It’s time to share everything valuable and useful that we have learned from lessons and workshops by SMXCreate. Their training explored how great content and ad copy are implemented to drive awareness, traffic, conversions, and sales. In this blog post, we are going to explore PPC – specific improvement strategies.
Improving Ad Copy
Starting with ad copy, we learned how important it is to tailor your copy and landing page to the specific stage of your customer’s journey. The customer journey stages include: Being unaware of what problems they might have; being aware of the problem they have; being aware of what solution there is to their problem; being aware of what specific product they need to deal with their problem, and finally, being most aware of exactly what they want. Tailoring your copy with multiple ads to precisely what the customer is looking for is the best way to get impressions and turn them into conversions.
Here is a summary of essential steps to keep in mind when working on your ad copy:
- Capture the voice of your customer – ad copy should highlight how your product/service offers a solution, how it provides a benefit, and, if possible, how it has already helped other customers.
- Ask for what customers want – review the search query data, ask for feedback and reviews, and analyze them to find out some of your weak spots and improve them.
- Size up competition – what your competitors are doing is only a Google search away. Review their unique selling points, perhaps from their social media, differentiate yourself from them, and never be afraid to stand out.
- Leverage dynamic ad features – adapt your ads to what users are searching for, how they are searching, or where they are searching from. Make sure your prices are up-to-date and, if possible, highlight the number of happy customers you’ve had.
These strategies might be evident to you to some extent; however, you need to have a good, thorough review to fully acknowledge if you follow those strategies or neglect some of them.
Creating Visually Stunning Display Ads
Oppositely to the strategic side, there is also creativity, especially when creating visually stunning display ads. It is also essential to consider the different stages of the customer journey and tailor your ads accordingly. At the top of the funnel, you need to introduce the brand and generate consumer interest. Then, you need to educate your audience about what your product/service does and how it is beneficial. And on the bottom of the funnel, you need to encourage your audience to take the desired action – to sign up, purchase, or something else.
Creatively speaking, an eye-catching advert is going to follow this basic anatomy:
- Clear logo placement
- Eye-catching colors, carefully selected depending on what they mean. For example, marketANDgrow’s iconic green and yellow stand for growth, freshness, and prosperity; and confidence, optimism, and innovation.
- Landing page which matches the ad visually
- Strong CTA
- Branding conveyed through imagery
- Clear value proposition
Another critical factor for a successful campaign, whether search or display, is to have a customer persona. You need to be 100% certain who you are selling to and what they need so that you can target them with specific messaging or visuals.
Finally, don’t be afraid to be disruptive! The following image illustrates a great example of traditional and disruptive marketing done by the same company.
Implementing A/B Testing
If you’re not getting many results from your ad campaigns, how do you know what to improve? Or if you’re getting a good amount of conversions, how do you know if there is a way for you to get EVEN more? The answer is A/B Testing, also referred to as Split Testing, and that’s an essential part of creating a continuous improvement advantage.
Testing with different campaigns will provide you with valuable data on what’s been working well for you and what needs a dose of improvement. Some of the priorities you need to consider when testing include how much time it will take until you have the results you were looking for and how much $$$ that would cost you. In terms of benefits, is this likely to lead to significant improvement, therefore, is it worth the investment? Other things to consider are emphasizing your goals, tailoring your tests to these goals, and making the necessary adjustments based on your learning.
Did you know that only 14% of businesses say that they share experimentation results across departments? That might be what’s lacking for you and your business. Looking at other channels where you get conversions from, for example, Facebook or email marketing, can ultimately give you hints on what’s working there and how you can take that and implement it for your ad campaigns.
Let’s not forget that for successful advertising practices, Google occasionally provides recommendations that are good to follow. To do this, Google’s algorithm needs to learn as much as possible to predict and give the best possible guidance. Its goal is not to be perfect but rather to reduce the gap between expected and actual outcomes. An accurate and confident algorithm will need quality data to learn from and time. So, following the described strategies, implementing A/B testing, and having a good amount of patience, will help you take your PPC practices to the next level.
If you have any questions, get in touch with us or book a no-obligations discovery call!
