Google Ads
The Sucess of Google Ads in a marketing campaign depends on many factors. Some of them may be outside the control, but, without a doubt, some are manageable. To maximize the chances of success, we’ve grouped 10 key elements that we should consider for each marketing campaign.
Clearly define the target audience.
The first thing we need to consider is whom we are targeting. We must ensure that each campaign is aimed at the ideal customer or client. “Talk to everyone, and we’ll sell to no one.”
How to define the target?
- First, we must ask about the purpose of the product or service.
Which problem is the product or service trying to solve?
- Second, we need to find out to whom the product or service will help.
Establish the goals
Before jumping in, we must figure out our expectations for the marketing campaign.
- What do we want to accomplish?
- What is its purpose?
We need to set realistic and tangible goals for the marketing campaign before we even begin. That way, we can assess whether it was a success. We will also need to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to the goals.
Define the budget
We need to know how much we’re ready to invest in marketing to meet our goals. Think in advance about all the costs we’ll need to include, such as the actual creation of the campaign, the internal or external resources required for it, the timing, the promotion (which we will talk about later), etc.
Create targeted content
Once we have a target audience and goals, we can start creating the campaign. Constantly coming up with original campaign ideas takes a lot of work. Never copy a competitor’s work; use it as a good start for the campaign and make it better by adding a creativity layer, voice, and value proposition.
Engage with the audience
Make the audience want to participate in the campaign. The easiest way is to add a special prize to attract more participants, preferably those related to the business (to avoid cheating or spam). We can also invest in visuals like videos, pictures, and infographics that catch more attention. Another way is to use gamification. Everyone likes to play. And the key is to offer the audience fun and interaction moments.
Offer something valuable
Use each campaign to showcase the products (and how they will solve the audience’s problem) or the expertise and help prospects get to know better. Only some people will buy the product or use the service after seeing one of the campaigns. The call-to-action plays a significant role here. Give them something free, valuable, and unique (a video, a case study, an e-book, a free consultation, etc.) to differentiate from the competition and allow them to ask for more information.
Up the chances of going viral
Make the campaign easy to share. If the campaign isn’t designed to be shared, this will limit its potential. Here are some ideas:
- The campaign has to be easy to share on various social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.);
- Encourage participants to share the campaign on their social media profiles by rewarding them with an additional chance to win;
- Participants need to be able to easily share the campaign with their friends and invite them to participate.
Distribute and promote the campaign
After creating the marketing campaign, now it’s time to promote it. First, choose the right canal to reach the target audience. It doesn’t make sense to create a fantastic campaign if nobody sees it. There are tons of ways to diffuse the campaign:
- Share it on social media;
- Send an email to the subscribers notifying them about the campaign or include an image that promotes the campaign in the newsletter;
- Publish a press release;
- Spend money on advertising (Facebook or Linkedin ads, promoted tweets, Google AdWords, radio ads, etc.).
Measure the ROI
As mentioned in point #2, after each marketing campaign is conducted, we need to assess its efficiency. Ask yourself questions guided by the objectives:
- How many new subscribers did you get?
- How many leads came through your campaign?
- Did your call to action fulfill its objective?
Collect, analyze and consider the results of all this data. The data allows us to test, optimize, learn and react quickly with objective measures. This will help us to adjust the campaign’s creative elements or budget and create more relevant marketing campaigns afterward.
Keep It Going
We can begin nurturing those leads now that we’ve entered a relationship with new prospects. Track the channels through which they came, send them relevant information, share more about the business, etc. And to do so, we need to keep collecting data to know the users better and deliver personalized content.
Google Ads is changing fast, and it can be challenging to keep up. We can see that the advertising platform shifted toward a far greater emphasis on machine learning and automation. Responsive search ads (RSAs) are now the default. Google now uses Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) to determine keyword prioritization. They’ve doubled down on automation for display campaigns by consolidating smart displays and standard displays.
The Google Ads Trends That We’re Tracking
Digital marketers continue investing in digital ads to reach and engage more consumers and as one plan for their 2023 Google Ads strategy.
Here are a few Google Ads trends to keep in mind:
Shift from Efficiency to Effectiveness as the Google Ads Model
Too many advertisers depend on efficiency (low cost per lead) rather than effectiveness (campaigns that generate new customers and revenue).
In Google Ads, we have two options:
- Directly integrate the CRM with Google Ads (most common).
- If direct integration is not available, then pass the data back manually.
Interestingly, higher-quality leads are the more expensive ones. However, as they become customers and generate revenue, the overall customer acquisition costs will trend downwards.
New and Ubiquitous Data Restrictions
We might have seen that Google Chrome plans to phase out browser cookies by 2023. It’s yet another step toward the era of cookieless browsing. And it’s part of a broader shift toward protecting consumer data. There was the iOS 14 update, which requires that apps get permission before tracking specific user data. Google announced that it’s limiting the data it shares with third parties to comply with European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These new data restrictions aren’t going anywhere and are not the last of their kind.
The Growing Need for First-Party Data
Facebook, Google, and Apple limit the data available to digital advertisers. However, using first-party data is perfectly legal, ethical, and acceptable. This is the data that our marketing team is already collecting, including the following:
- Names and email addresses of people who fill out forms or contact us through our website
- People who’ve registered an account made a purchase, etc.
- Existing clients, customers, partners, or leads
Marketing activities feed first-party data into the customer relationship management (CRM) solution. The most common lead generation forms on the website (eBooks, webinars, etc.). However, we can attain first-party data using Google Ads, chatbots, and even newsletter/mailing list sign-ups. We can also use Google click IDs based on how people arrive at our website.
A Peek at Keywords and the Future of PPC
While keywords are still the foundation of PPC strategies, we anticipate their role will deteriorate and lose its place in digital advertising. Google retired the broad match modifier option in 2021. Like in performance Max campaigns, we’ll continue to see the keyword disappear.
Instead, advertisers—or machines—will target based on signals from the system and serve ads to the audience with a higher probability of converting.
Here are a few trends to keep in mind:
- Evolution of Smart Bidding
Smart Bidding is a machine learning-controlled automated bidding system. It uses machine learning to optimize conversions and conversion values in auctions. Smart Bidding will only become more powerful, and its strategies are set to become more prevalent. We could see manual Bidding become a relic of the past! This won’t be bad, allowing marketers to focus on analytics and strategy.
- Amazon’s Emergence into Paid Advertising
While Google and Facebook still dominate paid advertising, Amazon is nipping at their heels. They are now the third-largest and fastest-growing advertiser. Amazon ads are displayed on and off Amazon, which has skyrocketed its popularity with online retailers. The other reason they’ve grown in popularity? Buyer intent. It’s the largest advantage they have over Facebook and Google.
Facebook and Google give access to the largest audiences, but users aren’t usually looking to buy something. Compared to Amazon’s perceived buyer intent, this could mean lower conversion rates on these platforms. This means we could be spending more for less.
- Going Social
Around 70% of people check at least one social media platform monthly, and these numbers are growing. We must miss something if we ignore social media in our PPC strategies. Most people check platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest daily. Many of these demographics are on multiple platforms, especially younger people.
This means that PPC marketers will focus on social media ads. Since most people use several social media platforms, we’ll want to cash in on this multi-platform trend. Facebook and Google are still the bread and butter of paid advertising, but we should look to expand our horizons in 2023.