Win with Adwords Strategic Decisions

I make myself tiring when i say to my friends and colleagues again and again that what is missing nowadays is not skill, but critical thinking. Strategic insight and then tactical implementation.

Marketers are not an exception.

Now, if we think Adwords from a marketer’s holistic point of view, caution is necessary; otherwise our campaign is doomed to fail. What else could we put emphasis on, apart from grouping the keywords correctly, using optimized settings and then sitting back to drink scotch (or soda if you prefer), thus leaving our account to run without intervention?

Ignoring our Unique Selling Proposition

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. The USP states that such campaigns made unique propositions to the customer that convinced them to prefer or even switch brands. In Google Adwords, no part of the marketing campaign needs a USP more than our ads. If we write the headline, benefits and URLs without strategic insight on how to sell the offer to a specific customer, our ads will fail. The stimuli provided by the ad will not cause attention and perceptual selection, causing CTR and ad position in the search results to go down.

Instead, before writing any Adwords ads, we should try to understand and be ready to circulate the benefits of our advertised products or services. Understand our target customer, the needs and solutions they would value. Reflect all of these points in our ads and landing pages. Bid on the brand, not the money. Google may reward us with high quality score (QS) and customers will reward us with a good Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and, why not, feasible lead generation. This is the quintessence of marketing, after all. Satisfying customer needs.

“Highest bid for the highest position” strategy

“Turnover is vanity and profit is sanity”. I will bypass the theory behind the auction computational problem that is called Google Adwords, even though I strongly recommend deeper digging in publications of researchers like Aranyak Mehta or Nikhil Devanur as food for thought for the computational mechanism behind Adwords. The truth is that we must be stupid if we think that we must bid the most to get higher search result positions. This is a common Google Adwords budgeting mistake that will waste money and leave us with nothing more to spend very soon. It may get us to the top temporarily, but it’s definitely not a sustainable strategy for our resources. Especially if our PPC campaign is the part of our strategic marketing plan and we have limited budget.

Instead, we may opt for the long-term, budget-safe solution. Improve the relevancy and consistency of our ads, ad groups, keywords and landing pages, then Google will increase our Quality Score (QS). A good QS may increase the frequency of our ads at better positions and our CPC may go down. By improving overall quality in PPC campaigns, we end up to spend less budget for a higher position in the long-term.

Forgetting conversion profit margins & costs p.u.

Not setting up conversions for sales or enquiries so that ROI of this marketing action can be measured? No conversion tracking? Not understanding the profit margins and marketing costs per unit for our products or services so that we can set a price per click? FAIL.

When we spend €10,000 on Google Adwords, this is a cost. Marketing costs need to have a ROI. Wise planning of cost per conversion/impression/click/unit/day etcetera is highly recommended. Off course, there is always the opportunity cost, the cost of the missed opportunity. Ok, it’s time for some critical thinking, I guess. But come on, had we managed the account better and spent our budget in a smarter way, we may have had more satisfying financial results. Which is why we are paid for, at the end of the day.

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Synergistic Marketing Campaigns

There are probably two important developments that helped evolve the media mix concept into what we now think of as multi-channel synergistic marketing campaigns:

• A transition by marketing and advertising professionals toward integrated communications. 

This marked a shift in focus from transactions to customer relationships. Even outside the marketing arena, engineers and statisticians were contributing by following the lead of successful Japanese industries that re-engineered business processes around customers’ needs. Power was then shifting to the consumer and the management of  communication processes was being elevated to strategic levels to help build customer relations and drive business results.  In addition, other market realities continued to fuel the trend toward relationship marketing through expanded communication and sales channels, such as:

1. Competition increased while the cost to acquire new customers soared, making it increasingly important to establish solid customer relationships, especially with those who projected high lifetime values.
2. Customers in a satisfied business relationship became clearly recognized as the best source of new business.
3. Privacy concerns and governmental actions placed greater focus on establishing true relationships rather than trying to blindly attract buyers with hit or miss, mass-communication tactics.

• The number of channels available to marketers increased. 

Not only was there now recognition of the importance of building customer relationships and integrating communications, but new electronic media such as web sites and e-mail also added channels. What’s more, there was less distinction between pure communication channels and sales channels. Increasingly,the two were becoming one and the same. What is evident is that consumers prefer personalized communications:

CAP VENTURES DATABASE

The New Era of Marketing: Personalization Über Alles

New methods of marketing are emerging that seek to more effectively use prospect and customer data to filter target lists, construct personalization rules and produce and execute marketing campaigns across and among the full range of media  channels available. The most successful campaigns reach consumers in a sequenced and extremely consistent manner. This creates an indirect benefit of enforcing and enhancing corporate branding.Therefore, organizations that can harness the power of other marketing channels and produce more personalized communications could put themselves in a good position to capture market share from those that don’t. There are two critical components to effective multi-channel marketing campaigns: Creating relevant offers via personalization and coordination and management of multiple marketing channels.

In a multi-channel marketing context (emails, newsletters, printed brochures, social media, etc.) personalization means using what is known about the recipient to create the offer, customize the messaging and deliver it to them in the form at requested. For channels other than telemarketing, this can include personalized greetings, relevant messages based on demographics and compelling graphics. Actually, response rates increase dramatically with an increase in the number of personalization elements. As the number of personalization elements increases from one to seven ,the click through rate more than triples, increasing from 4. 7% to 14. 8 % .

Source:YesMail

The other critical element lies  in the design and execution of campaigns that coordinate among the full breadth of channels available to reach prospective buyers. Much like personalization, this requires strategic and tactical planning. When marketers can sequence communications and “hit” prospective customers with consistent communications through various media channels, the effectiveness of campaigns increases greatly.

Data and Content Management

More than half the battle in effective marketing campaigns is acquiring and maintaining good prospect and customer data. It is important for sellers to build a repository that allows them to effectively utilize unique attributes to segment prospects and customers. Using these attributes, marketing managers can build the personalization rules and determine which prospects should receive proscribed offers, and more specifically, which messages. Once the campaign is designed, in many cases the seller (and often a third-party service provider such as an advertising agency) creates the content to support the marketing campaign.

Traditionally, sellers have created content specifically for each campaign in a tactical fashion, failing to leverage the messaging and graphical elements for other channels. Sellers are increasingly developing and managing content in a more strategic, collaborative fashion that enables content to be shared not only among media channels, but also across campaigns.

Strategies for Synergistic Marketing Campaigns

The Customer is King 

Just as an oil company would not blindly drill small holes in the earth in search of oil, your organization shouldn’t contact millions of consumers blindly, banking on a very small portion accepting your offer. Rather, seek out or build a repository that identifies which consumers are more likely to find your offer compelling.

Get Customers to Opt-in  

Companies that can build their own opt-in lists, or use qualified industry opt-in  resources, are  in  a  better  position to  communicate  and  market to  both  consumers and businesses. Explore methods, such as periodic e-mail newsletters, that provide valuable information and purchase opportunities simultaneously.

Invest in Personalizing Communications

The overwhelming response to the “do not call” registry underscores consumer frustration with intrusive, irrelevant communications. Research shows that by a ratio of over 3:1, recipients prefer personalized communications. Research also shows that the more personalized an offer is, the higher likelihood of response. It will require an increased investment in creating content and designing campaigns, but you can expect double-digit response rates.

Leverage More Effective Customer Channels 

Design and execute new marketing campaigns that leverage the full spectrum of marketing channels. Personalized direct mail, permission-based e-mail and Int e r n e t technologies can be employed to dramatically increase the returns on the marketing dollar. Coordinate marketing  campaigns using multiple  channels and take advantage  of the “multiplier effect.”

Simplify the Transition by Using Service Providers 

Personalizing communications and running multi-channel campaigns can be a challenge for those selling organizations that do not currently have the technology or process infrastructure to develop multi-channel strategies, manage customer data, manage marketing content and execute integrated campaigns. Sellers will find that there are several service providers that can help them transition from their current practices to leverage more effective marketing practices.

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Tips για SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

 Όταν καθημερινά πραγματοποιούμε αναζητήσεις στις μηχανές αναζήτησης όπως το Google,το Yahoo ή το Bing,για κάτι που ενδεχομένως ψάχνουμε, προϊόν ή υπηρεσία, η μηχανή αναζήτησης απαντά με αποτελέσματα σύμφωνα με τον   επιτυχημένο αλγόριθμό της. Πρέπει δε να έχουμε υπόψη μας ότι η κυριότερη μηχανή αναζήτησης (με ποσοστό τουλάχιστον 2/3 της συνολικής αγοράς) είναι η Google.

 Σε μία υποθετική λοιπόν αναζήτηση στο Google.gr τα τρία πρώτα αποτελέσματα που βρίσκονται σε κίτρινο φόντο είναι διαφημίσεις. Τα υπόλοιπα είναι τα οργανικά αποτελέσματα αναζήτησης και αποτελούν ταξινομημένες ιστοσελίδες.

Τι είναι όμως το SEO?

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