How Tradies Can Increase Bookings This Easter
Do you hear that? It’s Easter, and it’s fast approaching. Don’t panic, though, because we have some tradies marketing advice to help you increase your bookings these Easter holidays. So without any further adieu, let’s cruise right into it.
The truth is, clients know when you’ve done your homework. If you still have your St Pattie’s ads running over Easter, well, then that’s a bit of a problem. Not only does incorrect advertising show potential clients you’re unprepared, but it can reflect poorly on your entire business. ‘If they can’t even update their website, how can I trust them to provide a professional service?’. And look, we know how dramatic that sounds. But, when it comes to beating out the competition, you’ve really got to do all you can to come out on top. So, how do you do that? Well, let us give you some pointers.
If you’re keen to fill your books over the Easter holidays, here are some tips to give you a jumpstart:
Get into the spirit. Change your ads to reflect the Easter season. This could look like Easter imagery or some egg-cellent puns sure to capture your audience’s attention.
Promotions/seasonal pricing. You want to start your promotions and offers a little early to ensure that clients know you’re available if your services are needed over Easter. Your ads might look something like: ‘We’re open all of Easter, and because we understand accidents happen, we’re offering our services to clients 24/7.’ ‘Refer a friend this Easter, and we’ll waive your call out fee. That’s our holiday guarantee!’
Use your social media. Engage and communicate with your audience through your social media stories, statuses, and posts. This is not only a great way to strengthen ongoing client/tradesman relationships but is an opportunity to widen your reach.
Implement hashtags. Hashtags don’t need to go viral to make an impact. So making business-specific hashtags you can use over Easter can help increase traffic to your page/s.
Pop-Ups and banners. What better way to increase traffic than through an eye-catching pop-up or banner? No, we don’t mean those annoying ones that clog up your page and deter audiences from engaging. We mean holiday specific banners that are a quick and effective way to relay information to your customers. Like the one below!
Do your research! Finally, look into what your competitors offer and try to do one better. If your competitor is closed over the break, that’s great, but you want to find the best way to come out on top if they aren’t. So, research around to optimise your booking potential.
Raise your hand if you have a phone on you or within reach. Everybody? Okay, cool. Raise your hand if you have either made a call or sent an email on that phone. Exactly! Most people have. Digital marketing helps put your business at the fingertips of consumers. Here’s how it can help you:
Consistent online presence. Regularly promoting your company on all platforms will help increase your organic reach. This could look like status uploads, images of your work or replies to your reviews.
Local business directories. We can’t say it any louder: PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE. And this one is simple because it requires little effort and maintenance. Fact is, the world is going digital, and consumers want businesses to be more accessible than ever. So, start with Google My Business and then get listed other directories like hipages and Tradif so customers can find you when they need you.
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. Do you have specific keywords you’d like to appear on Google for? Good news because that’s where SEO comes in. Optimising your website for SEO purposes helps you rank higher on Google. So this Easter, try changing up your website copy to reflect your holiday booking needs.
Facebook Ads. Did you know that consumers use their phones more during the holidays? It’s no wonder either; they don’t have jobs to attend! You can take advantage of this, though, and set up ads on Facebook to reach a larger target market.
Google Ads. A common misconception is that tradies should pause their ads over the holidays. However, during this time, your ads are more important than ever. Plus, if everyone else is pausing theirs, you’ll come out on top. So really, you are the real winner here.
For more information about tradies marketing or to increase your reach these holidays, get in touch with our team of digital marketers today.
Is your website a highway at peak hour? Because boy, you’ll be getting a lot of traffic with the help of our digital marketing experts. We’re passionate about helping businesses all over Australia harness the power of digital marketing to take their bookings to the next level. So, if you’re ready to give traffic to your website the green light and learn more about tradies marketing, contact the team at Get More Traffic today!
March Digital Marketing Industry Updates
Google AdSense is bringing in a new tool to help digital publishers improve site engagement and increase traffic, page views, and impressions. The new feature is called “Related search for content” which works similarly to “suggested content” that users are more familiar with. The way it works is that users are served “Related Searches” that will lead them to other pieces of content on the same or similar topics on the publisher’s website.
This should help create more relevant experiences for users, as well as help publishers improve their site and app statistics. Google also stressed that this new AdSense feature doesn’t expose user data. As Google is looking to veer away from the use of cookies, the feature instead uses page content to deliver relevant search terms rather than user data. So if you’re looking to activate the new AdSense feature on your website, contact your account manager to help you activate it on your AdSense account.
Facebook Group Admins are getting some new tools to help them manage and grow their Facebook communities. With the rise of misinformation on the web these days, Facebook has taken some steps to help Group admins manage fake news and posts that come into their communities. For starters, Facebook has installed the ability to automatically decline any incoming posts that have already been identified by third-party fact-checks as false information.
Additionally, the “mute” functionality on Facebook groups has also expanded into “suspend”. A suspended user will be unable to post, comment, react, and participate in any group chats or Rooms in the group. These features can be found through “Admin Assist”.
When it comes to growing your Facebook groups, on the other hand, new QR codes have been added that admins can download and share or copy and paste as they like. When a user scans a QR code, they are then directed to the Facebook Group’s About page where they can put in a request to join.
According to Google, 95% of vehicle buyers use online sources to do research and find out more information. As a way to help auto sellers gain more exposure and responses, they’ve recently introduced a Vehicle Ads search placement which displays nearby cars for sale.
Sellers that want to take advantage of the opportunity need to create a vehicle inventory data feed and connect it to Google’s Merchant Centre. Search campaigns with the new vehicle ads reported an average increase of 25% in conversions during their testing phases.
Vehicle ad placements are only currently available in the U.S., but Google says that they will be coming out in more countries soon.
Twitter is currently experimenting with a new eCommerce feature called Twitter Shops. The feature is said to allow brands and businesses to showcase up to 50 items in a shop on the platform. Twitter Shops can be accessed on a brand’s profile page and will direct users to an in-app browser from the merchant’s website.
While still in the testing phase, the inclusion of a shop on Twitter should help businesses maximise their online earning potential on the platform as well as gain more exposure and engagement. Currently, only iPhone users in the U.S. can view and interact with the shops that are included in the testing phase. Once it rolls out worldwide, however, it would be a good opportunity to reach out to Twitter users.
Omnichannel Shopping Explained – Leverage Your Buying Cycle
Welcome back, drivers! In this month’s blog, we’ll talk about digital trends and how you can leverage your omnichannel to drive traffic and sales to your business. But before we accelerate into the nitty-gritty, we’re going to hit the brakes for a second and discuss what exactly the omnichannel is and how businesses can use it to really increase the consumer journey.
Omnichannel is not a new term but its implementation has become increasingly popular over the last couple of years. With Covid-19 changing the way we shop, the use of the omnichannel has skyrocketed, with consumers valuing quality and ease over traditional shopping methods. But what exactly is the omnichannel you ask? Well, allow us to fill you in.
The omnichannel refers to a consumer journey that is seamless and effortless. It’s a comprehensive shopping experience that integrates various shopping modes to help make the consumer journey as easy and convenient as possible. But didn’t you just describe multi-channel? No. No, we did not. It might be a little confusing at first but we’re going to break it down for you:
Multi-channel refers to the use of various shopping modes to make a purchase;
Omnichannel, on the other hand, allows buyers to begin their shopping journey using one mode and complete it using another. Still confused? Watch the video below to help gain a better understanding of omnichannel versus multi-channel.
Now we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about how you can take industry trends to leverage your omnichannel and increase sales.
So now you know how to take advantage of the omnichannel, here are some tips for helping you overtake the competition.
Is your website a highway at peak hour? Because boy, you’ll be getting a lot of traffic with the help of our digital marketing experts. We’re passionate about helping businesses all over Australia harness the power of digital marketing to take their sales to the next level. If you’re ready to give traffic to your website the green light and learn how to increase sales using your omnichannel, contact the team at Get More Traffic today!
Top Google Shopping Optimisation Tips For Christmas
Can you hear the jingling of bells and the sounds of Mariah Carey defrosting after 11 months in hibernation? That’s right, Christmas is right around the corner, and the team at Get More Traffic are here to make sure your business is ready to boost your traffic and maximise your sales over the most wonderful time of the year. One of the easiest ways to do that is by optimising your Google Shopping feed. However, if you’re sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t know how to optimise my Google Shopping feed! I don’t even know if I have one!’; that’s okay. That’s what we’re here for! So, let’s get your Google shopping strategy sorted out, so you have one less thing to worry about this holiday season.
Simply put, Google Shopping is a service provided by Google that lets customers search for, view, and compare products easily. When you search for a term, say ‘rollerskates’, you’ll be shown sponsored ads at the top of the search;
If a customer clicks on the shopping tab, it’ll take them to the Google Shopping feed. It looks a little like this;
To work on your Google Shopping feed optimisation, you’ll need access to two platforms; Google Ads and Google Merchant Centre. You might already be familiar with Google Ads, where you run your campaigns and control things like budgets, bidding strategy, location, ad schedule, and access insights. The Google Merchant Centre is the place you’ll keep your product feed and upload details about your products. This might include things such as an EAN, prices, colours, ISBNs, etc.
Your shopping campaign will work a little differently from the search campaign you might be familiar with in Google Ads. In a search campaign, your budget will be used to bid on pre-selected keywords that help get your products and services in front of the people searching for them. On the other hand, you won’t have direct control over which search queries trigger the ads when you launch a shopping campaign. Google crawls shopping advertisers’ sites and feeds to find ads relevant to a given search query. The relevance of your ads depends on the depth and detail of your Google Shopping feed. That’s why it’s crucial you know how to optimise your Google Shopping feed.
If you don’t have your Google Shopping feed set up, don’t worry; the team at Get More Traffic can work with you to create a campaign that shows off the very best of your products. If you already have a feed up and going but you’re looking for some advice and help with Google Shopping optimisation in time for Christmas, our team can help you with that too. We have some great tips and tricks to help you make the most of your Google Shopping feed this Christmas.
Did you know that 90% of Australians across all age groups research their Christmas shopping online? These potential customers are all at different stages of their consumer journey. Some will be researching ideas for gifts, some will be comparing prices for specific items. Others will be in the ‘buying’ phase of their journey, ready to spend their money there and then. No matter what stage of the journey your customers are in, you’re going to want a solid Google Shopping campaign to leverage the increased holiday traffic. Lucky for you, the Get More Traffic team have a few tips to help you do just that.
Use Christmas-related keywords. When planning your Christmas campaign, target keywords such as ‘present ideas’, ‘gifts for teenagers’ or ‘christmas present for mum’. These are the things people tend to search for in their panicked ‘buy’ phase of the consumer journey. This means they’re far more likely to purchase the products that make it straightforward and easy for them. Another audience who tend to search this term are people in their ‘research’ phase of the consumer journey. While they may not necessarily add your product to the cart in a spree of frenzied pre-Christmas panic, your brand and products will be front of mind as they think about what to buy their loved ones.
Use your old data to optimise best-selling products. You probably have a good idea of which products will sell well over Christmas, so make sure you do everything you can to promote those items. Don’t waste your budget on poorer-performing or low-value items when you could be investing in higher-value products.
Use product ratings. Reviews and ratings help your product stand out. They drive quality scores, which means you’ll get higher visibility and lower CPC. Additionally, when customers see items with product ratings or reviews, they receive positive reinforcement for their purchase decision.
Offer a special deal. If you’re selling an item in a competitive market, you might need to do something to sweeten the deal and entice them to choose your product over your competitor’s. For example, make a special offer promotion, a sale, or a free shipping offer to promote traffic to your site.
Provide plenty of information. There’s no such thing as too much information. The more detail you provide when describing your products, the more precisely Google can match your Ads with queries. Make sure you include crucial information like the brand, colour, size, style, model, gender, measurements, and any other relevant attributes. This will give your product the best chance of being seen by holiday shoppers.
Choose your category wisely. The Google product category tells Google what your product is, and if you leave it blank, Google will automatically assign it the most appropriate category. If you’re selling embroidery kits as stocking stuffers, don’t just use the tag ‘Arts & Entertainment > Hobbies & Creative Arts’. Instead, make the category as detailed as possible and write ‘Arts & Entertainment > Hobbies & Creative Arts > Arts & Crafts > Craft Organisation > Needlecraft Patterns’.
Update your product availability. When a customer sees online that you have something in stock, naturally, they expect to be able to buy that item. If they can’t buy the product online or, heaven forbid, they go into your brick and mortar store to find it unavailable; you’ll lose a customer. 1 in 3 Australian consumers will pick their second-choice brand over their first-choice brand just because it is present when they are ready to buy, so don’t think that your customers will hold out for you to restock!
Is your website a highway at peak hour? Because boy, you’ll be getting a lot of traffic with the help of our digital marketing experts. We’re passionate about helping businesses all over Australia harness the power of SEO and SEM to take their sales to the next level. If you’re ready to give traffic to your website the green light and learn how to optimise your Google Shopping feed, contact the team at Get More Traffic today!
October Digital Marketing Industry Updates
Google’s search results pages for mobile are undergoing a massive shift. Google recently announced that they are introducing continuous scrolling for mobile search, so that instead of clicking through to the next page, or “See more results”, the behaviour is more likely to mimic how users experience scrolling through social media feeds. The news has gotten mixed reactions across the industry. However, the continuous scroll might prove beneficial for businesses. For one, it should allow users to continue to scroll through and find relevant content that may not immediately be among the results displayed at the top. Expect this change to continue to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Facebook is making some changes to the current ad objectives present in Ads Manager. All ad objectives are now being grouped into six new objectives as a way to better communicate and collate similar ad objectives. The six new objectives include awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, sales, and app promotion. Facebook has mentioned that there will not be any changes made in terms of reporting of results, and any campaigns that are still currently running will remain active and won’t require any changes. It would be keen, however, for advertisers to familiarise themselves with the new schematics of Facebook’s ad objectives.
They might have been a long time coming, however Professional Profiles are finally coming to Twitter. Beta testing started back in April, wherein Twitter invited a handful of businesses and creators to participate. Recently, they’ve opened up the Personal Profiles to more businesses. To apply for a Professional Profile, simply click through this link. The Professional Profile will display three modules: The About Module, which has your business and contact information, as well as hours of operation; the Shop Module, which will allow Twitter users to purchase on the platform; and the Newsletter Module, which can serve as a distribution channel for businesses on latest news and updates. Take note, though, that once accepted manually editing your profile is not readily available. Should you wish to make any changes, you will have to resubmit the application.
To further improve the quality of advertising on its network, Google is updating their Advertiser Identity Verification Policy. The new policy won’t have a massive effect on advertisers except that they should expect to receive an email in the coming days regarding this. The verification process should be accomplished within 30 days, after which Google will pause all running campaigns until after completion. This change will allow Google to publicly disclose business information such as advertiser name change history, contact information, ad creatives, ads removed, accounts suspended, and the dates and locations that ads are being served.
Two Main Things You Need to Make Your eCommerce Site Convert
The global eCommerce market is growing, mainly due to the events of the past year, as well as the increased usage of smartphones and tablets. In fact, this 2021 it’s expected to total $4.81 trillion, wherein $3.56 trillion of which is projected to come from mobile eCommerce sales.
That said, it’s becoming increasingly important to make sure that your website is always optimised to generate conversions and sales. For those of you who have already started an eCommerce business, you’re probably already wondering what you can do to improve your current state and take advantage of the changes in the marketplace?
There are two main things you want to ensure that you’re making the most out of your eCommerce website:
One way to make sure that your budget is being spent to find potential customers searching for your products is to apply a keyword strategy and account structure that will ensure that you’re getting the right kind of traffic. Here, working with a Google Ads professional is important if you’re not sure how to go about setting it up on your Google Ads account.
Making sure that you’re attracting the right people is critical, especially if your goal is to increase conversions and sales on your website.
If your business is in the industry of health and wellness, for example, you want to avoid targeting general keywords. Be as specific as you can about your products and services, whether that’s cross fit training, bikram yoga sessions, organic produce, or essential oils, it’s important that your keywords are hitting the right note.
Apply the same specificity to your copy. Whether you’re running Google Display Ads or Facebook and Instagram Ads, your captions and copy should be engaging, targeted, and relevant with a clear call-to-action.
Once your Google Ads campaigns have achieved high relevancy, you need to audit and check on what users are doing once they reach your site. Find and identify any roadblocks that exist on your site and remove them. To accomplish that, go over to your Google Analytics dashboard and review your website and landing pages.
Google Analytics can track users’ engagement and movements on the site, giving you a good map of the path a converting customer travels. Through this, you can monitor and reflect on your traffic’s user experience, or what they do from the moment they visit your site to the moment that they click away.
You can also review each step of the checkout process, and dissect where your users are dropping off. All this data and information can help you make informed decisions on how to further improve your website experience.
Another useful tool for auditing is Crazy Egg, a little piece of software that analyses where your audience is coming from, what pages on your site they visit, and where they end up leaving or getting stuck at.
Crazy Egg also has the ability to draw you a heatmap of what particular parts of your website and landing pages that audiences actually engage with, such as which sections they linger on, or what buttons and links they click. This tool can provide you more than enough data on how you can better improve the audience’s overall experience on your website.
Now, all this can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’re just starting out building out and growing your eCommerce website. That’s why it’s always a good idea to have professionals working with you to increase conversions and maximise your return on investment.
And if you’re looking to partner up with experts and professionals that are well-versed in the field, give one of our agents a call, and we can discuss how we can best help your business succeed in the online space.
5 Ways to Set Yourself Up for Google Shopping Success
Over the past year, consumer behaviour has transformed. In 2020, online shopping in Aussie households grew by 57%. In fact, out of 2.3 million low-frequency online shoppers, 52% were spending more time shopping online in 2020. These shoppers were said to have purchased items online at least 10 times between March and December of that year.
The big question is, are you making the most out of your digital marketing to reach these customers, or do you think you could do more? For businesses running Google Shopping ads, what are some ways that you can ensure that you’re making the most out of this opportunity?
We’ve listed below 5 easy steps to help you make sure that you’re doing the right things in optimising your Google Shopping ads. Let’s take a look.
What is the Google Shopping feed? At its core, this is basically the spreadsheet that contains a list of all your product SKUs (stock-keeping units). It’s from this spreadsheet that Google sources the data and information it needs to determine whether your products are relevant to a user’s search query.
Just because it’s your product database, however, doesn’t mean that you should simply upload the spreadsheet directly onto the Google Merchant Centre. Doing this can cause problems such as duplicate listings, products not being listed at all, or even the suspension of your account.
To make sure that your database doesn’t run into any compatibility issues, go over it again and make sure that it contains information such as:
For a quick and easy reference, you can always check out Google’s Product Data Specification page to make sure that you have all the necessary information to ensure that your spreadsheet is optimised and ready.
One thing that you have to note is that Google Shopping campaigns are a little bit different compared to Google search campaigns. With search campaigns, you’re bidding on keywords. Whereas with Google Shopping ads, you’re bidding on Product Groups.
But even though the bidding process is different, keywords still play an important role in making sure that your ads convert into clicks.
When writing out your product titles and descriptions, then, keep the customer in mind. Think about what keywords they would type trying to search for your products. It’s best to be specific, especially in the title, as you want to be able to grab your audience’s attention right away and have them say, “This is what I’m looking for.”
What are Google Seller Ratings? Your Google Seller Ratings are actually your Google customer reviews. These reviews are the best way for you to fortify trust and authority with the audience you’re targeting, especially if they’re a cold audience. The higher your seller rating, the better your clicks and click-through rate will be.
To make your account eligible to display your Google Seller Rating, however, you first have to build up your customer reviews. Google requires that you be able to collect around 100 or more reviews within the last 12 months for them to be able to calculate and showcase your seller rating score.
That means it’s important to be consistent in asking customers for reviews. Create a system within your business wherein you always ask a customer if they could leave a review and you should be well on your way to collecting 100.
When it comes to Google Shopping success, bidding is definitely something that you have to keep an eye out for. If you’re also currently running Google Ads, it’s important to note that there’s a difference in the bidding process for Google Shopping. For Google shopping, you’re bidding for visibility and not just placement.
Unlike search ads, your bidding strategy with Google Shopping ads will determine whether your ad will show up or not. Here, testing is important. Keep testing to see which bids are working for you. Don’t overbid, as doing so can have your ads appear for more generalised queries, hurting your results in the long run. Bidding high, in this case, isn’t always the best solution.
Last, but not least, make sure that your campaign structure is optimised and segmented properly. This can make or break your campaign.
Shopping behaviours are different, whether the user is shopping on their mobile devices, or on their laptops and desktops. In 2020, 91% of online shoppers use their mobile phones to make purchases, while 76% did so through a laptop computer, and 61% on their tablets.
Segmenting your campaigns based on the device is one way to structure your campaign, as shoppers on a mobile phone will behave differently than one doing so on a computer. And although a computer is the preferred purchasing device during the holidays, the mobile phone is the winner overall.
Another way you would want to structure your campaign is to segregate your products into different ad groups. Group them according to price. Give your high-priced items more exposure, as they can give you the highest margins, and lower your bidding for your low-priority products. Aim to achieve a sense of balance with your bidding so that you can get the most out of your ad spend.
Of course, all of this can be time-consuming, especially during the holiday season. But that’s why paid ads agencies like Get More Traffic exist. If you’re looking to start or optimise a Google Shopping campaign, feel free to get on a call with one of our agents so that we can discuss how we can best serve you and set you up for success.
Google Ads or Facebook Ads: Which Fits Your Business Better?
In digital marketing, every good marketer will tell you that the best strategy is an omnichannel strategy. Don’t put your eggs into one basket. The more channels you can distribute your content through, the better.
However, every so often we still do get this common question from our clients, “Which is better, Google ads or Facebook ads?” And our answer has always been the same: “Both!”
Deciding where to spend the bulk of your budget requires more complex thinking, strategising, and planning. In fact, when choosing between Google or Facebook, the more appropriate questions are actually:
And so, to answer the question between Google Ads and Facebook Ads, we’ll tackle each of these points to help you get a sense of which platform is best to start advertising on.
Because we usually service small-to-medium businesses, the concern about budget comes up in relation to which platform is the better one. Most business owners want to know where is the best place to start advertising into?
To start, get very clear with your numbers. How much can you afford to pay to gain a customer? You want to make sure that you’ll be able to get the best potential returns on your ad spend. To know that, you’ll also need to look at your industry and how they’re performing on both platforms.
Google Keyword Planner can provide you with a good estimate of your potential cost per click (CPC). Some industries are incredibly expensive from a cost per click angle. If you have a daily budget of $500, for example, but your cost per click is around $50, that means that you’re only getting 10 clicks to your website a day. Of course, other industries are less competitive, costing you only $1-$5 per click or less!
You can always bring down a high-cost CPC with a lot of testing and research, and it would be worth it. But you may also want to consider Facebook, which has more robust targeting capabilities.
Google is a search platform, servicing users whose intention is to find answers to their questions. The intention could simply be additional information on a topic, or to find a product or service that could provide the solution to their problem.
Facebook is a social platform where users want to find out what’s new and what’s happening within their social circles. It can also be a place to discover trends and the latest news and updates on things you’re interested in. But the primary purpose of Facebook remains to be social.
If your business sits in the entertainment or news industry, for example, Facebook ads could prove to be the better fit for you, as you’re leveraging off of the many communities that talk about and discuss the topics within the industry.
If you’re a service provider, on the other hand, such as law & architecture firms, clinics, maintenance services, or restaurants, Google can bring in customers that are looking specifically for your services. In fact, according to Google, the searches for terms including “Where to buy” and “near me” have grown by over 200% in the past two years.
Now that you’ve considered your budget and fit, it’s time to consider the intent of the audiences you’re targeting.
One advantage Facebook has over Google is the potential to target any interest, ranging from large pools like sports and entertainment to very niche interests like pottery, knitting, or scrapbooking. Facebook can show your ads to as many people as possible that have those targeted interests.
One advantage Google has over Facebook is being able to target audience intent. Because Google Ads are keyword-based, you’re able to target users in different stages of the customer journey: whether they’re just curious, or they’re already looking to purchase.
A user that intentionally typed in “Vegan restaurants near me” is at a very different stage than one that’s just scrolling through their Facebook news feed and just comes across an ad for a vegan restaurant. They may be interested, and curious enough to click, but they might not yet be at that buying stage compared to the user searching on Google.
Therefore, advertising on both platforms at the same time is often recommended. And while both platforms give you the ability to re-target users that have engaged with your ads or your website, bringing in a cold audience can be more challenging if you’re just going with one or the other.
If you’re still confused about all this, or you’re on the fence about whether you want to advertise on Google or on Facebook, contact us and get in touch with one of our experts. We’ll be more than happy to help to clarify things for you even further and help you get started on the right path to online success!
4 Important Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Google Your Own Ads
These days, one of the best ways that small businesses can increase their discoverability, popularise their brand, and gain more customers is through Google Ads. Google Ads are pay-per-click (PPC) ads that help you get more exposure on Google’s search engine results pages. And one thing we always remind our new clients whenever we set up their ads for them is to: “Never Google your own ads.”
There’s a right way and a wrong way to test and see whether your PPC ads are showing up on Google’s search results. Unfortunately, typing in your search terms and keywords isn’t the best way to do so. And here’s why…
One of the key metrics that Google considers in deciding whether to show your ads, is the click-through rate (CTR). What is click-through rate? Simply put, your CTR refers to the number of impressions your ad receives versus the number of clicks it’s able to gather. If only 10 out of 1000 people who’ve seen your ad click through to your website, for example, that puts your CTR at 10%, which is actually pretty high considering the thousands of blog posts and websites strewn across the internet.
When you Google your own ads but don’t click on it, what you’re doing is adding to the number of impressions and decreasing your overall CTR. Keeping this metric as high as possible is important if you want to keep serving your ad to potential customers. So don’t Google your own ad.
Another key metric that affects your Google ad distribution is the Quality Score. But how, exactly, does Google calculate the Quality Score? Quality Score is a combination of 3 metrics: (1) your expected click-through rate, (2) how relevant your ad is against your target audience, and (3) your overall landing page experience. The Quality Score is a diagnostic tool that helps you give you some clues as to well your ad quality compares to other advertisers.
Keeping your Quality Scores high can have a direct impact on your PPC campaign’s overall efficiency, both in terms of your return on investment and your results. That’s why it’s important to always be working towards keeping your Quality Score as high as possible.
Perhaps the biggest reason you should never try to Google your ads lies in the very nature of PPC. Whenever you run a PPC campaign, you’re charged every time a user clicks on one of your ads. You, the owner of the campaign, are not an exception! You detract points from your CTR and your Quality Score every time you try to Google your ad and don’t click it. On the other hand, if you do click on your own ad, you end up wasting a part of your budget that could have otherwise been spent to capture actual clicks.
Clicking on your ad, and then leaving your website right after a click, also isn’t good, because this then affects your bounce rate. Bounce Rate refers to the times a user has clicked through a link to your website, and then immediately left (or in this case, bounced). It signals to search engines that the user could not find content relevant to their search. Bounce rates can affect your overall rankings and ad distribution.
Add all these factors up, and eventually, your ad will stop showing up in front of you. This can lead you to believe that your ads have stopped showing up altogether. Of course, that’s not necessarily the case. But because you’ve repeatedly tried searching your ads, and have either not clicked on them, or bounced from your website, this translates to Google’s algorithm that your website isn’t relevant for you, and so will stop serving you the same ad.
Knowing that this is a concern amongst advertisers and digital marketers, Google actually has an existing tool that can help you preview your ads. Google’s Ad Preview and Diagnostics Tool provides a completely safe environment for you to view what ads are begin distributed for each keyword. Using this tool allows you to see more data on which ads are eligible to show up, and which ones might need some adjustments.
Understanding and analysing all that data, however, can be a monumental task, one that requires a lot of time and effort. Thankfully, that’s exactly the service that we offer our clients. If you’re interested in either starting or optimising your PPC campaigns, getting more traffic, and driving more leads and sales, schedule a call with one of our agents! We’re more than happy to help you set up your business for online success!
Digital Marketing Industry Updates – June
Back in 2019, Instagram decided to remove the like counts in Australia to pave the way for a safer internet space. This, of course, posed certain obstacles and limitations for brands and influencers in keeping track of trends and engagement rates. Recently, however, Instagram released a new feature that now allows users to choose whether they want to have the like counts visible or invisible. The new opt-in feature for hiding likes can be found in your privacy settings. However, even though hidden, you can still view like counts through the analytics account.
Instagram also announced the release of new native data for their reel and live video features to help marketers track and analyse their performance. Additional metrics for Reels include plays, accounts reached, likes, comments, saves, and shares. Whereas for live video, the new metrics being rolled out include accounts reached, peak concurrent viewers, comments, and shares. Instagram ensures creators and businesses that these new measurements can better help them understand how well their content is performing. However, these new analytics are only available to Business and Creator accounts. To find them, simply tap on the “Insights” button from your profile page and you can view up your latest metrics for up to 30 days.
Several new Google Ads formats were launched late last month centering around local campaigns. These new formats include: Auto-Suggest Ads, Navigational Ads, Similar Place Ads, and Pickup Later ads. All the newly launched ad formats are based on location. First up, Auto-Suggest Ads are shown when a searcher is located close by to a related product or service on Google Maps. Navigational Ads, on the other hand, are shown while a user is using Google Maps driving directions and can be displayed as a user is driving towards a destination. Thirdly, Similar Place Ads appear when the business searched is closed, and so the user is instead shown a similar business on the map, potentially capturing traffic that would otherwise be directed towards competitors. With all these new features in place, local business and advertisers will have more opportunities to reach customers in the surrounding areas using localized results to offer the best user experience.
One major updated that happened with Google Search campaigns this 2021 is the phasing out of the Broach Match modifier keyword match type. This change saw Phrase Match expand to include the additional Broach Match traffic in a bid to increase effectiveness quoting that “…You reach more of the right customers through a combination of the two”. If you are currently running Search campaigns on Google, make sure to reach out to your Account Manager to check how this might affect your current campaigns.
This 2021, In a move to further expand automation and AI-driven improvements, Google Ad’s recommended optimisations feature moved from ‘suggested’ to auto-applied instead. Reviews of the change have been mixed as the AI-driven optimisations don’t always consider the nuances in optimisation that are part of certain industries. Thus, the 35 editable options are still opt-out. If you’re interested in finding out more about how AI-driven optimisations can potentially impact your campaign, make sure to schedule some time for a chat with your Account Manager.