We’re a fast-growing marketing team with the goal to be constantly improving our marketing output. We’ve added new strategies and new marketing channels to our arsenal to match the evolution and maturation of our company; however, because we have to be so scrappy (startup), things sometimes do fall through the cracks.
We recently went through and audited our paid media (mostly PPC) and found that there were many ways in which we could improve. Here are some of our fails, as well as what we’re doing to make our paid media more effective.
Mistake #1: Using ungated content in search promotion
By making a search query that delivers your search ad, the searcher is already showing some degree of consideration and intent. If the search is for your company or a competitor, they’ve already “discovered” you; if the search is for content that delivers your blog post ad, they have a specific problem or question that’s relevant to your solution; if the search is for the category, they already know the area that they are interested in. Because they are typically already past the point of awareness or discovery, search tends to be a middle-funnel activity. Therefore, we should match where they are in the funnel by targeting them with middle-of-the-funnel content, such as ebooks and whitepapers -- gated content.
Of course there are exceptions to this rule (perhaps a competitor comparison page on your website), but in general, search campaigns have a lead gen goal, so use gated content.
Mistake #2: Using a single “brand” campaign on search and display
A brand campaign is a brand campaign is a brand campaign. Right? Wrong. We realized that we were using the same targeting for our Bizible brand campaign for both search and display through AdWords.
Of course you already have separate search and display campaigns for lead gen, but even with brand awareness campaigns it’s important to think about the different contexts that your audience will be viewing your ads. Viewers of your display ad will have a lot less intent, so you need to be thinking of higher-funnel offers and something more broadly eye-catching (not just visually).
By creating two separate brand campaigns, you give yourself the flexibility to set different budgets, experiment with, and optimize for each ad type.
We recently went through and audited our paid media (mostly PPC) and found that there were many ways in which we could improve. Here are some of our fails, as well as what we’re doing to make our paid media more effective.
Mistake #1: Using ungated content in search promotion
By making a search query that delivers your search ad, the searcher is already showing some degree of consideration and intent. If the search is for your company or a competitor, they’ve already “discovered” you; if the search is for content that delivers your blog post ad, they have a specific problem or question that’s relevant to your solution; if the search is for the category, they already know the area that they are interested in. Because they are typically already past the point of awareness or discovery, search tends to be a middle-funnel activity. Therefore, we should match where they are in the funnel by targeting them with middle-of-the-funnel content, such as ebooks and whitepapers -- gated content.
Of course there are exceptions to this rule (perhaps a competitor comparison page on your website), but in general, search campaigns have a lead gen goal, so use gated content.
Mistake #2: Using a single “brand” campaign on search and display
A brand campaign is a brand campaign is a brand campaign. Right? Wrong. We realized that we were using the same targeting for our Bizible brand campaign for both search and display through AdWords.
Of course you already have separate search and display campaigns for lead gen, but even with brand awareness campaigns it’s important to think about the different contexts that your audience will be viewing your ads. Viewers of your display ad will have a lot less intent, so you need to be thinking of higher-funnel offers and something more broadly eye-catching (not just visually).
By creating two separate brand campaigns, you give yourself the flexibility to set different budgets, experiment with, and optimize for each ad type.
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