can work in harmony.

Brands can work on both efforts simultaneously:

• When conducting research about their target demo’s digital habits, the data they discover about keyword usage, preferred content, and most-visited platforms can inform both SEO and PPC strategies.
• As businesses build critical landing pages on their websites, these landing pages can become both the final destination for PPC ads and internal links in local SEO blog content.
• Once PPC ads go live, brands can analyze their impression share and other performance metrics to discover which keywords are the highest-performing. While their ads collect clicks, they can integrate these higher performers into their local SEO content, theoretically reducing the time needed to rise to the top of the SERP organically.

#3 It’s hands-on

Brands have a lot of power over their PPC strategy. The advertising team can control:

• How much the company spends per day and (to a degree) per keyword.
• Which keywords they advertise for.
• Which users see their search ads (e.g., repeat searchers or people in their target demo).
• The copy (and other content) in their paid ads.

PPC is a control freak’s—err, control enthusiast’s—dream advertising method. It’s highly customizable, and the data gleaned from impression share metrics can be incredibly useful in other advertising efforts.

But this level of customization can get overwhelming for newcomers; businesses can avoid analysis paralysis and breach the steep learning curve by using PPC services.

The points above are only a fraction of the strategic options brands have when they invest in PPC. For a more in-depth run-down, check out our guide to developing a PPC strategy.

Breaking into the world of PPC

Brands ready for the limelight at the top of the SERP should follow the steps below to get started:

• Choose an ad publisher – Google isn’t the only search engine out there.⁵ But, if they’re not sure where to start, brands should try a few different platforms and closely analyze the impression share of each to carve a path forward.
• Flesh out keywords – Some keywords will be straightforward—if a brand sells hair brushes, then “best hair brushes” or, simply, “hair brush” are both obvious choices. But, brands should take time (and do market research) to discover potentially powerful keywords that their target users might also search for. For example, the hypothetical hair brush business may incorporate keywords related to “static electricity hair.”
• Choose landing pages – Whether every ad directs to the home page or each ad has its own highly-specific landing page, brands should fine-tune where users will end up after clicking.
• Set a budget – Done right, PPC can be very budget-friendly. One of the best ways to optimize PPC efforts is through working with an expert, like a digital marketing agency.
• Monitor progress – Data gleaned from PPC efforts can be incredibly useful for both guiding PPC campaign adjustments and shaping other digital marketing campaigns. Learning more about consumers’ keywords, their time online, and even the times of day when they’re most likely to make purchases can change the game for up-and-coming companies.
• Adjust the strategy – Brands can start using PPC right away, but playing the long game is one of the best ways to gather powerful intel and carve out a niche among consumers.

Harnessing PPC for brand growth

What is PPC? It could be the difference between brand awareness and the depths of obscurity.

And, while PPC is relatively straightforward, nailing it takes experience, tech-savvy, and advertising chops. At Power Digital, we have all three—and so much more.

We’re a growth marketing firm with a long track record of helping clients reach the next level using the digital platforms brands (and their users) know and love—search engines, social media, blogs, and more. Our cutting-edge analytics platform and our sharp marketing minds have the power to transform your digital presence and help you seize opportunities for growth.

Discover what your brand could be. Reach out to Power Digital today.

Sources:

1. Forbes. Understanding Generation Data. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/08/02/understanding-generation-data/?sh=3b705f7536b7
2. Think with Google. Marketing Strategies. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/global-consumers-search-statistics/
3. Investopedia. Cost per Click (CPC) Explained, with Formula and Alternatives. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cpc.asp
4. Forbes. Paid or Organic Marketing: Which Strategy Provides Highest ROI. https://www.forbes.com/sites/celinnedacosta/2021/01/14/paid-or-organic-marketing-which-strategy-provides-highest-roi/?sh=162fbfe05cbc
5. Business Insider. The top 3 Pay-per-Click Platforms of 2019. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/the-top-3-pay-per-click-platforms-of-2019-plus-the-top-34-ppc-agencies-according-to-designrush-1028047716

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Google has recently started allowing us to migrate our Smart Shopping campaigns over to PMax with the click of a button, making this campaign more robust than ever.

We’re here to help you unpack what Performance Max is and understand how best to set your campaign up for success based on what our team has found. Let’s dig in!

What Is Google’s Performance Max?

“Performance Max is a new goal-based campaign type that allows advertisers to access all of their Google Ads inventory from a single campaign. It’s designed to complement your keyword-based Search campaigns to help you find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.”

This campaign type that we at Power Digital Marketing have lovingly dubbed, “PMax,” combines Google’s automation abilities to bid, optimize, and target as wide and efficiently as possible.

TLDR: The beauty of PMax is that you can promote products across the expansive Google Network with just one easy-to-manage campaign.

Key Takeaways on How to Structure PMax

More to come on how to approach PMAX once it’s been built, but some key takeaways for you blog skimmers:

• Go all in!

  • We’ve tested running legacy campaigns in tandem with PMax vs. ripping the bandaid and allocating all efforts toward PMax. As you can guess, results have been significantly better with the bandaid approach, so we recommend pausing your Smart Shopping & Local once you’ve upgraded to avoid internal competition.

•  Negate Brand terms to use as a more ToF play

  • This really depends on your client’s goals, but we’ve seen positive results from negating Brand and dedicating PMax to a brand awareness play vs. lower in the funnel.

•  Segment similar to Smart Shopping vs. one catch-all

  • Google recommends breaking asset groups out by theme, so dresses vs. shoes vs. tops, especially if those products are higher priority and bigger revenue drivers.

•  Set aggressive tROAS goals

  • Don’t be afraid to set more aggressive tROAS goals than what was set for Smart Shopping
  • Given the increased traffic volume and lower intent placements that will stem from PMax, we should be careful with setting the bar too low

How To Build a Performance Max Campaign

With all of the new features of PMax, it is critical that you start with a solid foundation that you can then improve upon as results trickle in. There are a couple of key features that you will want to be mindful of and take a closer look at when structuring your Google Performance Max campaigns.

Basic Campaign Objective & Settings

Like any other Google Ads campaign, you’ll be prompted to choose the campaign’s objective. Google recommends that you leverage Conversion Values whenever possible, as it helps improve lead quality. This is, of course, super important with Lead Generation clients since PMax has a tendency to drive an influx of leads, but quality doesn’t always follow.

Once you’ve chosen the goal your campaign will optimize toward (Sales, Website Traffic, Local Visits, etc.), it’s time to determine your preferred ad scheduling, final URL expansion preference, and campaign URL options. 

We recommend launching a PMax campaign with the URL Expansion setting disabled, or at the very least excluding irrelevant pages, like the Blog and FAQs. This will ensure you’re not wasting spending on pages that don’t necessarily move the needle and get you closer to the end goal. If this is enabled, Google will replace your specified URL with one it deems more relevant. This could be helpful but does open the door for potentially inefficient spending. 

This is a layer of control advertisers DO have with this campaign type, so be sure to consider this in your strategy prior to launching.

Asset Groups

Now that your initial settings are ready, you’ll build what’s called an “asset group.” Similar to a Search campaign’s ad group level but made up of also of the components traditionally at the ad level, an asset group is where the images, logos, headlines, descriptions, videos, and audience signals live. 

Much like Responsive Search Ads, all of these assets you give the engine are automatically mixed and matched based on which channel the ad runs on. This takes some of the historically tedious and time-consuming creative testing off advertisers’ plates, as Google does the heavy lifting to find the right combination of creative for the right user.

Google does note that if you plan to run Shopping only through a Merchant Center feed, you don’t necessarily need to provide these additional assets to launch. But they do recommend you provide the assets in order to serve across all of the available channels!

Keep in mind that you’re able to create multiple asset groups.In fact, Google recommends advertisers group asset groups by similar themes and audiences to align with the website.

Google’s latest PMax webinar

Spoiler Alert: At PDM, we’re testing a variety of campaign structures and methodologies, including consolidating all products and creatives into 1 asset group, as well as segmenting products and themes into multiple groups. With multiple groups, you’re able to use different audience signals and drive users to specific landing pages. With that, you could tailor ad copy and imagery to a specific theme, like “denim” vs. “shoes” for a fashion client. More to come here on the results we see from these tests!

Google notes that it won’t always be necessary to have multiple PMax campaigns running for different products or themes, especially if you’re dealing with low product diversity or a limited variety. 

You’re able to feed the engine the following creative that it will optimize across the Google ecosystem:

• Up to 20 images
• Up to 5 logos
• Up to 5 videos
• Pro Tip: Upload a nice, branded video, or else the engine will create one itself with the images provided! This isn’t the worst option in the world but gives you less control over what’s running.
  • If your client hasn’t provided you with relevant video assets, we recommend building one within Google’s Asset Library! You can choose from several templates that give you some level of control over which images show, paired with specific ad copy in the order of your choosing. You can also select 2 of your brand’s colors, pick a font, and choose which song fits the brand best (funky, happy, calm, etc).
• Up to 5 headlines (30 characters)
• Up to 5 long headlines (90 characters)
• 1 short description (60 characters)
• Up to 4 descriptions (90 characters)
• CTA
• Ad URL options

Google recommends you refresh your asset group’s assets every 4-6 weeks or when you see CTR declining. Always try to achieve your ad’s “Excellent” rating before saving. Then when you’re digging into your asset group’s Insights page, you can see how each headline, description, image, and video performed within the Best, Good, and Poor rating system. Those are good indicators of what exactly you should refresh when checking campaign performance.

For eComm accounts, be sure to pay attention not only solely to your asset group but also to the products and feed within Google Merchant Center. This is SO important to the success of your campaign once you’ve upgraded to include Google Shopping (more on that below). Now more than ever, feed hygiene and optimization are vital to the success of your Google Ads campaigns, as this allows both Google and the user to clearly understand your product on the various networks your ads may appear on.

Pro Tip: Review your diagnostics tab in Google Merchant Center to fix any issues Google may flag so that you can maintain 100% active products in your feed.

Audience Signals

One of the more mysterious components of this campaign type is its Audience Signals. Think of these less as audience targets and actually as audience guidelines.

“Audience Signals tell automation who is most likely to convert and help you meet your goals. With this info, you can find more converting customers faster. Automation helps you drive additional conversions from NEW customer segments you may not have known about before.”

Essentially, these allow you to combine your knowledge of your client’s audiences and Google’s automation. Google notes that the two most important signals to include are:

1. Your clients’ 1st party data, such as website visitors and customer match lists.

2. Custom segments

It’s no surprise to any PPCer reading this that the imminent cookie depreciation makes 1st party data more and more important. In addition, we’ve also been leaning into the custom segments within PMax. This targeting capability is vast, allowing you to target people who have searched for various terms, are just interested in those topics, browse certain websites, and even apps.

Additionally, you can include information about Interests & Detailed Demographics, like Affinity & In-Market. 

A more recent feature that our team is loving – Google now lets you optimize toward solely new customers. Our team is currently testing this and will circle back with results within the next month or so!

Now that you’re done with the bulk of your Google Performance Max campaign build, make sure to include any relevant extensions, like locations, prices, callouts, and images.

Performance Max Replaces Smart Shopping & Local

Since the genesis of PMax, it’s been Google’s plan to eventually incorporate both Smart Shopping and Local into the all-inclusive campaign type. That’s finally happening, *cue celebration and also some confusion*

Advertisers have been wondering how they would smoothly transition from these existing campaigns to PMax and what the actual logistics would look like. Luckily, we can easily click a button and upgrade without scrapping any legacy data. If you don’t take advantage of this upgrade, your Smart Shopping and Local campaigns will be automatically upgraded whether you’re ready or not. Like many new features by Google, it’s best to be an early adopter to collect early learnings, determine how Performance Max integrates with your current strategy, and make pivots before the holiday season.

Source: https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/upgrade-to-performance-max

When you upgrade your campaigns, a new Performance Max campaign will be created, which keeps your previous campaigns’ learnings to maintain consistent performance. Budget and settings will also be carried over.

PMax campaigns have followed similar trends as any other newly launched campaign: the combination of spend, traffic volume, and time will all factor in. Our reps recommend giving yourself at least a 2-week ramp-up/learning period before making any judgment calls. Keep an eye on the search terms and insights section to ensure that the campaign matches relevant queries!

Similarly, you might be wondering how this will impact your Dynamic Search Ad campaigns. As of April 2022, Google has seen DSA campaigns decline in traffic following the launch of PMax campaigns. However, efficiencies have been known to improve based on the lower spend and traffic volume. You may still continue to run DSA campaigns in your Google Ads account, but forewarning that they will be impacted by the PMax launch.

“Retailers across the globe are seeing continued success with Performance Max. In fact, advertisers who upgrade Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max see an average increase of 12% in conversion value at the same or better ROAS.”

In addition to Shopping, we’ve also been incorporating Local into PMax efforts. So far, it’s helped to boost brand awareness and CPCs are lower than the legacy Local campaigns. With that said, lead quality has decreased PoP because we’re seeing an influx of unqualified clicks from lower intent customers. More to come here in a future post!

At Power, our team has tried both options: letting Smart Shopping campaign run in tandem with a new PMax campaign vs. ripping the bandaid off, upgrading to PMax, and pausing Shopping. We know this can be scary to lean into something that’s ever-evolving, but we’re confident you’ll see the similar positive results that we have in recent months!

The post How To Structure Google Performance Max & Upgrade to Incorporate Shopping appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

What Does This Sunset Mean For Advertisers?

Starting June 30, 2022, you can no longer launch new ETAs. For that reason, we recommend making any last updates to those existing ETA ads as needed (creative refresh, anyone?) while you still can, in an effort to perfect those evergreen ads as much as possible. Then, turn your attention solely to RSAs looking forward. 

It’s no surprise that Google Analytics continues to speed down the highway of automation toward a land of machine learning running the show. We’ve seen it over time through various changes in search engine marketing, from “smart” bid strategies, to keyword match type variants, to RSAs, to Performance Max. As the engine evolves, we must as well! At Power, we’ve been leaning into these changes full speed ahead, and have been testing these newer iterations of Google Ads as they happen.

It can be frustrating feeling like you’re losing a level of control as we move in the direction of being more automated with our bidding, keywords, creativity, etc., but for the most part, we’ve seen positive results with this change and have come to appreciate the benefits of the RSA:

#1 Ease of management

For lack of a better description – RSAs allow you to take a bunch of relevant ad copy, throw it all together, and let Google do its thing. Google operates off of thousands of data signals and is only getting smarter over time, enabling us to trust it with serving the right ad to the right user at the right time, aka lighter management on your end.

#2 Instant creative testing

If you leverage a tool like Optmyzr, you can see exactly how each headline and description performs in a given timeframe, helping you to ID which copy to keep and what to nix. This also sheds light on any CTAs or UVPs you may want to expand to other campaigns based on positive performance!

How We Recommend Structuring Your Campaigns w/ ETAs and RSAs

Historically, Power’s Paid Media team has followed the below responsive search ad structure to ensure proper coverage between ETAs and RSAs. Standard practice has been to run 2-3 ETAs per ad group, and through testing, we often found success running 2 RSAs per ad group, with and without pinned ad copy. 

Moving forward, we think it’s still worth running those 2-3 ETAs per ad group while focusing more on RSAs in the days leading up to the sunset. With that said, now is definitely the time to be updating those ETAs to ensure the text is as relevant as possible since you’ll no longer be able to edit your ETA ad come June 30!

What We’ve Seen So Far With This Change

Historically, if you ran ETAs alongside RSAs, you likely saw that RSAs received the majority of impressions, and therefore revenue. In the cases of some of the Google Ads accounts we manage at Power, RSAs accounted for 80% of impressions and drove 64% of total paid search revenue.

An eCommerce apparel brand that we manage has historically run both ETAs and RSAs, and recently shifted to running RSAs only. Although we saw consistent click–through rates (CTRs) between the two strategies, we saw the biggest lift in the conversion rate (CVR). CVR improved +215% by moving to an RSA–only strategy for their ad choices.

With the trends we are seeing, RSAs are hands down the preferred ad type option, and this change is a movement towards a more automated future. We are able to customize the ads to best suit each ad group but still give Google the opportunity to show the best ad copy to each individual searcher.

All in all, we’re feeling good about the change and hope you are too! You still have time to square things away, so don’t panic if you haven’t fully rolled things out the way you want to. And let us know if you have any questions about the best practices at all! We’re always happy to collaborate on strategy and help out our fellow PPC nerds. 

The post What Advertisers Should Do About ETAs Sunsetting appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

As we approach Google’s official sunset of the Broad Modified match type, it’s important to understand the remaining three match types and best practices with each. Earlier this year Google announced that Broad Modified match will be discontinued, leaving Broad, Phrase and Exact match types. Existing Broad Modified match keywords will begin serving with new Phrase match rules.

In theory, this change should not hinder performance. However, it’s important to understand the best practices for keywords, ad groups and campaign structure. With all best practices, each account could behave differently and it’s important to test what will perform best, case by case. This blog contains findings from testing structures with new broad modifier match type and structure recommendations from our digital marketing agency.

Google Ads Match Types and How They Work

With the BMM phase out, there are now three remaining match types: Broad, Phrase, and Exact. The names of these different match types are very familiar to Google Ads services. However, the way Google now treats each individual match type has changed immensely from years past. We’ve seen this in the past with the introduction of “close variants,” but it seems we’ve drifted further away from what these match types used to be.  

Google now describes Broad Match as “Loose Matching,” Phrase as “Moderate Matching” and Exact as “Tight Matching.” In 2021, keyword matching types need to be thought of in this sense, as the old meaning of “exact” or “phrase” is no longer relevant. Advertisers should now focus on Google’s intentions of these changes rather than what keywords they may show up for. The biggest change across all these match types is that Google is relying on AI to understand meaning and user intent, rather than the prior, more linear keyword matching where keywords were keywords.

More details on how each keyword match type has changed below:

Exact Match:

Exact match type used to be relatively straightforward – users needed to search the exact keyword or a close misspelling to trigger the ad. Google now defines this as “Ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword.” For example, the exact match keyword [lawn mowing service] can now also trigger keywords such as “grass cutting service”, because the intent of the search is the same. Exact is no longer exact by any means, and needs to be thought of as “tight matching.”

Phrase Match:

Phrase match type previously meant the user needed to include your keyword. For example, “shoes for men,” could trigger searches such as “tennis shoes for men,” “buy shoes for men online” etc. Similar to the exact match change, phrase match has loosened and Google states that “ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword. The meaning of the keyword can be implied, and user searches can be a more specific form of the meaning.” 

Similar to exact match, the search no longer needs to contain the keywords you are targeting as long as Google identifies that the intent or meaning is the same. For example, the keyword “lawn mowing service” can trigger a search for “hire company to mow lawn” because the implication between the two keywords are the same. 

Broad Match:

On the surface, Google’s current definition of Broad Match doesn’t vary far from what advertisers are used to, as Google states, “Ads may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don’t contain the keyword.” However, Google also mentions that to help deliver relevant matches, the system also takes into account the user’s recent search activities, the content of the landing page and other keywords in the ad group — all of which go hand-in-hand with Google’s transition to focusing on user intent rather than keywords.

The example provided is that the broad match keyword “lawn mowing service” can trigger a search for “lawn aeration prices.” Although this search is related to the keyword, it may not be particularly profitable for a business that does not offer aeration services, so as always broad match keyword search terms need to be closely monitored to ensure high-quality traffic.  

Account Structure Recommendations: When to Use Each Match Type

It is important to know the differences between match types in order to implement the appropriate ones for your goals, as they deliver different results throughout your search query. With Google’s match type update and increasing reliance on smart bidding, it is good to use Broad match type when possible, but it definitely should not be used in every instance.

Broad match type ideally should be used alongside Exact match for Branded keywords, as long as your brand’s name is not a generic, commonly used word, such as, “Dress Shop” or “Equipment.” When looking to scale budget and search volume, you can start off with a small number of Broad match keywords in your non-brand campaign, but you need to be monitoring search terms report daily or multiple times a week and include an extensive negative keyword list. Broad match keywords typically start out with poor performance for the first 2-4 weeks until Google learns which variations of the word get the results you want. If you’re willing to go through that dip in performance, Broad can come out the other side and surprise you with its performance when used with smart bidding.

Phrase match types should be what you start with for non-brand campaigns. This way you have more control without wasting money on an influx of irrelevant searches. Phrase does see substantially less volume than broad match. You still want to monitor the search terms report as you may be appearing on searches that contain the words in your keyword phrase but have a different meaning.  

Exact match types should be utilized whenever possible, since Google will prioritize these terms over other match types and will be ranked higher in the auction. These are great to use for brand and non-brand keywords. They should also be continuously added for high-performing search terms that come through. 

If your brand campaigns generate more than 50 conversions a month, you should consider grouping Phrase and/or Broad match keywords in the same ad group but in a separate campaign than Exact match keywords. This way you can bid higher on the exact match of your brand that typically drives the best performance. Consolidation is key, especially for lower converting keywords. For non-brand campaigns, consider grouping Exact, Phrase and/or Broad keywords in the same ad group (broken out by keyword theme) to give Google more data to learn,and allow it to choose the match type it deems best for each query.

Moving Forward Without Broad Modified Match

The BMM phaseout has drastically changed the way that advertisers structure accounts. As with many changes provided by Google, test with an open mind, as success will vary between industries, budgets, locations and settings within the Google Ads platform that works for one account may not work for another.

The post Understanding Match Types in 2021 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

In Google’s recent privacy policy update, they stated that they would be phasing out cross-site tracking through third-party cookies, which places a significant emphasis on the importance of first-party data. First-party data is information that businesses collect directly from their prospects and/or customers. This data can come from sources like a newsletter sign up, customer survey, or account creation. Compared to second- or third-party data, first-party data is more accurate and reliable when building remarketing best practices, and in the long run can improve customer retention, win back cart abandoners, and increase lifetime value (LTV). 

What is DataQ?

Actually using your own first-party data can be difficult. Every ads platform and email service provider (ESP) demands data to be manually uploaded in a different format. There’s little ability to differentiate between high- and low-value customers, let alone pulling out actionable insights about consumer behavior.

DataQ solves this problem. It allows your first-party data to seamlessly connect to email service providers and digital ads platforms. DataQ data is automatically transferred in real time, securely and anonymously, so you’ll never miss out on up-to-date information. This gives you the option to use your own anonymized, aggregated data to power up your marketing efforts, including enabling high-value audiences on advertising platforms, and allowing you to target emails to highly specific audience segments.

DataQ is more than just an incredible audience creation and remarketing tool. It also brings detailed and actionable information on customer demographics, behavior data, and overall performance into a single dashboard. This lets your digital marketing agency find the insights they need to further improve campaign efficiency and make big-picture decisions.

Integrating DataQ Into Your Marketing Stack

For such a powerful tool, setting up DataQ is surprisingly easy to integrate with Shopify or Magento; from there, the insights dashboard is available to view, and you can integrate audiences into Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads and multiple ESPs, including Mailchimp and Klaviyo.

Use Case Example:

Integrating Shopify with DataQ and Facebook Ads allows you to import your top 20 percent highest valued customers directly into a Facebook Ads audience, which will update automatically as you continue to gain new customers. Using this audience, you can both engage in high-value retargeting, and create high-value Lookalike audiences to find new customers who are similar to your best customers — not your average customer.

Case Studies of Unique Targeting Criteria in DataQ

Lookalikes Based on DataQ Audiences:

• mnml (men’s streetwear apparel): Power Digital Marketing implemented a “Similar to DataQ” audience as part of a prospecting Discovery campaign, and found that using DataQ lookalike audiences was far more results driven than the typical remarketing lookalikes. While comparing the two audiences, Similar to DataQ generated over 9x more revenue, nearly 10x more view-through conversions, and 12x as many clicks than the Similar to Website Engagers audience. 
• Athletic Brewing (non-alcoholic canned drinks): As a top-of-funnel strategy, Power Digital Marketing used Similar to DataQ audiences on YouTube for prospecting. DataQ outperformed the Similar to Website Engagers in conversions by 1.25x, in revenue by 1.11x, and in views by nearly 2x. 

With the way that DataQ identifies users into audience groups, each of the brands mentioned above were able to see huge lifts based on the audiences that best fit their needs; i.e. loyal customers, big spenders, critical retention moments. In both case studies, DataQ saw much larger reach and impact compared to typical remarketing audiences. 

Increasing LTV and Repeat Purchases

As marketers, our primary goal is to not only influence sales, but to create lasting relationships with our customer base while driving long term value for the business. Optimizing towards LTV as a key metric allows us to focus on the big picture, flattening spikes from seasonality or promotions in order to gain a more holistic view of the success of our marketing initiatives.

Increasing LTV centers around three key areas within the marketing funnel:

• Understanding your customers and/or target persona
• The cost to acquire customers for your business
• Repeat purchase rate amongst your existing customer base.

Each of these key areas occupy a space within the traditional marketing funnel for awareness, acquisition, and retention. However, an argument can be made to support the idea that the first lever, understanding your customer, is of the utmost importance as it has a direct impact on Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), repeat purchase rate, and therefore LTV.

For example, understanding who your customer base is will improve your targeting criteria and is instrumental in increasing first time conversion rate and lowering your cost per acquisition. In addition to this, understanding your customers’ product interests and affinities makes it easier to identify opportunities for upsells and ad hoc purchases, ultimately leading to an increase in repeat purchase rate.

With DataQ’s ability to slice and dice first-party customer data, marketers can easily identify trends and opportunities amongst their customer base to create as many touchpoints as possible in the marketing funnel, in order to re-engage with loyal customers and nurture them towards additional purchases.

 Key Takeaways of DataQ

Leveraging first-party data is becoming increasingly imperative as we migrate into a cookie-less world. DataQ makes gathering and analyzing first-party data quick and painless. With DataQ, marketers can not only build audiences for website engagers, but also single and multi-purchasers to identify users who are big spenders, first time purchasers, or made a purchase during a specific sale. By getting hyper-detailed in our audience targeting, we can effectively scale our efforts as marketers and navigate with ease as Google updates their privacy policies. 

The post Advanced Audience Retargeting with DataQ appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Google has recently announced an update in their current Google privacy policy and plans to end the support of third-party cookies within the next two years. Essentially, Google will stop the utilization of cross-site user tracking and targeted advertising outside its own properties. 

In our day and age, information is accessible to billions of people at the touch of a button. With so much information and so many targeted ads circulating the web, users have started to become more wary about their personal privacy and data protection. With Google supporting third party services to collect user data and personal info, a level of untrustworthiness has developed among tech and digital marketing agencies. 

“72% of people feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, tech companies, or other companies” says David Temkin, Google Director of Product Management, Ads Privacy and Trust. 

With greater privacy demands, a new roll out of privacy settings for better transparency and control for users has begun. Google has also said they will not:

• Create alternative conversion tracking identifiers across the web 
• Use collected personal data to enable targeting on other sites

However, Google is still going to allow advertisers to target across its own properties when a user is logged into a Google service account. Bottom line, Google knows if they don’t evolve and adapt like other platforms are in regards to user data privacy concerns and demands, they risk the future freedom of the web and advertisers who utilize Google. 

The Impact of Removing User Tracking Identifiers

By this point, consumers are used to knowing that their personal data leads to more relevant advertising through the use of information provided by cookies where advertisers are able to target specific audiences based on behaviors and interests. However, with a global shift toward preserving individual privacy on the internet, advertisers and brands must now adjust their strategies to better integrate with a more privacy-focused online advertising environment.

By early 2022, Google intends to end support for third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, which represents the backbone of the online advertising industry as we know it. While there will be an eventual solution that groups consumers into large, anonymized pools of similar behaviors/interests so they can still receive personalized advertising, the current era of hyper-targeted advertising is due to fade away. Google has made it clear that they do not intend to create a replacement system that offers the current level of tracking under a different name.

With third-party data soon to be a thing of the past, brands will need to be more intentional about what kind of information they collect from their customers and other consumers, and change how that information is collected. Relying more heavily on first-party data (data that a business is able to collect on its own from consenting customers), will represent the clear next step in developing target audiences. This could come from gated content, required account creation and sign-in for purchases or form fills, and other data-collection strategies.

Effectively Leveraging First-Party Data

The privacy policy changes Google has been making only reinforce the importance of utilizing first-party data in your Google Ads services account. There are several helpful ways customer lists can be used:

• Upselling past purchasers; such as by advertising a complementary product to the one originally purchased
• Encouraging lower-funnel prospects to convert; such as by advertising a site promotion or discount to non-converting past site visitors
• Driving non-converters further down the funnel; such as by showing a testimonial-focused ad to someone who signed up for your email list

Additionally, the automatically-generated “Similar To” audiences, which are based on your first- party data lists, help you expand the reach of your Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, and App campaigns by targeting individuals who have very similar characteristics compared to the members in your customer lists, such as site visitors or past purchasers. These lists exclude users from your remarketing lists, so you can be confident your online marketing campaign with the “Similar To” audience targeting will solely be used to acquire new customers.

Moving Forward in a More Privacy-Driven World

Utilizing first-party data will be imperative as Google implements the privacy policy changes. Businesses should begin formulating ways their website can capture potential customer emails, if they are not already. Advertisers should prepare for this change by weaning off of third-party data by developing strategies that utilize customer lists and “Similar To” audiences for each part of the sales funnel. As the internet becomes more privacy-driven, preparing to completely shift over from third-party to first-party data will benefit everyone in the long run. 

The post Preparing for Google’s Privacy Policy Change appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

When it comes to Google advertising, our job as a digital marketing agency is to make sure we’re getting in front of the right consumer. One of the ways we do this is bidding on the keywords that prospective customers are using to search. We do this by using the exact match keyword, phrase match keyword, and broad match keyword. 

• Exact Match: ads might show on searches that have the same meaning as the keyword. This is the most cost effective keyword match type. However, due to its restrictive nature, it can miss out on broader relevant searches.
• Phrase Match: ads may show on searches that include the meaning of the keyword. With phrase match, you can reach more customers, while still showing your ads to customers who are most likely searching for your product or service.  
• Broad Match: ads might show on searches that only relate to the keyword. Broad match keywords are the loosest matching option and can quickly become expensive due to the wide range of possible matches. To help deliver relevant matches, broad match type takes into account the user’s recent search query, the content of the landing page as well as other keywords in an ad group to better understand intent.

What To Expect

In February, Google updated phrase match to behave similarly to BMM in order to simplify keywords and to make it easier to reach customers. With this update, phrase match keywords now have the same matching behavior as broad match modifier. For example, the phrase match keyword “moving company San Diego to Los Angeles” will still cover searches like “affordable moving company San Diego to Los Angeles,” but no longer appears for searches where users are looking to move from Los Angeles to San Diego. Previously if a user searched “moving company Los Angeles to San Diego” the BMM keyword would trigger, but this is no longer the case with the new phrase match update.

Starting in July 2021, BMM keywords will no longer be able to be created, but you will still be able to achieve the same matching capability through phrase match. As for current BMM keywords in your accounts, these will still continue to serve but will be using the new keyword matching behavior introduced with this update. 

How Does This Affect You?

The simplest answer is, it shouldn’t, necessarily. If you’re currently running broad match keywords you will be able to continue running them. The current campaigns running a broad match modifier keyword will continue to do so, just under the new matching rules. This is key as you’ll still have your historical data from the keyword level. This new matching for a phrase keyword will be more inclusive of expansion by opening the potential targeting of your phrase keywords. With less likelihood of a searcher triggering your ad for an irrelevant keyword, the new keyword match type succeeds where traditional broad match modified lacked. Matching the search intent with the keyword has often been a struggle for BMM due to the all-inclusive nature of having a variable keyword target.

When Google makes changes, traditionally the first thought process is usually negative. However here, there is optimism in the air as to how they’ve described the new keyword matching makes sense in a variety of ways:

• It reduces potential wasted spend.
• Will expand your current phrase match keywords to be more inclusive of more potentially converting search terms.
• Makes your campaigns more easily manageable.

As automation takes over, and we lean into more machine learning and AI, match types are sure to fluctuate, as they always have.

Staying Ahead of Google’s Changes

Although Google Ads services have reassured their users that this update should not hinder performance, the best approach is to prepare for the change to come and remain open-minded. At Power Digital, our Paid Media experts have identified a few tactics that will allow us to stay ahead of the changes. Advertisers who are using phrase match keywords in their strategy need to keep in mind that this transition in July will increase the amount of traffic affecting their data. The best way to get ahead and improve results is to add numerous negative keywords, which will block bad traffic and reduce waste. Excluding matches that you do not want will in fact help save your budget and improve performance. Last but not least, any Google accounts that are linked to Bing (Microsoft Ads) will need to be unlinked at the keyword level to ensure that the changes Google Ads is making to broad match modified will not impact the Bing (Microsoft Ads) performance.

The post Phasing Out Broad Match Modified: What Does It Mean? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Looking back on the last 30 years, a lot has changed — from talkboys and TI-89 calculators to having all of that and more in your pocket or on your wrist! What we can say is that Google Ads Services and automation has made our lives so much easier. As an advertiser, we’ve experienced many Google Ads automation features that have greatly cut down monitoring and guessing so we can prioritize our time on more important campaign management tactics. 

Saving Time with Google Smart Bidding

In August 2010, Google announced its first automated bidding strategy — Enhanced Cost Per Click (eCPC). Prior to this, Manual CPC was the only option for optimizing keyword bids. Automated bidding has grown substantially since the addition of eCPC, allowing advertisers to maximize growth based on the business’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and goals. Google’s smart bidding strategy uses advanced machine learning to get accurate keyword bids in every auction. Below are our top three automated bid strategies that have shaped Google Ads automation: 

1. Target Return On Ad Spend (Target ROAS): The objective is to get the most revenue at the lowest cost. Target ROAS will maximize conversion value by adjusting your keyword bids to achieve your return on ad spend goal. Don’t know what your ROAS is? Take your Revenue (Conversion Value) and divide it by your Cost or check our recent blog on What is ROAS. 
2. Target Cost Per Acquisition (Target CPA): If your goal is lead generation where the focus is on increasing the total number of conversions, then Target CPA is a great bid strategy. The goal of Target CPA bidding is to get you the most conversions at the lowest cost. 
3. Target Impression Share: Target impression share can help you boost your ad’s visibility, and ultimately improve your brand awareness. This is a great bid strategy to keep in mind when competitors are bidding on your brand name or if your campaign goal is to increase brand awareness and recognition. 

Google smart bidding strategy saves countless hours that would otherwise be spent guessing and monitoring keyword bids. No singular bid strategy reigns supreme, and each requires thorough keyword research and search query reviews. 

 A Brief Introduction to Automated Ad Types

Automated ad types, also known as Responsive Search Ads (RSA) and Responsive Display Ads (RDA), are the most recent additions to Google Ads automation features. These ads give some authority to Google in determining which combination of ad creatives to serve, and over time defining which set of creatives perform best. A/B split tests have never been easier! With RSAs, advertisers can select up to 15 headlines and four descriptions for Google to choose from. RDAs, on the other hand, use two standard image sizes that Google will resize to fit a variety of banner specifications and formats, allowing the ad to show in more placements than a standard display ad. With RDAs, advertisers can select up to 15 images, five logos, five headlines, one long headline, five descriptions and now five videos. Talk about versatility! 

The Almighty: Rules and Scripts

Last on the list are automated rules and scripts. Rules and scripts are helpful Google Ads automations that aid in delivering data and automating tasks. Both rules and scripts can automate an account to the fullest, from pausing keywords with low-quality scores (advantageous for Google Ads for Non-Profit) to sending an email when a landing page is 404’ed. 

Rules can automate optimizations and changes on an account using specific conditions that an advertiser chooses. Automated rules are highly customizable and allow for scheduled changes for almost every aspect in a Google Ads account. Here are a few ways to optimize your account by using rules: 

• Increasing or decreasing keyword bids for particular times of the day
• Enabling or pausing ads for a specific promotion
• Pausing keywords if they have a quality score less than three and/or a click through rate of less than 5%
  

Scripts are arguably the most flexible yet sophisticated Google Ads automation feature. Google Ads scripts are written in JavaScript and are used to automate procedures, provide reports or send alerts within an account. It is like automated rules on full throttle! Similar to automated rules, scripts can also be scheduled to run on a specific frequency and be customized to any aspect. Before using scripts, be sure that you know how to work in JavaScript. Some common uses for scripts are: 

• Providing reports on campaign budget pacing 
• Sending an email alert when the account is down
• Analyzing keyword quality score performance 

Optimize Your Strategy with Automation

The rise of Google Ads automation has paved the way for more in-depth and strategic, smart campaign optimization. Automations allow advertisers to spend more time developing technical strategies to meet company goals, while the robots hack away at the menial tasks. If you’re unsure how you can maximize your efficiencies with automation, contact us today for a proposal!

The post The Continued Rise Of Google Ads Automation appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

And what we can count on for the latter half of 2020, isn’t a return to normal, but a reliable change to what normal is. whether that be a shift from office work to WFH; a shift from indoor seating to outdoor seating; or a shift from brick & mortar retail to online retail.  As digital marketers, we’re embracing this change and bringing our clients with us to thrive in this new environment of increased consumption of digital content and product.

We’ve developed a list of 5 key shifts in Paid Media best practices we’ve adopted in the strategies we implement across the brands we work with.

Trend #1: YouTube Engagement & Reliance on Video Marketing

Best Practice #1: Utilize YouTube Advertising to Gain Market Share

The mandated quarantine has led to a fundamental shift in consumer behavior, increasing consumption of digital media dramatically. Simply put, more people are spending more time in front of screens.  Speaking specifically to video consumption, YouTube saw a tremendous lift in usership and engagement in Q2, it’s index score on Google Trends reaching 100/100, indicating that YouTube is being used more now than ever before in the history of its existence.  

At the peak of quarantine in April, our clients saw a 390% lift in Conversions since the Covid-19 outbreak as well as a 25% lift in Conversion Rate  Not only are users converting at a higher clip, but somewhat surprisingly we are achieving that success at a lower cost with our Average CPCs down 31% and Average CPVs down 25% respectively.  Lastly, we also saw far more engagement from YouTube users with traffic stemming from YouTube up 383% and Ad Engagement (CTR) up 100%. 

These engagement rates have stayed positive through more recent months, giving glimpse into a lasting trend throughout the remainder of 2020 and beyond. 

In addition, awareness & brand-building channels such as YouTube will be depended on more heavily by brands that are positioning themselves to beat economic setbacks posed by Covid. Deloitte states in a recent study that “Consumers will be more value-conscious, avoiding discretionary spending. Thus, brands will obtain growth through market share gains rather than by simply latching onto a growing market.”

Trend #2: Spikes in Online Shopping

Best Practice #2: Invest Into Search as Others Pull Out of the Ad Auction

Google’s “online shopping” category spiked in April 2020 while nearly all states were sent into quarantine.  Shopping remained high in Q2, revenue driven by brands topping peak holiday weeks in 2019. Throughout Q2, large ecommerce brands saw revenue increase of over 100% year over year, with the largest increases coming from categories like hair care, at home fitness, home goods, outdoor recreation. Search and Shopping CPCs decreased as retail stores and brands hit hard by Covid stopped advertising on Google Shopping in April & May, declining by around 13%. ROAS also trended up with interest into April, averaging 30% increases when comparing Q2 to Q1. As things begin to slow further and settle into Q3, shopping interest remains strong resulting in continued strong performance across ecommerce brands that are positioned well to continue spending. The increased demand and less-competitive ad auctions are indicators that this Q4 and holiday season will be less-competitive, making now the time to take advantage and invest more into ad budgets.

Trend #3: More Available Search Impressions

Best Practice #3: Apply Smart Goals to Filter Traffic More Effectively

Looking at our portfolio of 150 businesses across B2B and B2C verticals, consumers looking for products and services online have increased by over 200% YoY when comparing March – July 2020 to the same time frame in 2019.  As a brand investing money into Paid Search, this increase in search activity comes as a double-edged sword.  We encourage brands to capitalize on the more abundant marketplace, but the approach needs to be smartly calculated so ad spend isn’t wasted.  Enter Google’s machine learning!  Google has invested heavily into their automation technology. One product being Smart Goals, which use machine learning to examine dozens of signals about your website sessions to determine which of those are most likely to result in conversions.  That data is then fed back into your account’s bidding algorithm’s learnings to proactively improve the quality of traffic it’s sending to your site.  The success we’ve seen with Smart Goal application is exceptional.

We’ve put Smart Goals to practice across several brands within our portfolio, one of which being a brand in the CPG space which experienced a 12% increase in CTR and more notably a 30% increase in account ROI as a result of running Smart Goals.  We’ve seen similar results across the board.  Utilizing smart goals to better qualify traffic is crucial in 2020 as overall online usership and digital media consumption is higher than ever. Ultimately, smart goals can help to optimize your Google Ads performance to spend budget more efficiently and help scale quicker.

Trend #4: Positive Responses to More Relevant Advertising Experiences

Best Practice #4: Widen Reach oh Purchase-Ready Consumers through Custom Intent Audiences 

Sending traffic through NonBrand Search can be expensive, especially in industries that pay high premiums in the ad auction (Legal, Technology & Insurance to name a few).  “Custom Audiences” provide an alternative method to targeting consumers who have a high probability of being in the market for your product or service.  

Custom Intent, one form of custom audiences, targets consumers based on the searches they’ve recently performed on Google Search.  We’ve found that targeting these consumers with videos for brands that cater to the needs of those searchers lead to higher levels of ad engagement and ultimately website conversion.  

Custom Affinity, the other form of custom intent audiences, creates lists of consumers to target based on the websites they’ve recently visited, including a brand’s competitors’ websites.  Targeting these consumers with display ads across the Google Display Network allows for cheaper prospecting of high-intent traffic than Competitor Paid Search campaigns through traffic for cents on the dollar.  

In an environment where budgets are tight for many advertisers, efficiency is key and these two alternatives (or compliments) to Paid Search are great avenues to explore in the latter half of 2020 to gain more market share quicker than your competitors.

Trend #5: More Purchase-Ready Consumers

Best Practice #5: Deploy a Shopping-First Paid Search Strategy for E-Commerce

Rather than paying a premium to drive traffic through Non-Brand Search Ads, savvy advertisers are investing more into information-rich Shopping ads to capitalize on higher levels of purchase intent. Here are some times and justifications for running a Shopping-First Search Prospecting strategy:

• Leverage Shopping as a primary prospecting tool for greater reach, lower costs and higher customer intent. 
• Create campaigns based on your business objectives (maximize conversion value) by setting a target Return on Ad Spend. 
• Lean into machine learning to optimize towards user intent signals, improving overall account performance. 
• Reserve Search Ads for converting previous site visitors or returning customers.  

Advertisers who follow these guidelines are seeing dividends pay off in their account returns.  A brand we partner with in the CPG space realized a 46% increase in account ROI (335% ROAS to 490% ROAS) while simultaneously scaling Monthly Revenue by 330% over the course of 2019 and into 2020 by implementing a Shopping-First strategy.

Conclusion

We hope you take these learnings to help plan your entrance into the latter half of 2020.  Holiday planning starts now, and the above insights will help you thrive instead of survive this holiday season.  If interested in exploring any of the above topics further, we’d love to connect you with the experts that pulled them!  Feel free to drop us a line.

The post 5 PPC Strategies That Will Help Your Brand Thrive Through the Rest of 2020 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

What Exactly is PPC and SEO? 

PPC (pay per click) is a subset of SEM (search engine marketing) where companies pay a search engine (like Google) each time someone clicks on their ad. When you cue up a search in the big G, you can quickly spot PPC ads at the top of the page with a boxed “Ad” to the left of the URLs. As you may have guessed, brands pay to hold this spot. In the case of PPC, brands only pay when a visitor clicks on their listing. 

SEO (search engine optimization) on the other hand, is an organic form of getting your website a high ranking spot. This strategy is all about optimizing your content with hot ticket keywords. SEO is often referred to as organic because there’s no ad purchase dictating your rank. Instead, brands carefully identify keywords and integrate these phrases into their website copy, blog content, and landing pages. A challenge of SEO is keeping up with search engine algorithms. In a perpetual effort to provide the best experience for their customers, big search engines are constantly changing up how they keep score. Sporadic changes are notorious for keeping marketers on their toes and the world of SEO quite lively, to say the least. 

Why It’s Time To Marry Your PPC and SEO Teams?

PPC and SEO can help you snag prime SERP real estate, optimize your messaging, and ultimately start more conversations with customers. First and foremost, this dynamic duo can be used to optimize your click-through rate. With two search engine strategies running simultaneously, you are maximizing your brand awareness. With a bigger reach, you’re moving more people to your ad, more people to your website, and more leads to your pipeline. Your click-through rate is one of the key factors in determining your quality score which in turn influences where you sit in the SERP ranking.  A strong click-through rate helps you maintain your existing rank and move up the page to a more premium slot. 

Not only does your dream team allow you to double down on brand awareness, but your PPC & SEO duo can also help you capitalize on the information you gather from each channel. By opening up a transparent stream of information between teams, you can share keyword data, successful copy, and metrics. With an open flow of communication, your PPC campaign can give you word for word insight into what prospects are searching on the world wide web. By identifying the exact phrases and question-based keywords prospects are searching with, you’re presented with a valuable list of viable keywords and content ideas. The long-tail report from your pay-per-click campaign can essentially write your SEO content calendar for you. Having this undercover insight gives you a clear idea of the answers prospects are looking and the conversations they want to have. 

To execute this, the “Paid & Organic” report in AdWords is a great place to start. By taking organic search terms from Google Webmaster Tools you can see how they would fit in with your current paid search strategy. Capitalizing on this tool allows you to harvest new ideas for keywords, make sure you’re bidding on the right ones and helps you understand how changes to one channel might affect the other. 

Now armed with this backdoor keyword insight, SEO teams can work towards ranking for these terms organically while PPC teams can focus their efforts on new frontiers. Or, if you have the budget to double down on keywords both organically and with PPC, you can work on getting both your organic and paid results on the first page of Google. With this coveted spot solidified, it would be hard not to click on your brand. When someone searched for that keyword in Google, you would virtually own the page. 

This happy merger presents a great opportunity for PPC to collaborate and share best-performing ad copy for pages that have a similar organic listing. The question you may be asking is, how? Voila: 

1. Grab a keyword report from Google Search Console.
2. Pinpoint any target keywords with page 1 rankings.
3. Evaluate the average position for each keyword against the Google Organic CTR Study.
4. Cross-reference PPC CTR for the same keywords and adopt only the best-performing ad copy as metadata.

Remarketing People Who Bail

Given that 2% of visitors who come across your site will convert on the first date (or site visit), you can use your PPC team to implement a retargeting campaign to lure the other 98% back to your page. Not only does this increase the likelihood that the visitor will convert the second time around, but it also ensures that the initial SEO effort (to get the visitors in the first place) doesn’t go to waste. 

To really seal the bond between PPC and SEO, put it in writing. Establishing shared goals and combined metrics will help teams collaborate. A couple of PPC and SEO KPIs to choose from include click-through-rate, conversions, return on investment, and user engagement. 

Putting it All Together

To keep up with evolving search engine changes and exponentially growing competition, marketers need to align their PPC and SEO efforts. Marrying these two teams is a surefire way to increase your brand visibility, boost traffic, and (if all goes well) bring home more conversions. Aligning these two strategies allows you to share insights including successful keywords and long-tail phrases to unite your messaging front and stay top of mind when your prospect is ready to buy. Your united PPC and SEO strategies will lead your reader to your website, it’s then up to your content to keep them on board for the long haul. 

The post Why You Should Combine SEO and PPC for the Ultimate Dream Team appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Assisted Conversions Report

• Assisted conversions are Google’s measure of any interaction, other than the final click, that leads to a consumer converting on a website. 
• Assisted conversions count each time a channel initiated or assisted with a goal completion.
• This is important to measure because it shows the value each channel in the funnel and how each channel affects the other.
• It is also important to understand the buyer’s journey:
  • An average consumer doesn’t see 1 google paid search ad and convert right away.
  • They need to go through various touch points before making the final decision to convert.
  • That’s why showing how each channel assisted in a conversion is important to see how and why you should be running a multi-channel marketing strategy.
    • All channels work together to drive an overall successful strategy

Top Conversions Report

• Top conversions report shows the top conversion paths that are taken the most by users.
• These top conversion paths can be organized by conversion value or conversions.
  • For example, the path most users take that drove overall most conversion value could be first through a paid search ad, then an organic search result, and lastly clicking through a paid social ads (Facebook or Instagram).
• This report is valuable to view so you can see what paths are most often taken in the user’s journey as well as showing where each channel falls in these paths.
• The path that drives the highest conversion value could have the Paid Search channel as the introducer (as mentioned in the example above) and the Paid Social channel as the last thing users see before converting.

Model Comparison Tool

• This tool is very valuable in comparing different attribution models. 
• There are 7 default attribution models in Google Analytics you can analyze with this tool: Last interaction, last non-direct click, last google ads click, first interaction, linear, time decay, and position-based.
• Google Ads typically uses Last Click attribution, whereas Google Analytics uses Non-Direct Last Click.
• This is also a great tool to be able to explain the value your channel brings to the table in different parts of the user journey.
• For example, when comparing Last Interaction against First Interaction for the Paid Search channel, you can see First Interaction drove almost 39% more conversion value. This shows that channel is a great brand introducer and plays a vital part in starting that buyer’s journey (see screenshot below). 

• You can then further look into that First Interaction attribution model to see what campaigns within the Paid Search channel are actually driving the revenue. As you can see in the screenshot below, when comparing last interaction against first interaction, the Non-Branded campaigns drive way more conversion value in first interaction than last. Knowing this information can help you decide where to allocate more budget to help drive overall revenue. Just because you’re not seeing direct revenue from Last Interaction attribution (Last Click) in Google Ads, doesn’t mean those campaigns aren’t contributing to the overall success.
  • You can even look down to the keyword or search query level to get more granular

Time Lag Report

• The Time Lag Report shows you the time period it takes a user to make a conversion.
• It’s the number of days it took from the first interaction to the conversion.
• You can set your look-back window from 1 to 90 days.
• Showing how long it generally takes a user to convert is valuable to your business because it can help you decide if remarketing ads would be useful or not.
• For example, if 99% of users convert the day they see your ad, then you probably wouldn’t need to run remarketing ads because it wouldn’t affect much performance-wise; however, if 60% of users converted within the first day seeing your ad, and over 30% of users convert within 12-30 days it could be worth creating remarketing ads with that look-back window to re-engage the buyer to then convert.

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While everyone understands the benefits of leveraging both Organic and Paid Search strategies, more often teams, both in house and agency side, only talk about collaborating and sharing insights. Understanding the importance of an omnichannel strategy and the customer journey is only one piece, execution is another story.

Collaboration across channels within the agency or with a client’s other agency partners or internal teams is critical. Although there’s always room to improve whether learning more from the data or testing theories sooner, the key to efficient and successful cross channel campaigns is sharing and analyzing the data and insights. Sounds simple enough… well, you would think. Unfortunately, we all often run into channels or teams that operate as silos, forgetting that the customer, their customer has multiple touch points. And today, the customer’s journey is more complex and often no longer a simple linear journey. (source) Not only do brands now need to attract customers at the top of the funnel, but throughout all stages of the customer journey. Reaching the customer with the right message at the right time is key, but how can you do so if you’re digital channels aren’t collaborating?

The answer isn’t groundbreaking, nor does the solution require insane amounts of time, but it’s surprising, if not mind-blowing when you ask how many teams are sharing data and collaborating. After all, everyone is working towards the same end goals.

PPC + SEO: Let’s All Be Friends

Sharing insights across channels is not a new idea. For example, many of the insights in this PPC vs SEO article for 2016 still hold true and can be used to get more successful results. In fact, we set out to test and refine the process to create actionable steps all teams can follow and easily implement.

Before we dive into the process let’s do a quick review of the benefits of each channel to better show how they can and should be integrated for the best results. The complementary nature of the two channels – Organic Search can help build brand awareness and credibility long term despite changing ad spend. Paid Search has the speed, agility, and targeting to test and iterate quickly, not to mention the prime position in the search results.

SEO Benefits:

• Brand awareness
• Credibility
• (Free) CPCs
• Not Dependent on Ad Spend
  • However, subject to algorithm updates

PPC Benefits:

• Speed & Agility
• Prime position (top of the page)
• Focused Targeting
• A/B testing
• Independent of algorithm updates

Process: How To Combine PPC + SEO Insights

The following process adds value to both the Paid Search and SEO channels and can be applied for in-house teams, agency departments, or different agency partners working for the same brand.

When looking at the big picture, it’s a very simple concept:

1. Conduct keyword research
2. Share data (including keywords and ad copy)
   1. Implement Optimizations
3. GET RESULTS
4. REPEAT!

The process can be easily done by using some sort of task-oriented platform where each team can have recurring monthly tasks that they complete, and share cross-channel to gain insights. Obviously there are pros to having each team working under the same roof, which we will cover later in the blog, however, this can be done if the teams are under different agencies as well.

Requirement: Non-Brand Campaigns

Non-brand search campaigns are key as the most valuable SEO campaigns are focused on bringing in new traffic to the website through non-brand keywords. In almost all cases, a brand is going to already rank for their own brand, naturally. If you’re going to gain market share, you need to bring in customers who don’t have the brand recognition for your service or product. From a Paid Search perspective, leverage your non-brand keywords to work harder versus only relying on brand keywords to drive conversions.

Step 1: Conduct Keyword Research

If this is a brand new campaign and your team is starting from scratch, each team will then complete their own keyword research. Bonus: This keyword research can (and should) be shared across teams to help capitalize on any potential missed opportunities. Keep in mind, not all keywords Paid Search is bidding on will be a good fit for SEO, and not all keywords SEO is optimizing for will be a good fit for Paid Search.

Keep in mind that these two channels can have quite a bit in common and have the ability to utilize each other’s findings to improve performance, there is different intent behind each channel. For example, if Organic Search is optimizing for ‘what to look for in stand-up paddleboards’, Paid Search may not want to bid on that keyword. That specific keyword has more of an informational intent behind it, and that user may be looking for more of an educational source, thus Organic Search might be sending them to a blog on the company’s website and building credibility. Based on this search, we know that the user is at the top of the funnel and may not be in the buying phase yet. As such, Paid Search may not want to put budget towards this keyword as it’s going to take longer to convert. On the other hand, there might be a keyword Paid Search is going after like ‘best paddleboard for dogs’ that Organic Search may want to optimize for, but can’t rank on page one because it’s too competitive. Instead, there’s an opportunity for Paid Search to bid on the keyword as this user is more likely to convert. They know what they want – a paddleboard they can use with their dog – and are looking for the best options before purchasing.

Step 2: Share Insights

After at least a month of running Paid Search campaigns (non-brand), PPC should have enough data to share. At this point, download your non-brand search terms report and share with the SEO team. While it’s great to share the non-brand keywords that have converted and are performing well, sharing what keywords are struggling or spending but not converting is another powerful way to leverage the two channels. For example, if “SEO agency” is spending almost all of your budget but not driving any conversions, or assisted conversions, it might be better to stop bidding on it and use Organic Search to target the keyword.

• Organic Search team – to review the keyword data and mine out any that are relevant to the SEO strategy, and check if they are currently ranking for them.
  • If they are not ranking then the team needs to assess if they should be, what page to optimize, and how to optimize the page.
  • If the keyword is ranking, the next step is to better optimize the page it is ranking for by updating the metadata and/or page copy.
• PPC + SEO: Review top performing ad copy –
  • As SEO meta descriptions are essentially ad copy for the search results, use the immediate performance insights from PPC ad copy tests to build better metadata (title tags and meta descriptions) to increase your CTR from the search results. PPC campaigns are continuously testing ad copy variations and get results 10x faster than SEO.

Action: Review your ad copy tests often with your SEO team.  

Step 3: Measure Results to Get Results

In order to find out how these changes impact your strategy it’s crucial to benchmark the CTR and current keyword rankings (organic) before and after implementing the Paid Search ad copy, and then compare after a month or so.

Step 4: Repeat!

Collaborating across channels is an ongoing process. Teams need to continuously share data and adjust to changes in the search landscape (both paid and organic) and customer behavior.

This process is very simple and has so many benefits to both channels, along with the overall company’s performance.

If you’re coordinating with different agencies running different channels, this process can work for your brand. Teams internally and externally should always be sharing data. After all, they’re operating as an extension of your brand.

Survey: Who Cares?

We surveyed a number of digital marketers to better understand how many PPC and SEO practitioners collaborated across channels and how many liked the idea but didn’t quite follow through. The survey asked a variety of questions, including, “Do you see the value in PPC and SEO sharing data cross-channel? Yes or no? Explain.” The answers speak for themselves:

• YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!, there’s a huge opportunity for PPC to reallocate budgets for terms/campaigns/testing that Organic is already dominating. SEO can leverage converting terms/ad copy that’s backed by click data to make meaningful changes that drive results. If things are really struggling, both channels can develop a strategy to command more real estate on the SERPS. There may also be instances where the two channels can collaborate to drive local results, improve visibility and trust for e-commerce (Shopping Ads & Schema Markup). SEO site search data can help PPC dial in their terms. PPC can help SEO test keywords. Lastly, there’s an opportunity for both channels to make a positive impact on Social
• Yes! We need to leverage the fact that we have the search term data through paid, since we can’t see that through Organic.
• To help the SEO team determine potential keyword targets.
• Search Intent with PPC is usually different from SEO, but it’s important to share as much data as possible. The other channel expert might spot an opportunity that you didn’t
• We share a report that shows actual Google searches of website visitors that converted on-site so that the SEO team can consider incorporating those search terms into their Keyword targeting strategies
• We share our converted search terms so they can use any themes or findings for the SEO strategy. It is beneficial because we can get immediate findings/results.
• Identify keyword gaps
• So SEO can optimize for these keywords
• I do see the value! It makes the messaging in the Meta Descriptions more in line with what people are most commonly looking for.
• Yes. It could help identify keywords for the SEO strategy
• Yes, this way we can improve the targeted keywords for specific pages.
• 100% yes, Sharing keyword research across SEO & SEM is a fantastic way to align the strategies across both verticals.
• yes, for high converting keywords through paid, we should be incorporating into the organic strategy
• Yes, because it helps identify opportunities in paid where we can’t compete organically and helps us with targeting in keyword maps.

Conclusion: Combine PPC & SEO To Drive Results

Overall, there is a lot of value that comes from cross-channel collaboration, especially between Paid and Organic Search. Whether both teams are sharing their keyword research to make sure they are covering all the bases, or Organic Search is utilizing Paid Search’s top-performing ad copy in their metadata, it really does WORK. Best of all, it’s never too late to start integrating your PPC and SEO strategies. While there are many benefits of running all channels under one roof/agency, that does not have to be the case. If you have different external teams set up a monthly if not quarterly partner strategy call to ensure everyone is aligned.

Channels can collaborate and bring value to the table regardless of the situation. Believe it or not, there are so many different channels that can add value to each other’s strategies by simply collaborating and sharing their findings. We hope this blog shed some light on cross-channel collaborations and motivates you to want to do the same!

The post How to Integrate your PPC & SEO Strategy To Increase ROI appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.