I’ve worked with Google AdWords and
Analytics for nearly 10 years of my career. I’ve seen a lot of change over the
years and I’ve been asked numerous times why running Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns
is important for a business. My response, up until recently, had always been
“it helps provide short-term support to your long-term SEO efforts.” This
answer, of course, is now grotesquely outdated.
As advertisers, we’ve since moved far away
from simply using search ads and we’ve arrived at an entire ecosystem of
advertising. Today, PPC managers are now responsible for running a wide-range
of campaigns across a multitude of search and social channels including Google,
Bing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, SnapChat, etc. With so
many advertising channels it can be scary to put all your proverbial chips into
a potential blackhole.
Digital advertising in its early form used
to follow the same mindset as other advertising methods of yesteryear; one-way
conversation that “mass marketed” to as many eyeballs as possible. And it
worked too. Driving as many people to your website as possible may have
generated a few new leads, but you were talking to anyone and everyone as
humanly (or financially) possible.
We’ve all been aware that “Content is King”
but you can make the best written article, or funniest video, and nobody will
see it if your distribution strategy is flat. Therefore, if “Content is King,”
then this means that “Distribution is the Queen” (and for you chess players out
there, the Queen is the most powerful piece in the game).
This is where you need to align your
advertising and social strategies together and start to build trust with new
visitors. I’ve seen many organizations spend money and then end up greatly
disappointed with the results. Nine
times out of ten this stems from the lack of trust an advertiser has created
with their new visitor.
When it comes to digital advertising, you
need to know your audience better than anyone else because your messaging is
going to differ vastly whether you’re talking to a CEO or a Marketing Coordinator.
Here are a few questions to ask before advertising:
- Who am I talking to?
- Why am I talking to them?
- Where are they coming from?
- What do I want them to achieve?
- When is this relevant to them?
The point of PPC is that it’s all about
distributing your message beyond the organic digital means and is intended to
generate new leads for the sales team or new product sales that are aligned
with like-minded customers.
Think about the last advertisement you
knowingly and actively clicked on. What resonated with you?
- Was it helpful in your role on the job? Did you need a new product?
- How did you feel when you landed on their website? Did you find what you were looking for?
- Did you convert on the first visit or did you go back again?
- What were they asking you to do?
Pull answers from these questions and start
looking hard at the ads you’re being served. Advertisements aren’t going away
anytime soon, so making them relevant is the new society we live in. Therefore,
thinking about these questions related to your audience is going to help you,
as a marketer, convert better.
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