While it has been practiced for years, there’s still a lot we’re learning about paid search. After all, there’s a lot more to targeted advertising on search engines than just bidding on keywords we think (might) cash in for us. Successful advertising is about taking calculated risks, mixed in with data-driven decisions, organic creativity and of course, knowledge of your intended platform.
But before you can even think about executing a paid search campaign, you need a strategy that makes sense. With that, please join me at the whiteboard!
Define Your Audience In Detail
Defining and sticking to a single audience is vitally important. If you compromise these efforts anywhere in this department – your entire campaign will suffer. Remember, no ad or piece of content should be designed to please everybody because that’s just plain impossible. Instead, you should be building and executing a campaign made just for a specific audience with a specific set of needs.
Think of this as your foundation. Once you have it down, you can start having some fun building out the rest of your campaign. So with this, put some serious thought into the following:
General Demographics
How old is your audience? In what part of the world do they live? What’s their education level? How do they speak/write?
This information by itself will leave your campaign with limitations, but it will serve as the ever important building blocks of your future success. Additionally, these building blocks can greatly impact the variety of their search queries.
Online Behavioral Patterns
What forms of content do they prefer? Where do they spend their time on social media? Are they tech-savvy?
This goes hand-and-hand with outlining a powerful online journey for your audience (a specific campaign to address the specific needs of a specific audience). Past online behavioral patterns can determine what types of links they’ll most likely gravitate towards in the SERPs.
Lead Qualification
Is this person a good fit for my product/service? Would it help solve their problem(s)? Is it something they can afford?
It’s common to be close, but not close enough when targeting people for your advertising. For example, targeting marketing professionals instead of web developers for dev-driven software. Also consider the price point and other qualifications to determine if this web traffic can be converted into business. Qualifying your leads in advance can narrow down your CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) and improve the overall efficiency of your campaign(s).
Consider Their Motivations
It’s really important to understand that not everyone is necessarily looking for the same thing. For instance, some are looking to make a purchase, while others just need some information. That’s why you have to, and I repeat HAVE TO align your keyword choices, content and positioning.
Think about it – would you want a sales pitch when looking for a piece of advice or vise-versa? Of course not, mastering paid search is about presenting a solution to the people that need it now, whether it’s in the top, middle or bottom of this particular funnel.
Appropriately aligning your brand and website with their search means presenting yourself as a solution to their problem. Doing this effectively means standing out from the pack and turning potential customers into paying ones.
Know that there will be trial and error here; you’ll want to run tests to assess the validity of your assumptions!
Connect Tactics With Intent
This goes hand-and-hand with considering their motivations but your verbiage and SEO copy are only part of the battle. The type of content you offer matters too!
So whether you decide to match these strategic keywords with long-form product pages, blog posts, infographics, short videos – or anything in between, know that your decision could make or break your results.
Again, your brand (and corresponding landing page) should represent a solution to the problem(s) your specific audience is having. Not offering an easy turn-key solution is a quick way to let potentially profitable leads fall through the cracks.
Align your messaging and offer with the intent of their search… don’t force anything on them or you’ll push them away. You’ll want to consider the contextual keywords they use and determine what your audience is looking for and do your best to provide it better than anyone else. Of course, even though people may be willing to make a purchase – they’re looking for information first.
A great tip to determine this is by using Google’s Keyword Planner, which outlines search forecasts, recommendations and going rates for select keywords. This serves as a wonderful research tool because it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation for you.
I mean, think about it. If certain keywords are looking expensive, it’s because other companies are willing to pay said prices for them. And if they’re willing to pay such high rates, then surely they’re leveraging sales out of it, otherwise the price wouldn’t be justified. No, this isn’t all the research you’ll have to do, but it’s a great start!
Wrapping Up
Much that has to do with paid search is easier said than done. That’s why so many brands choose to work with a Digital Marketing Agency that’s been there and done that. Active Web Group has over 20 years of experience helping businesses grow with Google Ads and other paid media avenues. Think your paid search strategy could use a hand? Let us analyze your strategy today for FREE! Can’t wait? Give us a call at (631) 978-3417.
