Google Ads
A Search Advertising Campaign encompasses many different aspects–all of them "Google Ads" advertising, but each distinctly different. There are Paid Search, Display, and Re-Marketing. Let’s break it down into categories.
Search advertising and campaigns are the most effective way to advertise on the internet.
How many times a day do you search for “stuff” on the internet? Definitions, Recipes, Clothes, Cars, How-To’s, Books, etc. You get the picture. And when someone is searching for services, nine times out of ten, that’s the first place they will look. If you’re not showing, you’re losing business. That’s where Paid “Search” or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) comes in!
Also known as AdWords campaigns, you’ve seen them! They are the top four results (and bottom three) you see when you type a “keyword” to search for the item or service you’re looking for. An advertiser only pays for the ad if someone “clicks” on your ad and goes to the website or landing page it is directed to. That doesn’t count the number of times a person might be shown your ad before they click. This is called an “impression”. People searching for a product or service to buy may only see your ad once, while someone who is “shopping” may see your ad eight times before they click.
What is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is the primary way to advertise on the internet.
By using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, you can direct potential customers to your site. The great thing about it is you only pay for clicks if a person clicks on your ad and lands on your website! What if a competitor try to sabotage my ad, you ask? No problem, there are safeguards in place to prevent people from abusing clicks, and generally, search engines will reward these “mis-clicks” back as credits or refunds.
In order to manage a PPC campaign effectively, implementing some kind of Analytics to track what people are doing when they get your site, helps tremendously. If not already connected, Digital Moxie will hook Google Analytics up to sites so that we can fully understand the traffic that is coming to your site. This tells us:
- what your referral traffic is (Craigs List, Facebook, Local News Stations, etc.)
- how many visitors are coming to you via mobile and desktop
- are they staying or are they “bouncing”
- amount of time they’re spending on your website
- tracking and conversions via “goals”
- And more…
When was the last time you looked in the yellow pages for a phone number? Exactly! In this day and age, when people are looking for products or services, they begin their search on the internet. PPC Advertising campaigns ensure that when they’re looking, your business will be there.
What is Display?
Display advertising is still Paid Search, however advertisers tend to focus more on the impressions rather than the clicks. This is because, while PPC is perfect for people searching for your product or service, Display better serves as an agent for branding. It is judged by how many times it’s shown to a potential audience or it’s impressions.
There are two ways to target Display ads. Managed and Contextual
What is Re-Marketing?
Re-Marketing focuses on people that have already been to your website, and is the cornerstone of any marketing campaign. If you don’t re-market, it’s like fishing with a hole in your net. All the money you’ve spent to get people to your site, and once you get them there, they see what they came to see, they leave, and your site may never see them again. With re-marketing, a “cookie” is placed on their browser so that they will see a display ad for the next “x” days or “x” number of times. This serves as a reminder to them of that product or service that interested them, and brings them back to engage once the zero moment of truth–when they are ready to buy, descends.
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords….
PPC advertising is heavily centered around keywords. The entire internet advertising market revolves around choosing the correct search terms and/or keywords. Keywords are words that a potential customer would use to search for services, products, and information.
Determining which keywords are best for your business is not as simple as it sounds. It’s not like baking a cake. You can’t just throw everything together and expect a beautiful campaign as an end result. Digital Moxie uses research, analytics reports, and PPC tools such as the “keyword planner” to come up with PPC keywords and Ad Groups.
Every effectively run PPC campaign will be broken down into Ad Groups. Ad Groups are groups of keywords that describe a particular service that you offer. Each Ad Group has a different ad attached to it. Lets say you have a natural foods grocery store, and you want to advertise some of the newest additions to your stock that you know are popular. These groups structure the campaign(s) so that someone searching for pasta doesn’t get shown a cookie ad and vice versa.
Don’t Forget Tracking!
Why is tracking PPC campaigns important?
1. Conversion rates on your site will go up and your sales team will receive more warm leads when utilizing the proper keywords. Digital Moxie monitors and tracks the keywords that are utilized in a campaign, which in turn allows us to determine which traffic sources turn visitors into leads and sales. If you are not tracking your keyword traffic, you won’t know if the traffic you are receiving is quality traffic, and if it’s not quality traffic, then you’re wasting your money. A few of the things we track are:
1. Geographic location. If you are brick and mortar, and you’re in VA, you don’t want a national campaign, and vice versa–if you are national, you don’t want to advertise in JUST your city.
2. Bounce Rate. The amount of time a visitor spends on your site determines the level of interest they have in what you are offering.
3. Goal Set-up. Goals help you track whether a specific action has taken place on your site. Examples – Did a client complete their order? Did they sign up for your newsletter?
All of these factors are the base rules and guidelines to follow in a Pay Per Click Advertising campaign.
Digital Moxie Campaign Services
· Google Adwords Advertising (this includes Paid Search, Display, and Re-Marketing)
· Bing Ads (if you insist)
· Complete Transparency
· Reporting
· Landing Page Development
Are you a DIY’er? You can find a handy dandy guide to Do-It-Yourself here. Enjoy! And if you have any questions, give us a call, we are happy to help!
Digital Moxie Terms of Service apply to all campaigns. We are happy to conference with our clients up to five hours a month. Anything after will accrue a charge of $100/hr.