When am I going to start seeing results?
How fast can we scale to $25,000?
How much am I going to spend on testing?
These questions (and more) come up frequently as we're talking to companies who are considering working with us to grow their business. Whether they are just starting out on a new eCommerce store or looking to increase their app signups 3x in Q2, the underlying question is really the same.
Let's face it: digital marketers (and marketing agencies) have really turned their approach into a "black box" over the years. Whether they do it by hiding behind jargon, slapping clever branding over the top, or creating complex or confusing diagrams, the end result is confused business owners who don't really understand what their dollars are going towards, or why.
Now, take a deep breath.
For you, with us, that stops here.
We're about to open the box.
I have two little kids, one preschooler and one toddler. Both are (alarmingly) ambulatory, moving all over the house and getting into everything they aren't supposed to. The older one can unlock deadbolts, push open screen doors, climb ladders and stairs, while the younger is content with simple seeing how fast she can get her body moving in a single direction before she either topples forward or encounters an object that refuses to budge when she slams into it.
Why do I bring this up? Because they didn't start this way.
Yes, it's a tired cliche, but it's so true: you have to walk before you can run.
If your business has never run an ad before, never used marketing to sell, never attempted to convince someone unfamiliar with the brand, product, or service that they should part with their hard-earned Benjamin Franklins, then your first question should not be, "How much can I make?"
You don't have TRACTION yet.
By traction I mean a pattern of desired behavior occurring in a consistent, somewhat predictable fashion. This could mean generating leads, getting purchases, onboarding new users or whatever else your business goal, it doesn't matter. The point is that you need to be able to say that you can cause it to happen, repeatedly, with your efforts.
When we work with clients who have never run ads before, or who are just starting out, our first forays out into the marketplace are focused on finding who will buy and what will cause them to buy. Put another way, this is about audience and creative/offer.
Let's bust a myth: just because you have a product or service does not mean people will buy it. This is not Field of Dreams.
On the contrary, you have to wade through scores of unqualified or uninterested people to find your best candidates, and then test multiple different messages, angles, images, videos, taglines and more in order to find traction.
"Okay, but how long does that take?"
Well, that depends.
I know, that's not what you were hoping for. And if I can tell you that it would take 2 weeks or 2 months or whatever, I definitely would. Instead, here's what I can tell you:
When you work with us, you aren't hiring wizards (or gurus or ninjas) - you're hiring data-driven marketers. So we're going to test, and test, and test, and generate lots of data, and then we're going to do what the data tells us.
👉 Set up your campaigns to get more qualified leads. →
Sometimes it's fast, and we see traction in just a few weeks. Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes it takes longer. All the factors above impact that.
But the good news is, once you have TRACTION, you can move on to start thinking about...
Too many times we'll talk to a business owner who is putting money into ads and wants to see immediate return. If they don't get a certain CPA or ROAS in the first 3 weeks, they think there's something "wrong" with the ads. They don't realize they are trying to run before walking, that you can't build a house without the foundation, or whatever analogy you best identify with.
💡 ROAS isn't everything, it's just a part of the equation. →
Once we help our clients find TRACTION, then (and only then) is it time to start discussing PROFIT.
Why?
If you don't have enough data points, you can't optimize.
Put another way, if you don't have anyone buying from you, how do you know who your best customers are?
Getting this data and acting on it is the basis of improving your PROFIT metrics. If you want a better CPA, you need to find out which creative gets the best response and then test small optimizations on it - a new emoji, a different headline, a carousel vs a static image. If you want better ROAS, you can segment by device type or placement or time of day that gives you the best baseline.
The key to the PROFIT stage is having goals. And I don't mean "I want to retire and sleep on a bed of Andrew Jacksons every night" type goals, more like "If I can generate new users for $20 each that means I'm profitable and am basically printing money" goals.
We help our clients walk through some simple calculations to set their goals. For an eCommerce store this might include repeat purchase rate, average order value (AOV), and cost of goods sold (COGS). For a SaaS client, we would consider lifetime value (LTV), profit margins, and upsells. Whatever the case, we want to end up with a single number.
That number is our PROFIT goal. If we can hit that goal with consistency, it unlocks us to move on the third and final stage.
Ah yes, scaling. The magical, mystical land of unicorns and rainbows where you trade $1 for $4 ten thousand times while eating ice cream in your pajamas.
Okay, well, not quite, but that's how the "get rich quick" YouTube personalities pitch it. Sounds fun, huh?
Truth is, scaling isn't the end - it's the beginning.
When this client partnered with EmberTribe, their goal was to find strategies to scale sales. Now our client has experienced scale from $18K to $370K lifetime revenue, with an $111K lifetime spend.
You can't start putting more dollars into your campaigns until they are making you money back consistently, and you can't do that until you build a system of repeatable client generation. Hence the reason it's the final step. But there's another reason we counsel clients to be smart about getting to this stage: the game changes.
If you want to triple your investment in ads, especially on a channel like Facebook Ads, just about the worst thing you can do is start jacking your budgets up quickly.
😑 Facebook ads not working? This could be why. →
This causes the algorithm to have to start relearning, and oftentimes can tank your PROFIT, forcing you to go back to the drawing board. Instead, you have to be intentional, constantly revisiting your PROFIT goals and testing new TRACTION experiments to widen your funnel. And this is why we insist on walking through the process with clients - because failing to do the hard work on the front end ends up in a house of cards that falls apart, leaving everyone unhappy.
Some of our best success stories are clients who did things the right way, worked with us to build a repeatable system for growth and testing, and then let us run wild with new audiences, creative, automation, rules and more. Their accounts grew from 5 to 7 figures in ad spend profitably not by some mystical proprietary technology or the wizardry of a paid acquisition savant, but by being intentional, creating a solid foundation, and trusting the process.
It's not easy. It's not as fast as we'd like. But the results are worth it, and the potential that it opens up are amazing.
No black box. No magic. No single genius with the inside track on the algorithm.
Just lots of testing, patience, observation, analysis, failure, growth and consistency.
That's the secret sauce of EmberTribe, and it's one of the reasons we've had such great success for ourselves and our clients since our inception: a three-step process of TRACTION, PROFIT, SCALE that works across industries, across business models, regardless of the age or success of the business to date.
Marketing experts know it. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) efforts can be a game-changer for businesses looking to grow their customer base. With the right approach, PPC -a paid marketing strategy- can result in a significant increase in lead generation and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates. As you know, sales doesn't come raining from the sky. But they might. Join us to learn more about PPC lead generation tips and how they might boost your customer base.
Before diving into the tips, it's important to have a clear understanding of what PPC lead generation entails. PPC lead generation is a marketing process where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. These ads are typically displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) and websites, making them highly visible to potential customers.
PPC lead generation is a way for businesses to attract potential customers and capture their information by offering them a relevant and compelling offer. It involves creating targeted ads that appear when users search for specific keywords related to the business or its products and services.
But what exactly makes PPC lead generation so important in the realm of digital marketing? Let's explore.
PPC is an essential component of any comprehensive digital marketing strategy. It allows businesses to reach their target audience quickly and effectively, driving qualified leads to their websites or landing pages. With the right approach, PPC can result in a significant increase in lead generation and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.
One of the key advantages of PPC is its ability to provide instant visibility. Unlike other digital marketing tactics that may take time to generate results, PPC ads can start driving traffic to a website or landing page as soon as they are launched. This immediate visibility allows businesses to quickly test different ad copy, keywords, and landing page designs to optimize their campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
Moreover, PPC offers precise targeting options that enable businesses to reach their ideal audience. Advertisers can select specific keywords, demographics, locations, and even the time of day when their ads will be displayed. This level of control ensures that ads are shown to the most relevant and interested users, increasing the chances of generating high-quality leads.
Another advantage of PPC lead generation is the ability to track and measure campaign performance. With the help of analytics tools, businesses can monitor the number of clicks, impressions, and conversions their ads generate. This data provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of the campaign, allowing advertisers to make data-driven decisions and optimize their strategies for better results.
Additionally, PPC offers flexibility in terms of budgeting. Advertisers have full control over how much they want to spend on their campaigns, allowing them to set daily or monthly budgets that align with their marketing objectives. This flexibility makes PPC a viable option for businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises.
As you see, PPC lead generation plays a crucial role in digital marketing by providing businesses with a powerful tool to attract potential customers and drive qualified leads. Its instant visibility, precise targeting options, trackable performance, and budgeting flexibility make it a highly effective strategy for generating leads and boosting conversion rates.
The first step in evaluating your PPC lead generation strategy is to analyze your current performance metrics. This includes assessing key metrics like click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per lead (CPL). However, it's important to remember that these metrics only provide a snapshot of your campaign's performance.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of your PPC performance, consider diving into more granular data. Look at the performance of individual keywords, ad groups, and campaigns. Analyze the performance of different ad variations and landing pages. By doing so, you can identify specific areas that are driving success or need improvement.
Look at the lead-to-sale conversion rate, the average lifetime value of customers acquired through PPC, and other relevant metrics. This will help you assess the overall effectiveness of your lead generation strategy and its impact on your business's bottom line.
After analyzing your performance metrics, it's time to identify areas of improvement. Look for patterns or trends in your data that may indicate areas where you can make changes. Are there keywords that are performing exceptionally well? Are there ad copy variations that are resulting in higher click-through rates? By identifying these areas, you can make targeted improvements to your campaigns.
Consider a few analytic activities. As conducting competitive analysis to gain insights from your industry peers. Or looking at what strategies and tactics they are employing and determine if there are any opportunities for you to learn from their successes or differentiate yourself in the market.
Also, don't overlook the importance of optimizing your landing pages. Analyze the user experience, page load times, and the clarity of your call-to-action. By making improvements to your landing pages, you can increase the conversion rate of your PPC campaigns and generate more qualified leads.
Lastly, consider exploring new channels and tactics to supplement your PPC lead generation efforts. This could include social media advertising, content marketing, or influencer partnerships. By diversifying your lead generation strategy, you can reach a wider audience and tap into new sources of high-quality leads.
One of the most critical aspects of PPC lead generation is optimizing your landing pages for conversion. A landing page is the webpage where users are directed after clicking on your ad. It serves as the first point of contact between the user and your business, making it crucial to create an impactful first impression.
A well-optimized landing page can significantly impact your conversion rates. By ensuring that your landing page is appealing, user-friendly, and relevant, you can increase the chances of converting visitors into leads. This can be achieved by using persuasive copy, prominent call-to-action (CTA) buttons, and a clean and intuitive design.
When designing your landing page, it's important to keep a few best practices in mind. First, make sure that your message aligns with the ad that led users to your landing page. This helps to maintain consistency and reinforce the value proposition you promised in your ad. Additionally, keep your landing page clutter-free and easy to navigate, ensuring that visitors can quickly find the information they need.
The success of any PPC campaign relies heavily on the selection of relevant keywords and the creation of compelling ad copy. These two components work hand in hand to attract your target audience and entice them to click on your ads.
Keywords are the foundation of any PPC campaign. They are the terms or phrases that users type into search engines when looking for products or services that your business offers. By conducting thorough keyword research, you can identify the keywords that your target audience is using and incorporate them into your ads.
Once you have a list of relevant keywords, it's time to craft compelling ad copy. Your ad copy should be concise, engaging, and relevant to the user's search intent. Highlight the unique selling points of your business and include a strong call-to-action to encourage users to click on your ad.
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a strategy that allows you to compare two different versions of an element within your PPC campaign to determine which one performs better. By implementing A/B testing, you can continuously optimize your campaigns and improve your lead generation efforts.
A/B testing involves creating two or more variations of an element, such as an ad headline or a landing page layout, and then randomly showing different versions to your audience. By analyzing the performance metrics of each variation, you can identify which one generates the highest conversion rates and make data-driven decisions to improve your campaigns.
When conducting A/B testing for PPC, it's important to test one element at a time to accurately measure its impact. For example, you can test different ad headlines or call-to-action buttons. Additionally, make sure to track and analyze your results accurately to draw meaningful conclusions and make informed optimization decisions.
By following these three tips, you can significantly improve your PPC lead generation results. Remember to continuously monitor your campaigns, analyze your performance metrics, and make data-driven optimizations to maximize your lead generation efforts. With the right strategy and consistent effort, PPC lead generation can be a powerful tool in growing your business. With them, maybe, you'll start to capitalize those marketing efforts.
In this post:
Search marketing refers to getting your website, social media pages, or other web pages to rank well with search engines like Google and Bing via paid and unpaid methods.
Try saying that five times fast! If it seems like a mouthful, that’s because it kind of is.
Ranking well with search engines is essential to getting your web pages noticed by potential customers. Even the best-written pages will be ineffective if they languish on page six, ten, or 100 (the horror!) of search results.
According to Forbes, as many as 92 percent of web users look no further than the first page of search results. With around1.2 billion websites active today, the competition for those top spots is fierce.
The best search marketing efforts combine both paid and unpaid methods of increasing search engine ranking. Organic (unpaid) growth can be more cost-effective, but it usually takes longer to realize even small movements in ranking using unpaid methods. The good news is that once you've gained ground using organic growth, the results tend to stay awhile.
Conversely, the effects of paid advertising on search engine results (and website traffic!) are more immediate but vanish immediately when you end your paid campaign.
Search marketing is a big space in the digital advertising world, so buckle up as we dive right in.
Search Engine Optimization, usually referred to simply as SEO, is the art and science of making your web pages rank highly with search engines using organic methods (aka unpaid traffic).
Entire books have been written about what makes up good SEO techniques. In a nutshell, it involves creating content that is useful and beneficial to your readers and letting the search engines easily detect what your pages are about. The algorithms know best, in this case.
There are three types of SEO: on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO, as the name implies, involves what you write on your web and social media pages. Good on-page SEO technique includes publishing good, interesting, and useful content, using a few, carefully chosen keyword phrases to let search engines know what your page is about. A popular planning strategy for good on-page SEO is using the topic cluster model of content development.
You’ll want to make sure you’re using those keywords and phrases in the right places on the page (e.g. in the first paragraph, in at least one "H2" heading, in the page title, in your image caption) so the Google machine doesn’t get confused. (The Google machine is very particular.)
Of these on-page elements, having good content is by far the most important. Google, in particular, seeks out websites with what it deems to be good content. Google uses a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to evaluate content.
While the exact algorithm is a well-kept secret, it's safe to say that it works by matching your content to that of a known authority in your field (like a university site or a non-profit). It also looks at how long readers stay on your pages, using the theory that good content encourages readers to stay longer to read it. It looks at things like images—which might be optional for an opinion site—but necessary for a food, gardening, or craft site.
Without good content, none of the rest of the information and tips on this page are likely to make any difference in your page ranking.
Technical SEO is the "page-office" stuff. This includes crafting a good META title and META description, making sure that you site loads quickly, having the necessary security measure in place, making your site adaptable to a variety of screen sizes and mobile-friendly, and organizing your website logically.
Off-page SEO has to do with your relationships with other well-regarded websites. Who is linking to your site? Are they sites that increase your image of authority in the eyes of search engines...or are they cheapening your brand? A good way to get good backlinks is to offer to write a guest post for websites that complement your site. (Oh by the way, have you read this blog post from Sellerly about us? ← See what we did there?)
👍 SEO in action: This client engaged us for SEO help and reached #1 on Google!
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is using paid advertising to help your web pages show up on search results pages. We like to call this a rent-to-own approach to marketing. Basically, you’re taking up prime space with paid ads until you can reach that same prime space without paid ads.
By using Google AdWords (or the similar Microsoft Advertising platform through Bing), you can bid for and purchase keywords and phrases that best represent your business. If your business focuses on local traffic, you can add the city, with a keyword like "Atlanta hair salons" or "Boston pet food stores".
When someone searches for something similar to your keyword or phrase, your ad will be in the running for ones that they'll see at the top of the page (without having to scroll down...this is key). If someone clicks through to your website from one of those ads, Google (or Bing) will charge your account. Your ad will stop running when you've hit your agreed-upon monthly maximum marketing budget.
So...why should you pay for a good search engine ranking when you can (at least theoretically) get the same results for free, using good SEO practices? Using paid search advertising helps put your listing at the "front of the line" and increases the likelihood that you'll show up at the top of Google (at least in the short run), outsmarting your competitors who are using exclusively organic methods.
However, it's wise to keep in mind that there is a subset of consumers who bypass the paid ads in search results on general principle. By using paid search methods exclusively, you'd miss out on that segment of the web buying public.
👍 SEM in action: This client employed PPC ads to drastically increase product sales.
SEO vs. SEM, paid vs. unpaid...which one is better?
The answer is that it depends.
It depends on your industry, your goals for your digital marketing, your budget, and how much time you have to devote to your SEO or SEM efforts. It's our view that everything "depends" in marketing.
SEO is best for those companies that have more time than money. If you have a lot of time to devote to crafting stellar content, approaching other websites about guest posts and writing them, and manually updating your pages and links so that everything is constantly fresh, then SEO will save you money and, done well, will yield long-lasting results.
SEM helps to speed up the process and yields results even if you have limited time to devote to search marketing. If it is done well, SEM can get your site placed above the organic sites. SEM is also a good choice for a promotion that has specific parameters, such as Red Lobster's "Lobster Fest" month. The downside to SEM is that when you stop paying for ads, your visibility (and traffic) will decrease abruptly.
Our opinion is that the best digital marketing plan uses a combination of SEO and SEM.
Both SEO and SEM will help your web pages stay visible to consumers and drive a more targeted base of readers to your web pages. SEM can get you instant web traffic while you build your content and the depth of your site enough to attract readers organically.
Back to the "rent-to-own" approach...When you combine SEO and SEM you're getting the best of both worls. You pay first for results, and you end up "owning" your good ranking by virtue of your well-built, well-organized website and its stellar content.
To learn more about how to increase your search engine ranking using SEO and SEM techniques, book a call with one of our growth experts!
When am I going to start seeing results?
How fast can we scale to $25,000?
How much am I going to spend on testing?
These questions (and more) come up frequently as we're talking to companies who are considering working with us to grow their business. Whether they are just starting out on a new eCommerce store or looking to increase their app signups 3x in Q2, the underlying question is really the same.
Let's face it: digital marketers (and marketing agencies) have really turned their approach into a "black box" over the years. Whether they do it by hiding behind jargon, slapping clever branding over the top, or creating complex or confusing diagrams, the end result is confused business owners who don't really understand what their dollars are going towards, or why.
Now, take a deep breath.
For you, with us, that stops here.
We're about to open the box.
I have two little kids, one preschooler and one toddler. Both are (alarmingly) ambulatory, moving all over the house and getting into everything they aren't supposed to. The older one can unlock deadbolts, push open screen doors, climb ladders and stairs, while the younger is content with simple seeing how fast she can get her body moving in a single direction before she either topples forward or encounters an object that refuses to budge when she slams into it.
Why do I bring this up? Because they didn't start this way.
Yes, it's a tired cliche, but it's so true: you have to walk before you can run.
If your business has never run an ad before, never used marketing to sell, never attempted to convince someone unfamiliar with the brand, product, or service that they should part with their hard-earned Benjamin Franklins, then your first question should not be, "How much can I make?"
You don't have TRACTION yet.
By traction I mean a pattern of desired behavior occurring in a consistent, somewhat predictable fashion. This could mean generating leads, getting purchases, onboarding new users or whatever else your business goal, it doesn't matter. The point is that you need to be able to say that you can cause it to happen, repeatedly, with your efforts.
When we work with clients who have never run ads before, or who are just starting out, our first forays out into the marketplace are focused on finding who will buy and what will cause them to buy. Put another way, this is about audience and creative/offer.
Let's bust a myth: just because you have a product or service does not mean people will buy it. This is not Field of Dreams.
On the contrary, you have to wade through scores of unqualified or uninterested people to find your best candidates, and then test multiple different messages, angles, images, videos, taglines and more in order to find traction.
"Okay, but how long does that take?"
Well, that depends.
I know, that's not what you were hoping for. And if I can tell you that it would take 2 weeks or 2 months or whatever, I definitely would. Instead, here's what I can tell you:
When you work with us, you aren't hiring wizards (or gurus or ninjas) - you're hiring data-driven marketers. So we're going to test, and test, and test, and generate lots of data, and then we're going to do what the data tells us.
👉 Set up your campaigns to get more qualified leads. →
Sometimes it's fast, and we see traction in just a few weeks. Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes it takes longer. All the factors above impact that.
But the good news is, once you have TRACTION, you can move on to start thinking about...
Too many times we'll talk to a business owner who is putting money into ads and wants to see immediate return. If they don't get a certain CPA or ROAS in the first 3 weeks, they think there's something "wrong" with the ads. They don't realize they are trying to run before walking, that you can't build a house without the foundation, or whatever analogy you best identify with.
💡 ROAS isn't everything, it's just a part of the equation. →
Once we help our clients find TRACTION, then (and only then) is it time to start discussing PROFIT.
Why?
If you don't have enough data points, you can't optimize.
Put another way, if you don't have anyone buying from you, how do you know who your best customers are?
Getting this data and acting on it is the basis of improving your PROFIT metrics. If you want a better CPA, you need to find out which creative gets the best response and then test small optimizations on it - a new emoji, a different headline, a carousel vs a static image. If you want better ROAS, you can segment by device type or placement or time of day that gives you the best baseline.
The key to the PROFIT stage is having goals. And I don't mean "I want to retire and sleep on a bed of Andrew Jacksons every night" type goals, more like "If I can generate new users for $20 each that means I'm profitable and am basically printing money" goals.
We help our clients walk through some simple calculations to set their goals. For an eCommerce store this might include repeat purchase rate, average order value (AOV), and cost of goods sold (COGS). For a SaaS client, we would consider lifetime value (LTV), profit margins, and upsells. Whatever the case, we want to end up with a single number.
That number is our PROFIT goal. If we can hit that goal with consistency, it unlocks us to move on the third and final stage.
Ah yes, scaling. The magical, mystical land of unicorns and rainbows where you trade $1 for $4 ten thousand times while eating ice cream in your pajamas.
Okay, well, not quite, but that's how the "get rich quick" YouTube personalities pitch it. Sounds fun, huh?
Truth is, scaling isn't the end - it's the beginning.
When this client partnered with EmberTribe, their goal was to find strategies to scale sales. Now our client has experienced scale from $18K to $370K lifetime revenue, with an $111K lifetime spend.
You can't start putting more dollars into your campaigns until they are making you money back consistently, and you can't do that until you build a system of repeatable client generation. Hence the reason it's the final step. But there's another reason we counsel clients to be smart about getting to this stage: the game changes.
If you want to triple your investment in ads, especially on a channel like Facebook Ads, just about the worst thing you can do is start jacking your budgets up quickly.
😑 Facebook ads not working? This could be why. →
This causes the algorithm to have to start relearning, and oftentimes can tank your PROFIT, forcing you to go back to the drawing board. Instead, you have to be intentional, constantly revisiting your PROFIT goals and testing new TRACTION experiments to widen your funnel. And this is why we insist on walking through the process with clients - because failing to do the hard work on the front end ends up in a house of cards that falls apart, leaving everyone unhappy.
Some of our best success stories are clients who did things the right way, worked with us to build a repeatable system for growth and testing, and then let us run wild with new audiences, creative, automation, rules and more. Their accounts grew from 5 to 7 figures in ad spend profitably not by some mystical proprietary technology or the wizardry of a paid acquisition savant, but by being intentional, creating a solid foundation, and trusting the process.
It's not easy. It's not as fast as we'd like. But the results are worth it, and the potential that it opens up are amazing.
No black box. No magic. No single genius with the inside track on the algorithm.
Just lots of testing, patience, observation, analysis, failure, growth and consistency.
That's the secret sauce of EmberTribe, and it's one of the reasons we've had such great success for ourselves and our clients since our inception: a three-step process of TRACTION, PROFIT, SCALE that works across industries, across business models, regardless of the age or success of the business to date.
In order to scale your campaigns and avoid past mistakes, it's VERY important to keep track of what you're doing. This is why we plan ahead and keep track of our results using a "testing queue."
However, just keeping track is not enough. Understanding your audience, what you can offer them, and the timing of your offer is what will set you apart and lead to success in your campaigns.
In Today's Quick Tip Tuesday, JP gives you another perspective when handling your PPC campaigns and tells how to breathe new life into them with these simple pointers:
Josh: "All right, so, J.P., one of the things that we do uniquely at EmberTribe is we manage this thing called a testing-queue to try to breathe new life into campaigns. Can you explain a little bit about what that is?"
J.P: "Yeah, it's a really intentional, planned out way of documenting what steps we're gonna take to expand campaigns both horizontally and vertically to keep them going, scale up, and be really responsive."
Josh: "Awesome. So, I know that this has been a breakthrough strategy for a lot of our clients and really the fuel for this process is asking really good questions.
So like, the better questions you can ask about how these different paid advertising channels are working, the better outputs you're gonna get.
So what's kind of your process for asking those questions and maybe what are the categories that they fall into?"
J.P: "Sure, ultimately, they usually come down to audience, offer, and timing.
When you're thinking about audience, you're really trying to figure out what makes your user, your target, unique?
Is it their job title? Maybe you wanna consider how old they are or what ethnicity they are, where they live, what interests they have like television shows or cars that they drive.
What is it that sets them apart from anybody else on the street?
For offer, you wanna consider what problem you solve. Does your user even know they have a problem? Do they care? Is it costing them time? Is it costing them money?
And then, how do you solve that problem better than the 14 other companies that are trying to do the same thing? Or are you unique in the space? You're the only one solving it.
And finally, when it comes down to timing. And by timing, I don't mean day parts, or days of the week,
or anything like that. I'm considering where they are in the purchase funnel.
What's their familiarity with you brand?
Are you re-targeting them or is this a cold outreach?
Are they aware of your competitors?
Do they know what to look for?
Have they engaged with any of your content before?
Do you maybe have an offer like a white paper or a webinar that can help educate them about those needs and how you solve them.
And then how do you match that offer up to where they are in the purchase funnel?"
Josh: "Awesome. So it's a really holistic way to think about your target audience and about, really, the message that you're bringing to them. And I guess at the end of the day it is about just asking good questions.
If you have an organized framework like this to use, seems like anybody can improve or optimize their campaigns or take it to the next level."
J.P: "It sure beats off-the-cuff strategies and a wall of Post-it notes."
Josh: "Yeah, definitely. Well, thanks for sharing, J.P."
J.P: "You bet."
Bing offers a great opportunity for businesses to generate extra leads not only for less but it also has certain features that makes it better than its main competitor, Adwords.
In Today's Quick Tip Tuesday, JP talks about how B2B advertisers can generate leads with Bing and why it's important to consider this lead generating channel.
Josh: "So, JP, tell us a little bit about how we can use Bing if we're in a B2B space. We want to reach that business user."
J.P: "So, the biggest advantage that Bing has is that Microsoft still holds huge sway in those enterprise environments where IT has your browsers locked down or where users just don't think to change the main browser on their computer.
Because in all those cases, Bing is the standard search engine out of the box for those users."
Josh: "So, for better or for worse, the bulk of corporate America is using Bing, just because by virtue of having
Internet Explorer installed on their machine by default. Got it.
So, beyond the fact that your target users probably using Bing, by virtue of what we know, what are some other things about the platform that might be helpful if you're trying to reach a business user?"
J.P: "In short, it's less competition.
Because people don't think of Bing first, they tend to go to AdWords first.
It results in 36% less competition between advertisers for the same terms.
Combine that with the fact that you're getting 50 to 70% lower cost per click on Bing, and it's a huge opportunity to get in front of more people than you would before for a lower cost."
Josh: "So, I mean, at half the cost, your money goes very, very far.
Not to mention, if you're reaching a business user, your deal size is going to be a lot bigger, so, what else about the platform might work strategically, kind of in your favor?"
J.P: "So, if you've got a lot of locations for your business, in Google, you have to either put those all into one campaign together, or if you want to break out by choose, you have to have different campaigns.
In Bing, you can still have one campaign, but have ad groups broken out to different location.
So, it's a nice feature.
In addition, just like Google, they have search partners, but they let you choose.
So, if you want to run on AOL, you want to run your ads on Yahoo, you can pick that, specifically, on Bing, Google doesn't allow that.
And they don't report transparently on where your ads show up. Bing does, so, that's a nice feature."
Josh: "That's amazing.
So, it's a less crowded channel, we know the target users are on Bing, and you have this extra ability to be granular with your targeting.
It sounds like a pretty powerful combination."
J.P: "Yeah, it definitely needs to be part of your arsenal if you're doing B2B acquisition."
Josh: "Awesome, thanks, JP."
J.P: "You bet."
This is the first installment of a tutorial video series called, Quick Tip Tuesday #QTT! It's a weekly series of videos that bring you highly actionable advertising tactics in 90 seconds or less.
In this first episode of "Quick Tip Tuesday", we'll walk you through how Facebook advertisers can grow their audience for free while they run their campaigns.
If you want to make the most of your campaigns, spending 10 minutes or less each week, this tip is for you!
💡 Boost your Custom Audience match rate with this quick tutorial. →
Hey there, in this quick video I wanna show you how you can get more mileage out of your Facebook advertising campaigns without spending more money and really spending no more than 10 minutes a week.
This is going to make your advertising campaign more effective, it's going to let you take advantage of interacting with
some of the people who have been interested in your ads, but haven't taken action yet.
So let's take a look.
The beauty of running Facebook ads is that it's a social platform, so as you run ads, people are going to start liking and sharing your ads. So what I want to show you is in three easy steps, how to make the most of when people engage with your ad.
Step one is you have to find your ad in the Ad Manager. Now, we're gonna click Preview which is that little eyeball in the upper right.
Okay that this point, scroll down and click the link where it says View Post Permalink with Comments. Okay, (step two) the next thing that you're gonna do is go down here.
You're going to see where people have liked or engaged with your ad.
Now step three, there's an option here to invite the people who have liked this post.
Now here's the beauty of this; you might have paid for the ad to get it out there and to get it in front of people, but inviting people to like your page is actually completely free.
Now great, six people, big deal. We attracted some new followers to the page, but what if you have an ad that you run for a lot longer and say there's like a thousand or so people who liked it?
Well now you can go through and start inviting all sorts of people who have engaged with your ad and showed interest in the content that you're sharing. When you've built up a decent amount of social proof (which is basically digital advertising gold), you can reuse that ad with social proof for different audiences.
So use this tactic to make the most out of your Facebook advertising by inviting people for free to your site to like your page.
Google Sponsored Promotion ads, also known as GSP ads, can be a great additional source of traffic due to a low cost per click.
Since not a lot of advertisers tend to focus heavily on GSP ads, you can use this as an opportunity to reach more target prospects for your business.
Target your complements and competitors.
Complements are businesses, partners, or software that your target audience uses as a complement to your product or service. For example, a complement to Aweber, GetResponse, or ActiveCampaign could be Instapage or LeadPages.
Competitors are the businesses that are in direct competition with your business or offering. For example, a competitor to Aweber would be GetResponse.
Ready to get started? Follow the steps below to create your first GSP ad.
1. Create a new "Display Network only" campaign.
Go to your AdWords account and click on "Create a New Campaign," and click on "Display Network Only."
2. Enter in a campaign name, click on "No marketing objective", select "All features", choose the location you want to target, your bidding strategy, and budget.
3. Then, click on "Save and continue."
4. Next, enter an Ad Group name. This will be the name of either your complement or competitor.
5. Choose a max CPC bid.
6. Choose "Display keywords" for targeting, and enter in the website URL or your complement or competitor.
This is how you target users of your competitors and complements.
Essentially, you will be showing up as a Gmail ad whenever a user has received one of your complement or competitor emails.
7. Next, click on "Narrow your targeting further (optional)" and choose "Placements" as your Targeting Method.
8. Search for "mail.google.com" and select that URL as a Placement targeting option.
This tells Google to show up only in Gmail inboxes.
9. Click "Save and continue."
10. Then, on the Ad Creation Page, click on "Skip ad creation."
There's no way to create a Gmail ad in this view. You'll have to create it in another place:
11. Once you're inside the "Ads" tab of your account, click on the red button "Ad" and "Ad Gallery" in the drop-down menu.
12. Click on "Gmail Ads".
This is where you will create your Gmail ads.
13. Click on "Gmail image template".
There are many different templates you can use for a Gmail ad, and what you pick is up to you.
For simplicity, we recommend choosing "Gmail image template".
14. Then, use the Ad gallery image template to fill in your ad content for:
The best part about this is that you can split-test different variations of these.
15. Click "Save" and you're done!
To learn more about Google Sponsored Promotion Ads and the strategies behind it, book a call and we'll talk about employing new strategies for your business' growth.
Growing up, I loved visiting my grandparents out in the country.
One humid August afternoon, I grabbed a pail and headed out to the farm. It was blueberry season. If I could bring back enough blueberries to Grandma's kitchen, it would turn into pie (aka a slice of heaven on earth).
So I picked blueberries like a madman that day, furiously grabbing at the bushes. But no matter how hard I worked, the pail would barely fill.
It was far too late before I noticed the quarter-sized hole in my pail. A cluster of blueberries trailed behind me, never to be recovered again.
Here's a troubling fact: 95% of the visitors who reach your website will never come back again.
That's not a quarter-sized hole in your pail, it's a crater.
Of course, the 95% rule will vary depending on your industry. If you want a quick gut check on where you stand, just open up your Google Analytics profile and look at the ratio between new/returning visitors.
Wherever the numbers fall for your site, the story is probably the same: the majority of people aren't coming back.
You've worked so hard to drive traffic to your site. Furiously writing content, hustling on social media and even paying for visitors.
But that hard work is wasted when users visit your site, don't convert, then leave and never come back.
Most marketers make the mistake of treating their visitors as a "disposable audience". Our answer to losing 95% of our blueberries is to...pick more and more blueberries.
There's a better way to fix this problem and it can lead to explosive growth for your business.
Retargeting is a tool that's been around for awhile now, but a lot of marketers still haven't put it into practice.
Retargeting, also known as "remarketing", is a way to stay in front of your prospective customers with display ads that follow them around the web.
Ever shop online? You've probably been retargeted. Let's say you've been window shopping for a new laptop. Somehow, magically, that same laptop starts showing up in your Facebook news feed, on the sidebar of some random blog you're reading, etc.
It's not a coincidence, it's retargeting!
There are two ways to approach retargeting:
Site-Based: Site-based retargeting is the most common approach. When a user visits your site, they are "tagged" (cookied) through a pixel provided by a retargeting platform. Once a user is tagged, you'll be able to serve them ads throughout a broad network of websites and apps.
The beauty of this approach is that you can set up refined campaigns based on the pages that users did (or didn't) view. For example, a user reached a checkout page but did not complete their order.
Why didn't they buy? Maybe they didn't have their credit card on hand, maybe they ran out of time, maybe they wanted to shop around. Whatever the reason, retargeting gives you a second, third, fourth chance to close the deal.
List-Based: List-based retargeting is also known as "custom audience targeting" and "CRM Retargeting". Unlike site-based retargeting, which targets visitors of specific pages on your site, list-based retargeting uses email addresses.
With site-based retargeting, users are tagged directly when they interact with your site. With the list-based approach, a retargeting vendor will use a network of data partners to tag a user based on their email address.
The applications are endless. Do you want to re-awaken cold leads that haven't visited your site in awhile? Segment your list and get back in front of them. Want to up-sell existing customers or advertise a complementary product? List-based retargeting is a powerful tool at your disposal.
Retargeting isn't just a tactic to increase sales. It can be used to build brand awareness and amplify your content marketing efforts.
A key ingredient to building trust with your audience is to get repeat visits to your site. The more value you can provide with free content upfront, the more people will trust your brand.
Larry Kim of Wordstream implemented retargeting to re-engage their blog visitors. They saw a 50% lift in repeat visits once retargeting ran its course.
Site-based retargeting is a powerful way to re-engage your audience. If your blog is organized by categories in the URL, like, "YourDomain.com/blog/PPC/Blog-Post", it's easy to create retargeting rules that promote new content to past site visitors based on what they've read previously.
For example, create a retargeting rule that serves ads to visitors who read anything on your blog in the "PPC" category over the last 90 days. Did you just publish a new blog post that fits into that category? Serve ads to those audience segments and jumpstart traffic to your post.
Worried about breaking the bank for something that doesn't necessarily have a direct impact on sales?
Good news. Getting people back to your site is typically less expensive than getting them there in the first place. I say "typically", because costs will vary between ad exchanges and there's always an exception to the rule.