Paid Search
Before starting any tactic, you need to consider the following:
- Who is your target audience?
- What is their intent?
- What would they search for?
- Define their persona
- Who are their competitors?
- What other products/services are found when you search?
- What is the lifetime value of a new client?
Once you have begun, it is vital that you measure as much as you can and use the data to drive future campaigns. When you have discovered a successful tactic, amend campaigns to incorporate this. Use and split test as many ad sizes and formats as possible to find out what works best for you.
But what should and shouldn’t your ad consist of?
DO – Focus on the problem you’re solving. For example, if you sell kitchens, you need to tell the customer your kitchen will be perfect for their new home, or it’s the latest design with all the mod-cons which is ideal for a kitchen refresh. It’s all about being benefit led!
DON’T – Use generic phrases or jargon/ business slang. Your customer will not want to see this and they may have limited knowledge of your product/service and may not understand the jargon.
DO – Make sure you know the character limit for the ad. There’s nothing worse than half of your text missing. This looks sloppy and unappealing to the audience. You could miss out the key point too.
DO – Keep your ad copy consistent with your landing page. There is nothing worse than clicking on an ad for your dream shoes, only to hit a website that doesn’t even stock them, or is about something completely different! (More on landing pages later).
DO – Schedule your ad to coincide with when your business is open. Unless you customers can buy from you or contact you 24/7, there’s no point displaying your ad at 8pm to reach a large audience if your business isn’t open. It’s also important to ensure your Google My Business is fully completed with details such as your phone number and opening hours.
So what should go in your advertising campaign?
Keyword Search - When you begin your keyword research, have a think about the following:
- What problem do you solve?
- Why would people buy from/use your services? (USP)
- What would you search for in their position?
Some further tips are:
- Avoid broad match terms.
- Add new keywords based on successes.
- If completely different companies are appearing for your keywords, either you are doing something wrong or they are – work it out and act on it quickly!
- Negative terms are perfect for B2B – add them to general lists, campaign lists, and ad group lists.
- An example of a negative keyword is, if you sell kitchens you would want to appear in a search for “new kitchen” but wouldn’t want to appear in a search for “new kitchen opening in London restaurant’. Therefore, you could add this as a negative.
- Some of the most used keywords include free, second hand, occasion, and job.
- Research has shown that starting each word with capital letter gives a better click-through rate (CTR) e.g. ‘One Bed Flat In London’.
- Bid more on lists that are converting the most.
Now you have decided on your keywords, and ads, what does your landing page need to include?
Landing Page
Your landing page needs to have a clear call to action, for example ‘sign up to our newsletter’ or an enquiry form to fill in. However, likewise don’t have too many options on the landing page to ensure your audience stays engaged and completes the action you want them to. It’s an idea to create a new page on your website for your ad landing page.
Building Your Audience
One way to build your audience is from email addresses of previous customers, newsletter and blog subscribers and serve them ads via Ad Words, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. This is a great supplement to email marketing. Whilst you are busy targeting new customers, don’t forget to nurture loyal customers as they are worth up to 10 times as much as they were during their first purchase. It also costs five times more to acquire new clients that to keep current ones.
But what can you do if you have almost got your hands on a client and they don’t convert?
Retargeting
Ever been browsing online then hop onto Facebook and see those products served up to you again in an ad? This is retargeting.
Most of us have received an email from a company where we’ve put an item in our online basket and didn’t complete the buying process. They often send an email to remind us and try and encourage us to complete the purchase, or even offer a discount code! This is a good place to upsell or cross-sell to your audience too. But make sure you tailor your ad strategy to your audience’s behaviour. Don’t send the same message to everyone as they will be at a different stage of the conversion process. B2B decision-making times are longer than B2C, so you should adjust your Google conversion window to the average decision time.
