Your marketing strategy is one of the most important aspects of your business. It’s so important that your brand is seen by the right people at the right time and that you achieve your objectives.
You should be aiming to have your marketing strategy nailed down, I mean, it’s almost 2022! This blog aims to give you some useful tips on how to make every aspect of your marketing strategy work for you. They are based on what we have found to work for us at eComOne. So, sit back with a mince pie (other snacks are optional) and enjoy.
In this section, we will look at marketing strategy with regards to Google Shopping, Search Ads, and Facebook Ads.
Google Shopping:
At eComOne, we have recently introduced a new hybrid model into our Google Shopping strategy. This incorporates using Googles SMART AI with closely controlled manual campaigns. This allows us to leverage Googles capabilities whilst still collating plenty of data and remaining in control. It is important to bear in mind that you need 30+ conversions in 30 days to create SMART Shopping campaigns.
The feed is key when it comes to SMART Shopping! We recommend incorporating supplemental feeds, merchant promotions, sales prices, focusing on the campaign structure based on custom labels and feed attributes, adding in the cost of goods data, and continuous title and description optimisation. It is also important to include high quality, relevant imagery, your logo, attention-grabbing videos and benefit-focused text.
With your manual Shopping campaigns, you have a lot more control over campaign cost; you should focus on ensuring bid adjustments for product groups, devices, audiences, Ad schedule and location are all done regularly using sufficient data.
Since we created the hybrid model, our UK security client has had a 15.45% increase in conversion value, 11.95% more clicks, a lower CPC (Cost Per Click) and an 8.64% increase in ROAS (Return On Ad Spend).
We’re still fine-tuning our hybrid model but with results like those above, we’re happy with our strategy and can’t wait to develop it further. We hope it’s given you some ideas for your own Google Shopping strategy.
Search Ads:
Search Ads work for a plethora of different businesses. Whilst Google Shopping Ads are perfect if you’re looking to sell a product; if your goal is to achieve form fills or create brand awareness then Search Ads are the way forward. Of course, Search Ads are still a great way of selling products, especially with the recent role out of image extensions, so don’t let the previous comment deter you from creating plenty of Search campaigns for your eCommerce store.
With Search Ads, we recommend making the most of all the extensions, such as structured snippets, callout extensions, price extensions, image extensions, and sitelink extensions, to name a few. Include unique selling propositions and calls to action in your headlines, as well as both 90 character descriptions to offer your audience useful information and take up the most space on the Google search results page.
Ensure to use the keyword planner in your Google Account and carry-out search term reviews to help you create new Ads within the account that are relevant to your audience. You also need to focus on bid adjustments as you would with your manual Google Shopping campaigns.
We like to mix things up at eComOne, putting some of our campaigns on manual bidding and some on automated bidding. This includes maximising conversion value with target ROAS or maximising conversions with a target CPA, as well as target impression share and maximise clicks. Using automated bidding strategies allows Googles AI to generate the most from your campaign and hit your goals, whilst manual bidding gives you more control over your campaigns Ad spend.
Facebook Ads:
We’re going to keep this section clear and to the point, just like your Facebook Ad copy should be.
- Keep your creative fresh, but don’t make changes to your Ads within the learning phase as this will negatively impact your results.
- Use a funnel. This means you start with your brand awareness campaigns, moving through the funnel to Remarketing campaigns.
- Focus on your audience and use A/B testing to see which audiences work best for your company.
- You can also do A/B testing to see which creatives and ad copy get the most interaction, we recommend this to know what works for your business.
- Don’t just use one style of Ad. Use a mixture of still images, video, carousel, and dynamic product Ads so your audience doesn’t get bored.
In this section, we will discuss overall marketing strategy tips. These include –
Being organised:
Creating yourself weekly and daily to-do lists where you prioritise jobs to ensure you’re getting the most out of the workday. At eComOne, we follow the 80:20 approach, which means we know 80% of our results come from 20% of the work we do, or for example, 80% of sales come from the top 20% of products in the feed. This means working out which tasks will have the biggest impact and focusing your efforts on these.
Being realistic:
Don’t set yourself unattainable goals or an unrealistically long to-do list at the start of a project. It’s great to be ambitious and strive to reach goals that will challenge you but don’t set yourself up for failure by overpromising. It is much better to set realistic goals and do tasks to a high standard than overstretch yourself and disappoint with rushed or incomplete tasks by the due date.
Holding yourself accountable:
Whatever you set out to do ensure you do it, it’s okay saying you’re going to do X amount of tasks by a set date and that you expect to see these results but only if you’re going to follow through. If you try something and it doesn’t work then that’s okay, as long as you can say why you tried it in the first place and why you believe it didn’t get the results you expected. Be accountable for these things and it will gain you the respect of your colleagues and clients.
Working as a team:
You don’t have to do everything yourself. Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to members of your team who you believe would be a good fit. If you have a very analytical mind but you know a colleague who is fantastic at content, then share out tasks to ensure everything is done to the highest standard and no one is left struggling with tasks they don’t feel competent in completing.
This leads lastly into being honest about your abilities, your strengths and your capacity. It’ll help to make the whole project run smoothly and help with the overall implementation of the marketing strategy.
We hope this blog has given you some insight into how you can improve your PPC marketing strategy and the way your team works ahead of the New Year. If doing your own marketing seems like a hassle you’d rather delegate, and you like the sound of how we work then don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at eComOne today.
