SEM, PPC, Paid Search, AdWords or whatever you call it is a pretty mature channel with many tactics that you can find outlined anywhere online.
But most people don’t give any creative ideas that can help bring massive value for you or your company.
Below we have listed 3 Creative ideas / tactics that you can use in your SEM Strategy.
1. Find Out Where Else Your Website Visitors Go Online
Use remarketing to display unappealing ads so visitors WILL NOT click on them and then view the report to see where ads have been shown.
This is useful because it gives you a deep understanding of where else your website visitors go online, what other topics are they interested in, what sites could you be partnering with or advertising on, etc.
To see which websites, videos, and apps have displayed your ads from your Placements tab.
To see where your ad appeared based on your other targeting methods, including keywords, topics, interest categories, remarketing, and demographics, look at your automatic placements.
Click the “See details” drop-down to see a list of site URLs where your ads have shown.
2. Bid On Terms That Won’t Immediately Convert
Most people bid on terms and phrases that have a high probability of converting immediately.
Move people into your funnel at all points and then nurture them into becoming customers.
Remarketing to them via email, adwords and social media
Send them to category or product pages
Get them to buy
Send them information in the future
Get them to buy again!
Costs doing this are only incrementally higher compared to the normal way, but will increase your sales volume and your SEO visibility, because more people find your useful article and will potentially link to it after reading it.
Make this a part of your content marketing strategy!
3. Tell People NOT to Click on Your Ad
Now that we can upload email lists to AdWords using Customer Match it is very easy to know who your ads are being presented to. This will allow you to confidently tell people to not click on your ads, but When they do, the content will be 100% relevant for them.
Why tell them to not click on your ads?
Because it will make them want to click on your ads!
Just think about the last time someone told you not to do something, it’s 100% safe to say that you immediately thought, “I’ll do that if I want to!” and it makes you want to.
This will increase your Click Through Rate and ensure this known audience sees your message.
Facebook Bluetooth Beacons are a free wirelessly connected device (or beacon) that communicates with visitors that engage on Facebook while at your business.
It gives the visitors more information on your company, engages them through unique messaging and employs calls to action so you can interact with them in more ways in the future.
This is very new and not all businesses are eligible to receive one, but those of you who have high foot traffic are most definitely who Facebook wants to get these. Restaurants, Shops of all kinds, Movie theaters, Bars, Bingo Halls, Banks, etc.
What Facebook Says the Beacons Do
Facebook Bluetooth® beacons use Bluetooth® technology to send a signal to the Facebook app on your customers’ phones to help us show them the right place tips. Place tips show people more info about the places they visit.
Google released a paid search update recently. It is a second line of structured snippets that can be inserted into PPC ads.
This new update gives ads more space in the search engine results pages and allows companies to callout different things about their business. Below, a shutter company, uses the headers “Styles” and “Services,” to highlight unique product offerings.
This new ad format looks great, but what it will do to help your marketing and ultimately your business?
Below are a few tips, benefits and structured snippets tests across PPC & SEO channels to highlight how this update will help drive more qualified conversions to save your business time & marketing spend.
Utilize categories to show unique product offerings
While PPC experts like us were initially loving the news of new structured snippets, our smiles began to fade as we read the fine print. There are a limited number of headers you can choose from for your snippets and there are only a few industries. The following headers are available:
Amenities
Brands
Courses
Degree programs
Destinations
Featured hotels
Insurance coverage
Neighborhoods
Service catalog
Shows
Styles
Types
Industries that really benefit from this category extension are those that have a high cost per click. Insurance keywords are responsible for 24% of Google advertising revenue, which is most likely why “Insurance Coverage” was added as a distinct header. On the same note, 4 out of the 12 headers are related to travel, which also have historically high CPCs.
In the future Google will expand the number of header options, but until then, advertisers have to get creative on ways we can utilize them. For instance, financial institutions could use the “Types” structured snippet for No-Fee Savings, High Interest Savings or list out the types of certificate of deposits they offer (3 month, 6 month, 12 month, etc).
Raise awareness for additional service lines
Your business may have one very well known product or service, but it’s struggling to get the word out about the additional items it offers. By adding structured snippets into your PPC ad account, you can use the new headers to bring attention to the business’ additional offerings.
An example of this is Drexel Online. Many people know that they offer online bachelor’s programs, but everyone may not know that they also offer master’s programs and certificates. By utilizing structured snippets, Drexel can inform searchers about other aspects of their business.
Create more effective call to actions
PPC continuously has the ability to test call to actions within search ads. With the new snippet feature, PPC ads can test more specific styles and service lines to hone in on the language and format that best connects with consumers. From these tests, your marketing team can vet the call to actions that convert the most, to identify what phrases and styles to use within SEO content, such as meta descriptions, headers, and call-to-action buttons.
Google may still choose to create their own meta description based on the search term, but in many cases your well crafted meta description will now show up with an even better chance to convert due to the PPC tests.
Save money & avoid a negative brand experience
This extra PPC snippet will enable searchers to be better at self-qualifying themselves for your business. Let’s say you own a wedding dress company. If customers are looking for a specific type of wedding dress, for example, A-Line, Mermaid, Ballgown, Trumpet, etc. and it’s not listed in your snippet, they know not to visit your website. Great! One less unqualified person potentially filling out a contact form asking your team about it.
There’s also a big cost-saving here. By having better pre-qualified leads coming to your site, it saves the call center or whomever reads submission forms time. If the call center charges per minute, every call – whether it’s profitable or not, costs your business money. However, if more incoming calls were qualified, the more profit you could get out of those calls.
In addition, setting the expectation of what your site contains before the person clicks, will help ensure that customers never have a jaded customer experience. As structured snippets give you more room to discuss your business’ offering, it could prevent shoppers from leaving a poor/mediocre review because your site doesn’t have what they’re looking for.
For example, when conducting a quick search on reseller.com ratings for “limited selection,” “small selection,” and “didn’t have,” we found time and time again that customers left mediocre reviews because the store did not carry the products that they had expected.
By using structured snippets, www.reseller.com could have set better expectations up front about what they do, and do not, carry, to avoid these negative ratings.
Learn & test for organic SEO
From Google’s past PPC tests, we predict that Google will measure the success of the new category PPC snippets, before rolling out additional rich snippets to organic SEO category pages. Currently, as the example shows below, Google indicates only the following for organic product specific pages:
Ratings by star
Number of people who rated
Price
In-Stock
Number of stores nearby
Before I click on the product in the SERPs, I already know if it’s in stock, within my price range, how many people loved or hated it, and if a store is located nearby.
In organic results, Google also has sitelinks, although these don’t show up for everyone and don’t include all styles:
Right now, these sitelinks indicate some categories, but do not touch upon all of business’ product offerings. It would be great to see a Style snippet in the SERPs before I click, indicating that RevZilla offers Motorcycle Touring, Half, Hi-viz neon, or race helmets as well as the categories pulled in through sitelinks.
In the future, as Google aims to improve user experience, it seems very likely that Google will roll out a style snippet for organic results. If it does, you’ll already have PPC data to work with to know which Types or Styles convert the best for users interested in your products.
Increase your paid search real estate
While there are pros for both PPC and SEO with the new structured snippets, there is one aspect that makes organic SEO practitioners not so happy. With this additional line of structured snippets, paid search gains a new way to obtain more real estate in the SERPs, while simultaneously pushing organic results farther down the page.
Contact us Today if you want to get your Paid Search up to date in 2016. Fill out the form on this page or give us a call!
