Archives for March 2017

Google AdWords Series: Ad Extensions and Bidding

March 14, 2017 by Christine

Google AdWords is an excellent way to drive quality traffic to your site. It can also be expensive if not handled correctly. It all comes down to how smartly you manage your Google AdWords Campaigns.

As we continue discussing some of the most common mistakes made by webmasters with their Google AdWords campaigns, we turn our focus to two mistakes that are particularly common among AdWords newcomers: a failure to use ad extensions, and not bidding on one’s own brand.

Google AdWords Campaigns

Let’s take a look at each of these.

The mistake: not using ad extensions as a means to enhance your advertising copy

Whenever you develop ads for your campaign, you only have a limited amount of space to work with when you consider character limits, two headlines and a brief description. However, you can work around these limitations by using the ad extension feature and link headline text. These features are free and can add a lot of benefit to your ad copy.

What is an ad extension? Ad extensions are additional pieces of information about your business, like a phone number or a link to a specific page on your website, you can add to your ads. Ad extensions are free to add to your ads, with the usual charges for any clicks you get. Ad extensions appear with ads on the Search Network, and depending on the extension might also appear with ads on the Display Network.

Ad extensions allow you to cram more information and links into your advertisements, which in turn gives you an edge with your copy over a lot of your competition. Your ads will take up slightly more space in search results, which makes them more noticeable to people who perform the searches.

Examples of ad extensions include:

Call: Add a contact phone number for your business, to add a bit more credibility and another way for searchers to get in touch with your company.
Location: Add your address into your advertisements as a way to emphasize you are a local business or to make it easy for customers to look up directions to your storefront.
Sitelinks: Add in additional links into your advertisements, and use link text to include additional calls to action and various selling points of your products or services.
Structured snippets: Show off the range of what you are offering in your advertisement by providing examples of various styles and applications.
Callouts: Add some short and persuasive phrases into your advertisement to make your ads compelling. For example, if you have free shipping, this is the place to include that information!

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to include as much information in your ad as possible!

The mistake: not bidding on your brand

“New advertisers are often convinced that these ads will not pay off. The argument is that if you already have the top ranking in the organic search results, it would be a waste of money to pay for an ad for the exact same search. In other words – some advertisers are afraid brand ads will cannibalize organic results.” ~ Frederik Hyldig

Many entrepreneurs new to AdWords do not realize you can actually bid on your own brand name keywords as a way to increase the amount of conversions you get coming in. Of course, if you are going to use this strategy, you will have to pay some attention to the value of your brand.

Customers are typically willing to pay a bit more for a product or service if they tend to receive positive customer experiences when engaging with that brand. Providing such positive experiences can be accomplished through PPC and SEO advertising. So here are a few reasons why bidding on your brand search terms could be helpful:

Secure your space: Simply put, if you do not bid on your brand keywords, eventually your competition will, which will mean you have wasted an opportunity for some easy lead and conversion building.
Affordability: Bidding on brand keywords usually costs less money than bidding on standard keywords. When you can get a low cost per click for keywords that are likely to drive conversions, you always want to jump on that chance.
Intent: Consumers who use product or service keywords are usually beginning their initial research about that product or service. Once they decide they are going to buy, they often shift their searches to use brand keywords. Therefore, you can capitalize on this intent of searchers by bidding on brand keywords to position your brand well when consumers have made their purchase decision. Remember, keyword optimization is DEAD! Intent based search optimization is critical!

By bidding on your own brand, you are both promoting your company to new audiences and reaching out to existing customers. Even if your brand keyword doesn’t get much traffic or search volume for that keyword is low, it’s still worth using those keywords in your campaign.

Stay tuned as we discuss two final mistakes commonly made by AdWords users!

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: Tools & Technology Tagged With: advertising, advertising channel, Competitive Advantage, google adwords, marketing tactics, seo

Common eCommerce Mistakes | Lack of remarketing – Part #8

March 13, 2017 by Christine

Behavioral retargeting is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet actions. Remarketing helps you reach people who have visited your website or used your app and abandoned their cart. Previous visitors or users can see your ads as they browse websites that are part of the Google Display Network, or as they search for terms related to your products or services on Google.

Retargeting and remarketing, these two terms tend to be used hand-in-hand. However, retargeting tends to describe online ad placements that are served to those who have recently visited your website. Remarketing is primarily used to re-engage customers via email or social media, especially those who abandoned their cart or alternatively to those who just made a purchase and now you are segmenting a follow-up to maximize your profit. Remarketing is for upsells, cross sells and customer lifecycle marketing via email.

The common mistake many businesses make with their ecommerce website is the lack of remarketing and retargeting.

retargeting
Many ecommerce websites use Facebook Advertising and Google AdWords to drive traffic for lead generation and commerce. This marketing tactic has an immediate positive effect on site traffic and can boost on-page time and bounce rate if properly optimized. However the real benefit comes in how that traffic was retargeted based upon the original advertisement they clicked on and the action taken or not taken on the landing page or offer page they were driven to. It is the advertisement that follows them or the immediate response they receive from your marketing automation system that increases conversion rates.

Not using this retargeting and remarketing is one of the most common mistakes we see on ecommerce websites.

Many ecommerce websites spend an enormous amount of time and money driving traffic only to dismiss the opportunity to drive the visitor back to their website. In our view that business is doing the right thing by following the latest lifecycle marketing techniques, but is missing conversion opportunities when the shopping cart is abandoned.
The options available for ecommerce websites are increasing every year as this marketing tactic begins to mature in acceptance. The Google Display Network, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are some of the key players. Your buyer persona should be a key factor in the platform(s) you use.

Time to take action.

Revisit your strategic marketing plan and analyze your current customer journey and buyer persona. Where do they hang out, both personally and professionally? What sources of information do they use to help with their problems? What marketing channels does your target audience prefer?
Once you determine the best tactical platform, you need to study a key metric, conversion rate. You have to know how many website visitors does it take to generate one qualified lead. How many qualified leads does it take to convert into a sale. What is your customer lifetime value? What portion of that lifetime value can be expended to obtain new customers? What is the cost for every one thousand impressions for your proposed display ad or equivalent marketing tactic?
To boost the conversion rate and lower your cost, research best practices for refining your targeting, creative display, headline, copy and frequency.

7 types of effective retargeting (by Chango Inc.)

Retargeting off-site events. Perhaps those who have not engaged with your site.

Individuals can be targeted based upon searches they conducted in all the major search engines.
Target those who consumer similar content to your customer avatar, often through shares in social media.
Target those who interacted with distributed content. These are users who take action with a custom Facebook group for example.
Retarget those who visited a specific partner site or sister domain you own.

Retargeting on-site events. This is a re-engagement tool often used in upsells.

Target those who abandoned a cart.
Target those based upon a specific inbound traffic event.
Target those based upon email clicks to specific links.

How to get it right

Your buyer persona demographics and other qualifying data will help you design customer audiences with your chosen digital advertising vehicle. Install Google Tag Manager / Facebook remarketing pixel on your website. With those tools you can create specific audiences based upon on site behavior. Furthermore, you will want to integrate your CRM with Facebook so that your target audiences stay in sync after you provide them with your contact list. From there you will be able to create look-alike audiences.
Set your goals and objectives. Are you after increased traffic? Local awareness? Lead generation and nurturing? Video views? Make sure you are using the right tactic with the right objective. Also considering frequency, which is the number of times you will allow an audience to be shown your advertisement. Your campaign budget and list size will play a major factor with frequency.
From here it can get highly technical. The key is to be granular, use UTM parameters in your URLs so that Google Analytics can help you with decisions, align your content and images with your audience age and gender and consider suggestions from the advertiser for reach expansion categories.
Our experience has taught us that the best headlines are five words long, short copy is better than long. Accompanying text should range from fourteen to eighteen words. The best word to use is YOU. Make sure you link to a page that is very specific.

The best advertisers have nearly 100 versions and they split test them to find the best results. It is a massive mistake to only run one version.

Lack of Retargeting Budget Options

http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/marketers-rank-their-top-performing-automation-journeys-72687/

A survey by MarketingCharts recently discussed the limited budget alternatives for small business owners and solopreneurs. Marketing automation software is used by the highest performing marketers to send automated responses as a method of remarketing/retargeting as a way of supplemental Google AdWords or in place of when those funds are simply not available.
Email autoresponders and manual outreach (using your phone) remains an effective alternative.

Retargeting Challenges

Marin Software surveyed enterprise marketers and found that 43% of respondents have difficulty assigning attribution performance and 31% had difficulty acquiring sufficient volume so that performance metrics were reliable. “Some 69% of the hundreds of agencies and brands surveyed said that conversions had increased over the past year for mobile paid search, with 63% saying the same about desktop paid search and 54% about social. Asked to rate the most important aspects of the digital marketing industry over the past 12 months, brands pointed first to social advertising (52%) and mobile (51%) as having increased in importance.” – MarketingCharts October 6, 2016
In our next article we will discuss Conversion Rate Optimization and why businesses with an ecommerce website are making a big mistake with this tactic.
Copyright 2017 Viral Solutions LLC

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: E-Commerce & Sales Tagged With: advertising, advertising channel, ecommerce, facebook retargeting, remarketing

Common eCommerce Mistakes | Lack of remarketing – Part #8

March 13, 2017 by Christine

Retargeting and remarketing, these two terms tend to be used hand-in-hand. However, retargeting tends to describe online ad placements that are served to those who have recently visited your website. Remarketing is primarily used to re-engage customers via email or social media, especially those who abandoned their cart or alternatively to those who just made a purchase and now you are segmenting a follow-up to maximize your profit. Remarketing is for upsells, cross sells and customer lifecycle marketing via email.

The common mistake many businesses make with their ecommerce website is the lack of remarketing and retargeting.

retargeting

Many ecommerce websites use Facebook Advertising and Google AdWords to drive traffic for lead generation and commerce. This marketing tactic has an immediate positive effect on site traffic and can boost on-page time and bounce rate if properly optimized. However the real benefit comes in how that traffic was retargeted based upon the original advertisement they clicked on and the action taken or not taken on the landing page or offer page they were driven to. It is the advertisement that follows them or the immediate response they receive from your marketing automation system that increases conversion rates.

Not using this retargeting and remarketing is one of the most common mistakes we see on ecommerce websites.

The options available for ecommerce websites are increasing every year as this marketing tactic begins to mature in acceptance. The Google Display Network, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are some of the key players. Your buyer persona should be a key factor in the platform(s) you use.

Time to take action.

Once you determine the best tactical platform, you need to study a key metric, conversion rate. You have to know how many website visitors does it take to generate one qualified lead. How many qualified leads does it take to convert into a sale. What is your customer lifetime value? What portion of that lifetime value can be expended to obtain new customers? What is the cost for every one thousand impressions for your proposed display ad or equivalent marketing tactic?

To boost the conversion rate and lower your cost, research best practices for refining your targeting, creative display, headline, copy and frequency.

7 types of effective retargeting (by Chango Inc.)

Retargeting off-site events. Perhaps those who have not engaged with your site.

Individuals can be targeted based upon searches they conducted in all the major search engines.
Target those who consumer similar content to your customer avatar, often through shares in social media.
Target those who interacted with distributed content. These are users who take action with a custom Facebook group for example.
Retarget those who visited a specific partner site or sister domain you own.

Retargeting on-site events. This is a re-engagement tool often used in upsells.

Target those who abandoned a cart.
Target those based upon a specific inbound traffic event.
Target those based upon email clicks to specific links.

How to get it right

Set your goals and objectives. Are you after increased traffic? Local awareness? Lead generation and nurturing? Video views? Make sure you are using the right tactic with the right objective. Also considering frequency, which is the number of times you will allow an audience to be shown your advertisement. Your campaign budget and list size will play a major factor with frequency.

From here it can get highly technical. The key is to be granular, use UTM parameters in your URLs so that Google Analytics can help you with decisions, align your content and images with your audience age and gender and consider suggestions from the advertiser for reach expansion categories.

Our experience has taught us that the best headlines are five words long, short copy is better than long. Accompanying text should range from fourteen to eighteen words. The best word to use is YOU. Make sure you link to a page that is very specific.

The best advertisers have nearly 100 versions and they split test them to find the best results. It is a massive mistake to only run one version.

Lack of Retargeting Budget Options

http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/marketers-rank-their-top-performing-automation-journeys-72687/

Email autoresponders and manual outreach (using your phone) remains an effective alternative.

Retargeting Challenges

In our next article we will discuss Conversion Rate Optimization and why businesses with an ecommerce website are making a big mistake with this tactic.

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: E-Commerce & Sales Tagged With: advertising, advertising channel, ecommerce, facebook retargeting, remarketing

Ultimate Marketing Audit for Small Business Owners | Maintain a sustainable business

March 9, 2017 by Christine

This audit tells us how well your business is executing on its digital marketing, sales process and people development. This is how Viral Solutions develops its plan that will in turn make your vision and your dream a reality. This is part of who we are, how we make a difference and what makes us unique.

This is what we look for in small business clients. There is no other way to get started.

At Viral Solutions we evaluate our potential working relationship and our clients’ current way of doing business.
Just like we know our prospective digital marketing clients evaluate our skills, we in turn look at your strengths and weaknesses. This is what creates lasting working relationships.
In order to take your digital marketing to the next level we use a capability assessment in key areas.
Ultimate Marketing Audit

Here is a list of critical digital marketing categories a business must optimize:

Strategic Approach: Does the business owner and their tem think strategically or tactically? Is their strategy well defined? Is the business aligned and road mapped? How agile is their strategic approach?
Performance Improvement Process: Are key performance indicators regularly measured? Is the click attribution weighted? Are customer lifetime values used to determine expenditures and investments?
Management Buy-In: Does management give verbal support without resourcing? Are the active champions of the of the processes part of ownership? Is overall digital marketing strategy an integral part of all decisions?
Resourcing and Human Talent Structure: Are core skills internally centralized or are third party consultants or agencies used? Are skills continually taught and certified? Is there a blend of marketing skills?
Data Infrastructure: How are the data, IT services and tools dispersed? Is everything integrated? Are the resources optimized and flexible?
Integrated Customer Communications: Are the core push activities synchronized? Is there an integrated inbound process? Is the integrated paid-owned media personalized? Is all content and media optimized to maximize Customer Lifetime Value?
Customer Experience (User Experience): Does the web site have personalized support for both desktop and mobile? Is the messaging and customer experience integrated and personalized from social media, email and SMS (text messaging)? Is the personalization contextualized?

Once we have assessed the state of your overall sales and marketing efforts, both online and offline, we then determine the scope of work you will need help with to exceed your expectations and goals.
Ultimate Marketing Audit

In order to maximize your return on investment we then categorize prospective clients in five different groups based on their digital capability, which are as follows:

Initial: Companies at this phase still have a lot of work to do. They likely have no strategy, no key performance indicators (KPIs), limited management buy in, limited or no customer database, no integrated customer communications and no integrated customer experience in their website.
Managed: At this phase, companies may have prioritized a few marketing activities, and have KPIs based on volume only. While there is a small amount of management support for digital marketing, there aren’t enough resources being allocated to it. There is desktop and mobile web support, but no real personalized customer experience. At this point, the company is just beginning to develop digital capability.
Defined: By this stage, the company has a clearly defined vision and marketing strategy. It has upgraded its KPIs to focus on quality and “last click” attribution. There is increased investment in digital marketing, and a centralized hub of dedicated marketing resources. There is also an integrated inbound approach for customer communications, and a desktop and mobile experience that has at least been partially personalized.
Quantified: Businesses at this phase have a well-developed strategy and roadmap for digital marketing, with KPIs based on value. Management is actively championing the merits of digital marketing and investing appropriately. The customer experience is integrated and personalized on web, mobile, email and social media.
Optimized: By now, companies have an agile strategic approach to digital marketing with lifetime-value KPIs. Management has become an integral part of developing strategy. The company has a flexible approach to optimizing data and infrastructure resources, and has fully contextual personalized experiences and recommendations for customers across all platforms. Its media is optimized for ROI and maximizing CLV.

This assessment allows us to know exactly how to help you achieve success with your company. Sometimes these are hard subjects to discuss and overcome. That is what makes us unique! We do not avoid the elephant in the room. We do not let you avoid them either.
We believe strongly that in order to build and maintain a sustainable business online and offline the foundation must be solid, square, plumb and level. Processes that are mundane and predictable must be systematized and thought through methodically, not only from a software standpoint but also taking into account the people involved on all sides of the sales and marketing process. The remaining processes and business model must be agile and flexible enough to withstand change of all types.
These are our beliefs. This is how we deliver results from the ground up. This is what you can expect from Viral Solutions. We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves so business can be fun again.
Where a potential client falls in this list helps us determine where we need to begin and how much work we need to do. We know our clients expect our best at all times and to do what we say we will do.
For more information about how you can get started with our services, contact us today at Viral Solutions.

Thomas von Ahn
Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful
men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they
don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
Let's Chat! Set up an appointment with me HERE.
Save

Filed Under: Business Tips Tagged With: Business Strategy, Change Management Process, Change Strategy, Concentration Business Strategy, employee relations, Internal Growth Strategy, marketing strategy, performance management, Strategy Session by Viral Solutions

Ultimate Marketing Audit for Small Business Owners | Maintain a Sustainable Business

March 9, 2017 by Christine

This audit tells us how well your business is executing on its digital marketing, digital presence, social media marketing, and messaging. This is how Viral Solutions develops its plan that will in turn make your vision and your dream a reality. This is part of who we are, how we make a difference and what makes us unique.

This is what we look for in small business clients. There is no other way to get started.

At Viral Solutions we evaluate our potential working relationship and our clients’ current way of doing business.

Just like we know our prospective digital marketing clients evaluate our skills, we in turn look at your strengths and weaknesses. This is what creates lasting working relationships.

In order to take your digital marketing to the next level we use a capability assessment in key areas.

Ultimate Marketing Audit

Here is a list of critical digital marketing categories a business must optimize:

Strategic Approach: Does the business owner and their team think strategically or tactically? Is their strategy well defined? Is the business aligned and road mapped? How agile is their strategic approach?
Performance Improvement Process: Are key performance indicators regularly measured? Is the click attribution weighted? Are customer lifetime values used to determine expenditures and investments?
Management Buy-In: Does management give verbal support without resourcing? Are the active champions of the of the processes part of ownership? Is overall digital marketing strategy an integral part of all decisions?
Resourcing and Human Talent Structure: Are core skills internally centralized or are third party consultants or agencies used? Are skills continually taught and certified? Is there a blend of marketing skills?
Data Infrastructure: How are the data, IT services and tools dispersed? Is everything integrated? Are the resources optimized and flexible?
Integrated Customer Communications: Are the core push activities synchronized? Is there an integrated inbound process? Is the integrated paid-owned media personalized? Is all content and media optimized to maximize Customer Lifetime Value?
Customer Experience (User Experience): Does the web site have personalized support for both desktop and mobile? Is the messaging and customer experience integrated and personalized from social media, email and SMS (text messaging)? Is the personalization contextualized?

Ultimate Marketing Audit

In order to maximize your return on investment we then categorize prospective clients in five different groups based on their digital capability, which are as follows:

Initial: Companies at this phase still have a lot of work to do. They likely have no strategy, no key performance indicators (KPIs), limited management buy in, limited or no customer database, no integrated customer communications and no integrated customer experience in their website.
Managed: At this phase, companies may have prioritized a few marketing activities, and have KPIs based on volume only. While there is a small amount of management support for digital marketing, there aren’t enough resources being allocated to it. There is desktop and mobile web support, but no real personalized customer experience. At this point, the company is just beginning to develop digital capability.
Defined: By this stage, the company has a clearly defined vision and marketing strategy. It has upgraded its KPIs to focus on quality and “last click” attribution. There is increased investment in digital marketing, and a centralized hub of dedicated marketing resources. There is also an integrated inbound approach for customer communications, and a desktop and mobile experience that has at least been partially personalized.
Quantified: Businesses at this phase have a well-developed strategy and roadmap for digital marketing, with KPIs based on value. Management is actively championing the merits of digital marketing and investing appropriately. The customer experience is integrated and personalized on web, mobile, email and social media.
Optimized: By now, companies have an agile strategic approach to digital marketing with lifetime-value KPIs. Management has become an integral part of developing strategy. The company has a flexible approach to optimizing data and infrastructure resources, and has fully contextual personalized experiences and recommendations for customers across all platforms. Its media is optimized for ROI and maximizing CLV.

We believe strongly that in order to build and maintain a sustainable business online and offline the foundation must be solid, square, plumb and level. Processes that are mundane and predictable must be systematized and thought through methodically, not only from a software standpoint but also taking into account the people involved on all sides of the sales and marketing process. The remaining processes and business model must be agile and flexible enough to withstand change of all types.

These are our beliefs. This is how we deliver results from the ground up. This is what you can expect from Viral Solutions. We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves so business can be fun again.

Where a potential client falls in this list helps us determine where we need to begin and how much work we need to do. We know our clients expect our best at all times and to do what we say we will do.

For more information about how you can get started with our services, contact us today at Viral Solutions.

Thomas von Ahn

Chief Elephant Slayer for Viral Solutions LLC

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful

men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they

don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton

Let's Chat! Set up an appointment with me HERE.

Save