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PPC Agency Blog

The Electrician’s Guide to Running PPC Ads That Actually Bring In Paying Customers
High-Performance PPC for Roofing Contractors: A Tactical Guide to Lead Generation
PPC Tips to Help Plumbers Get Real Leads Without Wasting Money on Clicks
Strategies for Maximizing ROI with PPC Management
How to Use Google Ads in a Restricted or Sensitive Category
Google Ads vs. Linkedin Ads: Which is Better for Commercial Targeting?
9 Reasons To Fire Your PPC Agency
How To Start A PPC Agency?
What are the Right PPC KPIs to Track?
How to Write Great PPC Landing Page Headlines
Basic Guide to Retargeting in Google Ads PPC
Display URLs: Optimizing Display URLs for Google Ads & PPC
What Marketers Should Know About Automated Bid Algorithms in PPC
Ultimate Guide to PPC Remarketing: Bring Users Back When They Don’t Convert
Should You Avoid Automated Bidding With Google Ads?
How To Dial In Your Cost-Per-Lead Using PPC?
How to Find the Best Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Services
PPC Management Pricing: What Should I Pay My PPC Agency?
How Much Does it Cost to Sell On Amazon?
10 Most Important PPC Metrics to Track
What Makes a Good Click-Through-Rate in Google Ads PPC?
Implementing Flexible Bid Strategies in PPC
How to Set Up Facebook Retargeting
How to Increase Landing Page Conversions
Understanding Google’s Ad Rank Formula in PPC
How to Improve Facebook Ads Conversions
How to Implement a Successful Video Ad Campaign
Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which is the Better Advertising Medium for Your Business?
Negative Keywords: The How & Why of Negative Keywords List Building in Google Ads
How to Use “Not Provided Keywords” to Maximize Google Ad’s Impact
How to Avoid Choosing the Wrong Ad Rotation Setting
Chiropractor PPC: Google Ads Guide for Chiropractors
PPC Keyword Match Types & Why They Matter
PPC Marketing Management for Law Firms: A Comprehensive Guide
Broad Match: Best Practices for Targeting Broad Match Keywords in PPC
How to Use Shared Campaign Budget in Google Ads
How to Adjust for Seasonality in PPC Advertising
7 Alternative PPC Ad Networks
Improve Your PPC with Conversion Funnels
How to Use Google Keyword Planner
How to Avoid Keyword Cannibalization in PPC
12 Best Tips for PPC Calls to Action
Dynamic Search Ads for Beginners
How to Take Over Management of an Existing Google Ads Account
How & Why To Leverage Amazon Sponsored Brand Video Ads
Dayparting: Setting Up Time Of Day Bid Adjustments In PPC
How to Use Video Ads to Build Trust
How To Warm Up Your Instagram Audience
8 Tools for Analyzing Your Competitors in PPC
How To Create Better Ad Groups In PPC
How to Target Competitors On Facebook With Interest-Based Audiences
Most Common PPC Questions & a Few Answers
8 Best Link Building Tools for SEO
How To Calculate The ROI For PPC & Improve It
Strategies for Increasing Click-Through Rate in PPC
Exact Match Keywords: How to Target Exact Match Keywords in PPC
How to Perform B2B Lead Generation on Linkedin
Google Ads Suspension: ‘How-to’ Guide for Fixing a Suspended Google Ads Account
The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads Quality Score
How Often Should You Update Your Google Ads Campaigns?
How To Estimate Conversions In Google Ads
eCommerce PPC Strategies for Maximum Sales Growth
What Is ROAS? Complete Guide To Return-On-Ad-Spend For PPC
How to Scale Your PPC Campaigns
9 Pointers For Increasing The CTR For Google Ads
13 Tips for Optimizing Paid Search Campaigns
Why Aren’t My Google Ads Showing & What to Do About it
PPC for Accountants & CPAs: A Beginner’s Guide
8 Reasons to Bid on Branded Keywords in PPC
PPC Automation Tools for Scaling Campaigns
SEO vs. PPC: 21 Best Practices for Organic & Paid Marketing
When to Increase Your Bid in PPC (Pay Per Click)
Branded Search: Why Branded Searches Give the Best Conversions
How to Create Your Own PPC Project Checklist for Optimizing Time Management
5 Reasons to Use Dynamic Keyword Insertions in Google Ads
11 Effective Pop Up Ad Strategies in Paid Marketing
5 Local Lead Generation Tactics Using PPC
Complete Guide to Local PPC: How to Target for Local Paid Search
A Guide To PPC Competitor Analysis in Paid Search
Why You Should Use Dynamic Landing Pages in PPC
How to Improve Google Ads Conversions
How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost
What is Cost Per Click in PPC?
Google Ad Extensions Explained
Understanding Ineligible Clicks in Google Ads
Optimizing “People Also Search For” in PPC
Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization for SEM/PPC Campaigns
How to Perform Keyword Research with Google Ads Keyword Tool
Optimizing PPC Campaigns for SaaS Businesses
8 Landing Page Test Ideas for PPC
9 Excel & Spreadsheet Tips for PPC Managers
How to Beat PPC Seasonality Issues
How to Do Cross Channel Lead Generation With PPC
How to Use Micro Conversions for Lead Generation with PPC
The Eventual Deprecation of Third Party Cookies
A/B Testing for PPC Lead Generation Success
12 Must Have PPC Certifications
Optimizing for Profit (Instead of CPA, CPL, or even ROI) in PPC
How to Get a Lower Cost Per Click for Your Google Ads
How to Manage Low Volume Keywords in Your Google Ads

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Samuel Edwards
|
December 7, 2024
Branded Search: Why Branded Searches Give the Best Conversions

Your brand is your company’s identity.

It’s a keystone for most of your marketing and advertising strategies.

At the center of every message you send, every advertisement you display, and every new marketing tactic you try is going to be your brand name, big and prominent.

Despite this, people commonly neglect branded terms when practicing search engines optimization (SEO). Traditionally, SEO strategies focus on commonly searched keywords and phrases, as well as phrases that cleanly reveal user search intent.

For example, you might optimize for phrases like “good pancakes near me” or “auto repair shop Austin.” No branded keywords are necessary here, because you’re intentionally generating a list of brands to consider in your forthcoming purchase.

But if you want to get more value out of your SEO strategies, and earn even more valuable conversions, you need to start optimizing for branded search.

What exactly does this mean? And how can you do it?

What Makes a Conversion Valuable?

Google Ads Conversion Rates

First, what makes a conversion valuable?

On some level, all conversions are valuable.

In case you’re not familiar with the term, a conversion is just a meaningful action taken by one of your users. Depending on your organization and your strategy, a conversion could be a product purchase, a newsletter signup, or an interaction with a meaningful piece of optimize existing content on your own  website.

Conversions will either give you revenue immediately or represent one step on the journey to getting revenue.

Our claim is that branded keyword and branded searches give better conversions, so what do better conversions look like?

  • Conversion rate. For starters, we should consider the overall conversion rate. Just because someone conducts a branded search for a specific keyword term doesn’t mean they’re going to visit the top ranked site. And just because they visit the top ranked site doesn’t mean they’re going to buy anything. Branded keyword terms tend to be beneficial for increasing both visits and conversions, as well as your overall conversion rate. There are several reasons for this, including the fact that people who search for branded keywords tend to be in deeper stages of the sales funnel than people conducting more generic searches.
  • Audience relevance. People already familiar with your brand are more likely to be a part of a relevant target audience in your strategy. Instead of mass marketing to as many people as possible, you’ll be fine-tuning your targeting to appeal to the people most likely to bring value to your brand. If you practice and effective branding strategy, that means you’ll be targeting people who are most likely to bring revenue to your brand and grow that revenue over time.
  • Size/value of the conversion itself. Obviously, we also need to consider the size or value of the conversion itself. A conversion where a person buys $500 of merchandise is going to be more valuable than a conversion where a person buys $100 of merchandise. A conversion where a person signs up for a long-term subscription is going to be more valuable than a conversion where a person signs up to be part of a FREE Email newsletter. In some ways, this functions totally independently from the keywords for which you optimize; some of this value depends on what types of conversions you offer and how you position them. That said, optimizing for branded keywords should increase the likelihood of customers being willing to pay more or take more serious action, since they’re already acquainted with your brand.
  • User sentiment. User familiarity with your brand can help you in other ways as well. If a user already knows your brand and likes your brand, their purchase is going to carry more weight; it means they’ll have a positive disposition toward your brand immediately, so as long as their purchase meets or exceeds their expectations, they’ll be willing to spend more money with you in the future.

Why Are Branded Searches Good for Conversions?

Ultimately, branded searches are good for your conversion strategy for a few different reasons:

  • User familiarity. People who branded search for branded keywords are already familiar with your brand. They know what your company is, they know what he does, and they know they can trust you (for the most part). This makes users more likely to commit to specific actions, it makes them willing to spend more, and it predisposes them to more interactions in the future.
  • User search intent. People who aren’t even aware they have a problem aren’t going to be conducting branded searches. They’re going to be searching for exploratory terms, hoping to gather more initial information. Consumers searching for brands by name will be much further along in their decision-making process, so they may already have to buy google search intent.
  • Limited competition. It’s also worth noting that very few brands are going to be competing for your branded keywords; they’re busy trying to gobble up generic keyword branded search ranking space and optimizing for their own brand keywords. Your branded keyword phrases are low-hanging fruit; it should be trivially easy to rank for them, even if you haven’t spent much effort on them to date.

Other Benefits of Branded Search Optimization

Search Your Brand on Google

Branded search optimization, the practice of optimizing your website specifically for branded keywords, offers some other benefits as well:

  • Competitive defenses. Though not especially common, it’s possible that some of your competitors may deliberately attempt to rank for your branded keywords, either organically or with the help of a paid advertisement. This is frequently used as a tactic to siphon traffic from a threatening competitor. Accordingly, optimizing content for your own branded keywords serves as a kind of competitive defense; you’ll make it much harder for your competitors to disrupt you.
  • Peripheral ranking benefits. As you’ll see, many of the tactics you’ll need to follow for branded search optimization are similar to conventional keyword optimization. You’ll be creating more content, fine-tuning your website’s technical SEO, and building links to your domain. In the course of this, you’ll naturally start branded search ranking for other target keywords you’ve included in your overall strategy. As domain authority rises, so too will the authority of all your individual pages.
  • User behavior/intent analysis. Optimizing for branded search terms is an excellent way to learn more about your target audience. With the help of better SEO tools, you’ll learn more about the user intent of people searching for your keyword terms, you’ll be able to observe patterns of behavior once those users get to your website, and you’ll be able to analyze the impact of brand familiarity on your overall conversion rate. If you apply this knowledge intelligently, you should be able to improve many aspects of your SEO strategies in the future.
  • Branded Search suggestions in the future. Spending more time on brand-specific keywords and phrases will open the door to new strategic keyword targeting possibilities in the future. Thanks to autofill branded search suggestion’s, keyword research planning tools, and other strategic research platforms, you can brainstorm better targets and start optimizing for them.

Are There Weaknesses of Branded Search Optimization?

Are there any weaknesses associated with branded search optimization?

The short answer is yes, but most of them present opportunities for compensation.

  • The risk of overinvesting. There is a risk of over investing in branded search terms. As you rise in rankings in branded search engines results pages (SERPs), you’ll gradually gain more visibility and more traffic. It’s much better to rank on page one than to rank on any other page. Rank two is much better than rank three, and rank one is much better than rank two. But you can’t really go any higher than rank one; once you spend enough time, money, and energy acquiring a number one position, all you have to do is maintain that position – and further investments will be a waste. Similarly, you probably won’t have competition for these terms, since competitors will recognize your dominant position. It’s definitely worth investing in your branded search optimization strategy, but you also should avoid overspending.
  • Buyer journey discrepancies. For most companies, it’s safe to assume that a person conducting a branded search is already familiar with your company and is getting ready to make a purchase. But this isn’t always the case. Your buyer journey may look very different then the buyer journeys of your competitors, and your target user behavior may not be as intuitive as it first seems. This can introduce complexities to your strategy that weaken its effectiveness and make it harder to proactively plan.
  • Unclear direction. Speaking of planning, it’s sometimes hard to come up with content and link building ideas for your branded keywords. With generic keywords, you have the luxury of identifying competitive content currently ranking for those keywords; generic keywords and phrases also lend themselves to topic ideas quite conveniently. That’s not to say that it’s hard to come up with ideas for branded content, but it may present more challenges than you would expect.

How to Optimize for Branded Search

Branded Search

Now to the heart of the matter.

How do you optimize for branded search?

How can you make sure you remain competitively dominant in the landscape of branded search terms relevant to your brand name?

  • Conduct market research. Before you do anything else, revisit your market research and make sure you understand your target audience inside and out. What does your customer journey look like? Who are your target demographics and what are the factors that lead them to convert? What types of things do they branded search for at various stages in the customer journey? Once you better understand this, you’ll be able to create better branded content and optimize for conversions on your site in a way that helps you capitalize on your new branded, organic traffic.
  • Identify and prioritize your branded keywords and phrases. Next, identify and start prioritizing your brain keywords and phrases. Some of these are going to be obvious; you can make a list of your company name, the names of your products, and the names of your services. Some will require more creative brainstorming. You can start by typing your brand names into a Google-branded search volume and seeing if there are any phrase suggestions recommended to you. You can use a more interactive keyword research tool to generate a broader range of possibilities. Be sure to pay close attention to branded search volume, competition, and relevance.
  • Use branded keywords throughout your website in titles and meta descriptions. Now that you have your list of branded keywords and phrases to target, start peppering them throughout your website. Some of the most valuable places to include branded keywords are in your page titles, your meta descriptions, and the headers of your onsite content. As with all forms of keyword optimization, make sure these keywords are included as naturally as possible; don’t get caught spamming your branded keywords too aggressively. Your homepage is arguably the most important page to optimize, since it’s probably going to be the branded search results for searches for your brand name alone.
  • Write detailed, helpful content featuring branded keywords. Develop individual pieces for each of your branded keyword phrases, including both primary and secondary branded keyword targets in the title, headers, and throughout the body content. Ideally, this content will be at least a few thousand words long, offering plenty of descriptive content and value to the people reading it. The higher this content quality is, the more likely the content is to attract links – and the more conversions it’s going to generate. Quality needs to be your top priority, accordingly.
  • Build strong links to branded pages. Eventually, you’ll have many interior pages of your site fully dedicated to showcasing your branded keyword phrases. How do you support those pages and make sure they reach rank one for their targets? One of your best strategies will be building strong links to these branded pages, utilizing high-quality guest articles written for publishers with high domain authority (as well as branded anchor text when you can). If your content is good enough, it should also attract some links on its own – especially if you’re willing to popularize that content through social media or advertising.
  • Consider optimizing for competitor brand terms. Remember that branded search optimize can be used defensively, preventing other competing brands from ranking for your keywords. You can also take the offensive here, deliberately optimizing some of your content to rank for competitor brand terms. If you do this, you should know you don’t have much of a chance of organically ranking past rank two (unless you make this a do-or-die kind of mission). However, you may be able to siphon at least some traffic away from those competitors. Remain honest and accurate in the content you create, writing informative pieces like “Is [Brand] the Right Choice?” or “The Top X [Brand] Alternatives.” This is only one of the reasons competitive analysis in PPC is critical.
  • Consider paying for branded PPC ads. Branded search typically refers to branded search or organic or engine optimization, but we also need to consider paid advertising. Why would you pay for advertisements associated with your brand keywords when you’re already at rank one for those keywords? The short answer is competition. Your competitors may be paying to feature ads for their companies for your branded search terms; you can’t really prevent them from doing this, but you can outbid them in an effort to dominate the SERPs.
  • Monitor your progress. Finally, make sure you monitor your progress. Pay attention to how your branded keyword term rankings change over time, watch streams of organic and paid traffic, and study how users behave on your website. The more data you gather, the better you’ll understand your audience, your competitive landscape, and the most important strategies to use moving forward.

Is your brand in need of further online marketing support? Is there a missing ingredient in your existing branded search engines optimization (SEO) strategy? You’re in the right place: SEO.co is here to help. Contact us for a free consultation today!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 7, 2024
How to Create Your Own PPC Project Checklist for Optimizing Time Management

No matter how much experience you have running pay-per-click (PPC) ads, a checklist will help you manage your time.

Trying to manage your responsibilities without a checklist can make you skip important tasks even when you’ve performed them routinely for years.

There’s a reason professionals in various industries use checklists – they work. Although the consequences for mistakes are more serious in other industries, checklists are the perfect companion for digital marketers.

Time and task management are critical for PPC ad success

Technically, you can’t manage time because it will go on whether you like it or not. We all have the same 24 hours in the day and that won’t change. However, you can manage your tasks within time and that’s what time management is really all about. In other words, it’s about managing your tasks within the boundaries of time.

Time management strategies vary, but they all fall back on the reliability of lists and written tasks. When you’re managing a PPC ad campaigns, time management matters. There are so many different components to set up, manage, and optimize, that if you don’t strictly manage your time and tasks, your campaigns will suffer.

Checklists help you track recurring tasks

Checklists help you track recurring tasks ad account and target audience quality score

The main purpose of a PPC audit checklist is to help you track recurring tasks within your PPC ad campaigns. Most of the time, you’ll have weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and bi-monthly tasks. If you haven’t already organized your tasks into a schedule, this article will provide you with an outline to get you started.

Weekly PPC ad campaign tasks

Here are some common weekly PPC tasks to add to your PPC audit checklist:

  • Performance projections. Are you over or under your goals, or are you right on target? Weekly performance projections can help you figure this out. To get the data you need, pay attention to your ad spend and conversions.

If your projections indicate that you’re going to overspend, decrease your keyword bids and/or budgets. If your conversions are lacking, adjust your keyword bids or put all of your PPC budget into your highest performing campaigns.

  • Review your display network success. Are you spending a lot of money on placements that aren’t converting? If any of your placements aren’t performing well, revisit them and see what you can change.

Also, check to see if your campaigns exclude site categories where you don’t want your Google ads to run. For example, you may not want your Google ads to run on sites with content related to sexually suggestive content, sensitive social issues, or in-game placements on mobile apps. Many advertisers exclude mobile apps completely because they tend to eat ad budgets due to lower click and conversion rates.

  • Adjust your bids. Are you manually bidding on your keywords? Look at the keywords that are using most of your daily spend, especially if they’re not converting or converting above CPL. If you’re utilizing automated bidding, pause your bids on broad match keywords that aren’t generating conversions.
  • Check your budgets. It’s essential to regularly check in with your budgets to make sure your funds are being spent appropriately. Each week, run a report for the last seven days to see where you can reallocate your ad budgets to support your higher converting campaigns.
  • Put low-performance keywords on pause. Don’t let more than a week go by without pausing your underperforming keywords. If you’re bidding on any keywords that aren’t converting or have a low CTR, put those on pause.

Bi-weekly PPC ad campaigns tasks

Here are some common bi-weekly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:

  • Build up your negative keywords list. In your google ads account, run a search query report to identify negative keywords you can use to prevent untargeted traffic to your Google ads. This will keep you from wasting your ad spend. Keep doing this regularly for a while until you have a solid negative keyword list/negative keywords list.
  • Target more keywords. Use all the tools available in your ad accounts to monitor your campaigns for new keywords to target. You don’t have to commit to new keywords long term right away. You can always add them to new ad groups and do a test run first of ad groups.
  • Review your ads and write new ones. How many Google ads are you testing at any given time? Hopefully, you’re testing at least three ad groups. That’s the sweet spot required to gather enough data to evaluate your ad campaigns.

This data will help you stop running google ads that don’t perform well and add new ad variations to see if you can beat your control for your highest-performing Google ads.

Don’t forget to check in on your retargeting/remarketing ads. And if you haven’t started running these better-performing ads yet, it’s something to seriously consider.

Studies have shown that using remarketing ads generate a higher ROI because they bring back potential customers that didn’t convert the first time. Many people who come back to a brand through remarketing end up converting.

  • Run a report for your Impression Share. Running this report will give you the data necessary to make important decisions. For instance, if you have a low Impression Share and you can increase your budget, optimize your match types and pause low performing keywords for better results.

Monthly PPC ad campaigns tasks

Monthly PPC ad campaign tasks,monthly ppc checklist and ppc optimization checklist

Here are some common monthly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:

  • Verify your campaign settings. Every month, it’s important to check your ad campaigns settings to make sure they’re still correct. This is especially important when you have multiple people accessing your account who might change the settings periodically or even accidentally.

Check your account to ensure you’re targeting the right google search network, devices, languages, locations, and any other specific demographics you have set.

  • Check your landing pages. When people click on your PPC ads, they’ll go directly to a landing page, but are they going to the right one? Is your page optimized for conversions? Does the content match your ad? Have you changed your ads without changing your landing pages to match?

Hopefully, you’ve been testing different landing pages with your ads. If so, run a Final URL report to identify underperforming landing pages and send your traffic to the pages that are converting better. Then, look at your landing pages to see if you can identify why they’re not performing as well. Continue your split testing by creating more landing pages based on the ones that perform the best and keep testing your page elements.

Bi-monthly PPC ad campaigns tasks

Here are some common bi-monthly PPC tasks to add to your checklist:

  • Identify geographic performance. Run your Geographic report to find out where your ads aren’t performing as well as they could be and then consider eliminating those locations. Alternatively, you could target those locations with new ad campaigns and target them more specifically.

When you identify locations that aren’t performing well, add negative keyword modifiers to eliminate untargeted or ineligible clicks. Then, add positive bid modifiers on your locations that are performing well.

  • Review Day Parting. Review your ad performance based on time of day. When you identify the times and days when conversions are lowest, pause your campaigns during those times and increase your bidding during the times when your ads perform better.
  • Historical performance analysis. Run the appropriate reports to analyze your ad performance over the last two years, or as long as you can if you haven’t been running ads that long. This will help you evaluate seasonal data and long-term keyword trends.

Checklists are a valuable marketing tool

ppc management Checklists are a valuable marketing tool and ad spending

As you can see, there are plenty of tasks to perform on regular schedules in order to keep your PPC ad campaigns running optimally. By creating your PPC setup checklist, you’ll be giving yourself a valuable tool that will keep track of your tasks better than your memory.

Countless studies have proven that human memory is unreliable, especially when it comes to details. This is seen most clearly in experiments designed to determine eyewitness reliability. In these experiments, witnesses struggle to remember basic things like the color of a suspect’s clothing, their height, and even their physical features.

Don’t rely on your memory to manage your PPC ad campaigns. While you might be able to remember some things, you’ll never remember everything. Additionally, having a checklist makes your job easier because you can simply go down the list and check things off as you complete each task.

Having a list also makes it easier for you to ad scheduling your tasks in your calendar and set those tasks as recurring items. Having a to-do list is great, but if you don’t also schedule your tasks you’re likely to skip important things.

Need help with your PPC campaign? PPC.co has you covered!

Running a PPC campaign takes a lot of work and isn’t really suited as a one-person job. If you want big results from your PPC ads, you need a team to manage your PPC campaign.

Less than 25% of PPC search ads produce conversions, but that’s because most campaigns aren’t properly set up or optimized. When you work with us, we’ll get you the results you want.

We work with businesses in a variety of industries to create effective PPC campaigns that drive leads and sales. We’ll not only create effective ad copy, but we’ll also optimize your landing pages with effective ad copy. This is where most people get PPC ads wrong. A high click-through rate is only worthwhile when your landing pages convert. We’ll make sure your CTR improves along with your landing page conversions.

If you’re ready to take your PPC campaigns to the next level, get in touch with us and tell us about your goals. We’d love to help you generate the impressive results you’re after.

Samuel Edwards
|
December 7, 2024
5 Reasons to Use Dynamic Keyword Insertions in Google Ads

You’ve probably visited a website that accurately displayed the time and date of your visit. This web feature has been around for a while and is fairly common, especially on sales pages. However, dynamic content isn’t limited to times and dates – you can use this amazing feature for dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) into your Google ads.

What is dynamic keyword insertion (DKI)?

Dynamic keyword insertion (DKI) ads is an advanced Google AdWords feature that inserts part of a user searches query into your PPC ads/only ads. It’s quite effective at getting more clicks. Imagine being a user searching for something specific and seeing the same ad group/ad groups that reflects the specifics of your search. You’ll be more likely to click on that ad, right?

If you haven’t used this feature, you’re missing out on clicks and revenue. Here are 5 reasons to start using dynamic keyword insertion work with your Google ads.

1. Dynamic keyword insertion tells users “This ad is for me”

In your digital marketing campaigns, you want your prospects to think, “this product or service is for me.” When prospects feel like a product, service, or web content is meant for them, they’re more likely to convert.

You can get people to recognize that something is meant for them with professionally written sales ad copy that speaks directly to their needs, desires, keyword insertion and pain points. However, you can also achieve this through what’s commonly referred to as “keyword backtracking” in neurolinguistics programming (NLP) terms. Use Dynamic keyword insertion is essentially automated keyword list backtracking for paid ads.

Keyword backtracking is a form of active listening, and it’s when you repeat someone’s words back to them in order to make them feel heard. In a live conversation, keyword insertion this makes a prospect trust you more. When used in Google ads, it has the same general effect, but since there’s no live conversation it tells prospects your one ad is exactly what they’re looking for.

2. Your click through rate (CTR) will increase

There are two reasons dynamic keyword insertion increases CTR. The first reason is that Google automatically bolds dynamic keyword insertion in ads that match the user search. When you use dynamic keyword, your ads will show up with bolded keywords more often, which means more click’s.

The second reason DKI increases your click through rate is because it increases the relevancy of your ad, which brings up the next point.

3. DKI produces ads with a higher relevancy

Ads with high relevancy get more clicks, period. When you publish standard ads, it’s possible to make them relevant ad/hyper relevant ads to your audience, but nothing makes an ad more relevant than automatically inserting part of the user’s search team into the ad.

Here’s an example of how this works. Say you’re running a pre-owned car dealership and you specialize in selling Jeeps. You can program your ad headline to insert the words “Jeep, Cherokee, Wrangler, Gladiator, Rubicon, SUV,” etc. when a user includes them in their search. This way, your ad headline will customize itself to always reflect the user’s specific search. It would look like this:

Your headline template: “Buy Used {keyword: Jeep}

Search phrase: “Used Jeep Cherokee for sale near me”

Your displayed headline: “Buy Used Jeep Cherokee”

Search phrase: “Used Jeep Wrangler for sale near me”

Your displayed headline: “Buy Used Jeep Wrangler”

If no keyword can be inserted dynamically, your ad will default to your specified target keywords or competitor keywords, in this case it would be ‘Jeep.” The ad will still be relevant, just not highly specific.

4. High relevance increases your quality score

Google is always focused on quality, and PPC ads are no exception. Google assigns a Quality Score to all PPC advertisers based on the quality and ad relevance and quality of their dynamic keyword insertion, ad text, default keyword insertion text or ad text and landing pages/landing page url. You might be familiar with this already, but if not, it’s important to understand how Google’s Quality Scores works.

Your Quality Scores is more important than you may realize because it’s used to calculate your cost per click (CPC) and multiplied by your max bid to set your ad rank during the ad auction process.

Getting a higher Quality Scores will reduce your CPC and help you reach more people with your ads by giving you a higher ad position. This is what makes use dynamic keyword insertion so valuable – it’s an excellent way to increase the relevance of your ads in order to help you earn a higher Quality Score.

5. Dynamic keyword insertion saves time

It’s easy to spend hours on end creating ad variations, but that’s not necessary when you use DKI. DKI makes it easy to create ads that target a large number of multiple keywords. It’s essentially automation for ad variations.

Since time is money, it makes sense to use dynamic keywords insertion DKI whenever possible. Think of all the time you’ll save that you can use to work on other, more exciting aspects of your business.

One caution about dynamic keyword insertion

Although dynamic keyword insertion is an excellent strategy, DKI isn’t a substitute for targeting relevant demographics, having relevant content, and creating a persuasive ad copy. It’s simply a tool to capture more attention from your target market. If your ads use broad match keywords in a misleading way, DKI will get you clicks, but not conversions.

Be digital marketing cautious about accidentally creating clickbait with your PPC ads. Not only will this kill your Quality Score by reducing the relevance of your ads, but it will make people stop trusting your brand.

Sometimes clickbait is unintentional, and that’s why it’s important to review your ads to make sure they’re accurately representing whatever content you’re sending your visitors to on the other side. There’s nothing wrong with being clever, but don’t be so clever that your visitors get a good chuckle out of your ad group/tightly themed ad groups and then bounce.

Need help with your PPC ads? We can help!

Running a PPC ad campaigns on any platform can be daunting when you’re trying to learn everything on your own. No matter how many tutorial videos you watch, the learning curve is steep and mistakes are plenty. Normally, mistakes are just opportunities to learn. However, paid ads cost money, and mistakes are expensive.

There’s a reason less than 25% of PPC single word keywords/same keyword ad groups convert; paid advertising is a skilled profession that requires expertise to get results. If you’re not getting results, dynamic search ads or if you haven’t launched a PPC ad campaign yet, it’s time to get started.

At PPC.co ad description, we can help you get the conversions you deserve using established best practices and advanced techniques that get results. Contact us today to learn more about our services and receive a free proposal from our PPC team.

Samuel Edwards
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December 7, 2024
11 Effective Pop Up Ad Strategies in Paid Marketing

Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying, but that’s not the whole story. Not all pop-ups ads are considered annoying. In fact, pop-ups advertising is highly effective when done correctly – emphasis on correctly.

It’s entirely possible to create pop-ups ads that appeal to your website visitors and add to their experience.

In this article, you’ll learn about 11 effective ways to use pop-ups to get results, but first, let’s explore the science behind why this form of advertising is so effective.

Why do pop-up ads work?

Why do pop-up ads work?

Pop-ups ads work and there’s plenty of proof, including this study performed by Sumo that looked at 1,754,957,675 pop-ups. Based on the results, at 100 visitors per day, the average pop-ups ad will generate about 90 subscribers each month, while a highly effective ad can generate closer to 275 subscribers per month.

The study found the following:

  • The average conversion rate was 3.09%
  • The top 10% highest-performing pop-up ads saw a 9.28% conversion rate on average.
  • Roughly 3% of websites see a conversion rate above 11%
  • Some pop-ups ads saw conversion rates as high as 50.2%, although those are outliers

This begs the question: if pop-ups ads are so effective, why does it seem like people complain about them so much?

Isn’t that contradictory?

It might be in part because some people tend to complain about things.

Many people who complain about pop-ups have likely subscribed to those same pop-ups they’ve complained about.

However, there’s another reason: Pop-ups are displayed to every visitor.

Your conversion rate is based on your view rate. Since pop-ups need to be viewed to be closed, they’re basically being seen by 100% of your visitors.

Your conversion rate might be high, but the percentage of people who close your ad will be higher.

The people who complain about pop-ups are likely the ones who aren’t converting, and that’s going to be a large number of people.

Now let’s talk about why pop-ups are effective. There are a few main reasons this form of advertising works so well:

  1. A pop-ups catches the visitor when they’re engaged. When a visitor lands on a web page, it might take them a couple of seconds to become engaged with the content. When a pop-ups shows up with perfect timing, that visitor will be more likely to read and follow the prompt, like signing up for an email list.
  2. Pop–ups provide value to visitors. Just because something is being advertised doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Pop-ups are an excellent way to advertise products and services people want. When the ad is relevant to the visitor and offers something they want, they’ll convert.
  3. Pop–ups are impossible to miss. When you want to capture email addresses, your signup form needs to be visible. However, no matter where you put it, some people will miss it. Pop-ups, on the other hand, can’t be missed because they show up in the middle of the screen. When people want your offer, they’ll convert.

Now that you know why pop-ups are effective, it’s important to grasp some best practices to ensure you aren’t annoying your visitors. Yes, there is a way to deliver effective pop-ups without annoying your visitors.

Even when visitors close a pop-up window, that doesn’t mean they’re annoyed. The best pop-ups will appear smoothly and offer visitors an easy and fast way to close it. Most people only become annoyed at pop-ups that feel intrusive and can’t be closed easily.

11 Best practices for pop-up advertising

11 Best practices for pop-up advertising

1. Offer irresistible value.

You’ll only get improved conversions to your landing pages when people want what you’re offering. Make your offer irresistible and make sure it delivers on the promise. Over-deliver if possible.

2. Make it easy for people to close your pop-up.

Pop-ups become intrusive when they’re not easy to close. Make sure you have a clearly visible “X” in the upper right corner that is fully responsive to both clicks and finger taps on mobile devices. Create a thick, solid colored border around your pop-up to make the “X” more visible.

Don’t be afraid of people closing your pop-up – you want people to close it if they aren’t interested. If they can close it easily, they’ll be more likely to return to your site. If your pop-up is a barrier to accessing your content, they’ll bounce and hesitate to return.

3. Don’t display your pop-up to people who previously closed it.

Once a visitor closes your pop-up, don’t display it to them again. Most pop-ups can be programmed to not show up for returning visitors who closed it out, and it’s wise to program yours this way. You’ll lose a chunk of returning traffic if people have to close out a pop-up every single time they visit your website. If you’re running a blog, this will become a huge barrier.

4. Ensure your offer is relevant.

Make sure your pop-up offer is relevant to the content on the page people are viewing.

Your offer might seem relevant to every page, but if you have any specialty pages with content that isn’t a match, turn off your pop-up for those pages or come up with a different offer.

Examples of effective offers:

  • Discounts: One of the best types of offers is a discount for first-time buyers. However, you may want to skip asking for a cell phone number as a requirement to get the discount. Although SMS marketing is effective, you’ll get more signups without requiring a cell number.
  • Exclusive content: People love access to exclusive content. Offer a discount on paid content, free limited-time access, or an upgrade.
  • Freebies: Most people won’t be ready to buy when they see your pop-up. Offer a free trial, a free demo, or a free sample. You can be extra generous and offer a free gift with their first purchase.

5. Make your offer clear.

Your offer needs to be clear and understandable right away or people will close your pop-up if they can’t figure out what you’re offering.

6. Use timing to your advantage.

Studies have shown that you don’t want to display pop-ups immediately, but you should wait about five seconds. This seems to be the perfect timing. Five seconds allows visitors to understand where they are before they’re asked to sign up for your email list.

7. Hide pop-ups on your landing pages.

There are two elements that should be absent from your landing pages: navigation menus and pop-ups. Visitors to your landing pages aren’t the same as regular web traffic – they’re expecting something specific and a pop-up will be a frustrating barrier to access. For instance, when they’ve already read and clicked on an ad to get to your landing page, they just want to get what they’re after.

8. Limit the number of form fields.

Email signup forms generate less conversions when they have more form fields. Many people ask only for an email address, while others ask for a first name as well. The latter is ideal since it allows you to personalize your emails. Three form fields tend to get the most conversions. Ask for more than three pieces of information and your conversions will likely fall.

However, getting fewer conversions isn’t always bad. Just because someone signs up for your free offer doesn’t mean they’re your market. You want to discourage some people from signing up when they’re not your target.

Exceptions to this rule vary depending on your industry and target market. For example, if you’re targeting professionals who must hold a specific credential, you’ll want to ask leads to identify their credential on your signup form for two reasons: First, this will help you disqualify leads that aren’t your target market. Second, you segment tag leads based on their credential, which will help you market to specific sub groups.

9. Use click triggers.

A click trigger pop-up appears when a visitor intentionally clicks on a link or image. The advantage to this method is that your visitors want the information provided by the pop-up since they have to click to get it. It should be no surprise, then, that click triggers convert 12 times better than standard pop-ups.

10. Use an exit-intent pop-up.

This pop-up will show up when a user shows intent to leave your website. An exit-intent pop-up is usually triggered when a visitor moves their mouse away from the website and toward the top of the browser.

Most exit-intent pop-ups say something like, “Wait! Before you go, here’s an offer just for you…” and many offer a generous discount. Use this to your advantage because exit-intent pop-ups work!

11. Use an abandoned cart pop-up.

Reasons for abandonments during checkout

This is similar to the exit-intent pop-up, but with a conditional twist. This pop-up will only show up if a visitor has an item in their cart when they start to leave the page. With nearly 70% of all shopping carts abandoned, you want to capture as many sales as possible by bringing people back to complete their purchases.

You won’t capture everyone, but you will capture some people. The reason you won’t capture everyone is simple: not everyone is looking to buy.

Many people add items to their cart to compare prices, get shipping quotes, and some use shopping carts as a “wish list.”

Increase your revenue with pop-ups

Although word around the ‘net is that pop-ups are annoying, now you know that’s not the case. It’s not that pop-ups are annoying – it’s that improperly implemented pop-ups are annoying. And by following the best practices outlined in this article, you can craft effective and unwanted pop-ups ads that will capture more signups from your target market while avoiding annoying those who aren’t interested.

Your revenue is directly tied to your ability to generate targeted leads, and pop-ups are one of the best ways to get those targeted leads.

When you have a desirable product or service, your ads will be welcomed by your visitors and they’ll be happy to sign up for your email list.

To recap: when your goal is to generate leads, pop-ups will prove to be an invaluable addition to your site. When properly implemented, pop-up ads will help you capture leads that you can nurture to conversion in order to generate the revenue you deserve. If you haven’t yet implemented this effective advertising strategy, there’s no better time to start than right now.

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