Get the most from McKinsey.com:
Deciding whether to outsource your marketing or do it yourself can be difficult. Should you pay for someone else to run ads for you, or should you just do it in-house? What kinds of services do you even need?
There may be thousands of questions running through your mind about PPC advertising in particular. Let us help you out by explaining exactly when you should make the jump and start outsourcing.
There are a number of reasons why businesses may choose to do their PPC in-house, such as cost, the stage of the business or wanting to have complete control over their campaigns.
Here are some of the key reasons you might be averse to outsourcing:
Many companies choose to do PPC themselves because they believe it costs too much for a quality service. Perhaps they have a low budget or are just starting out in the business world.
If you don’t have the money or you are a new business it is a better idea not to hire an expensive agency for PPC management services. You can still get the same results for less money if you opt for a consultant instead.
Perhaps you are the type of person who prefers to have complete control over every aspect of marketing. By doing everything in-house, you can decide how your paid campaigns are run and where your money is being spent. Also, there will be no last-minute delays because you are in charge of getting your ads up and running and are not relying on a third party.
If you choose to pay for PPC management services, you are likely to be asked for detailed and potentially sensitive information about your products or services. This is so a consultant or agency can market your offerings better.
This could potentially open your company up to confidential information leaks. By avoiding using any external services, you can better protect your company. However, no one is entirely safe from cybercrime, and there are ways to minimise the risks involved – such as working with a trusted provider with robust security systems in place.
No one knows your business and the vision you have for it better than you. Doing PPC in-house makes it easier to bring a campaign back on track if it starts to veer off course, as you have full control over the project.
The problem with hiring an agency is that they are never going to be as invested in your vision as you, and this only starts to compound if they are managing multiple clients at a time.
On the other hand, there are many reasons why a company may choose to outsource, such as:
Paying for PPC management services can give you the upper hand and help to elevate your campaigns to the next level.
The main reason for this is that these agencies and consultants specialise in running successful campaigns and have a proven track record for doing so.
Not every business has the time to continue running their own campaigns and may benefit from getting a third party to do it for them.
This essentially leaves them with extra time in which they can focus on hitting other important business targets.
By outsourcing your PPC, you take out the guess-work. High-quality agencies and consultants have access to valuable tools that you would otherwise be unable to access.
This means that they can collect data and generate reports. Every piece of new data can then be used to increase the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Despite the reasons why you may opt to do your PPC in-house, there comes a point where every business is no longer in a position to continue on the same path as time and resources start to become limited.
The golden rule when deciding to outsource is making sure that the monthly management fee never exceeds 40% of the total business ad spend.
For example, if you are looking for an agency to run your PPC and they charge you a monthly management cost of £500, you should be budgeting at least £1250 for your total ad spend.
If you are not able to budget this much, then it is probably a better idea to start looking at other options. This could be using a consultancy rather than a larger agency.
Depending on the type of PPC management service you are looking for, your time commitment and your total budgeted ad spend, you may be looking for a different type of service.
The two most common PPC methods are full ad management and those that offer a monthly check-in.
This is a service that is often provided by large agencies at a higher cost.
The agency usually takes full control over your ad spend with a large team of professionals that continually optimise your campaigns.
This service is typically provided by small-to-medium sized consultants and is usually cheaper than full management.
This option can vary greatly and could either be provided in the form of a monthly call with reports and analysis or even on-site depending on the commitment of the consultant.
Creating the perfect ad that converts requires lots of time and rigorous tests.
Paid ads can be an excellent way to engage with your audience and encourage them to pay for your product or service. However, if done wrong and without the proper knowledge, you can waste a lot of effort and time.
As a digital consultancy with 15 years of marketing experience and a focus on paid ads, conversion rate optimisation and more, we have helped many companies achieve their goals.
If you need help with creating and setting up your PPC in a way that maximises your returns, contact us today.
There are many ways to promote your business online, but the method we will discuss here involves Google Display ads.
As the largest search engine in the world, with over 92.62% market share in June 2019 and a whopping 63,000 searches a second, it’s no wonder companies are turning to Google to promote their services.
Google Display is a platform that allows companies to pay to create an ad that targets specific prospects. With Google Display ads, you can use different targeting options to strategically show your message to millions of viewers.
These ads are then displayed on a vast range of websites, including blogs, news pages and other Google sites including Gmail and YouTube.
There are many reasons why you might decide to use Google Display ads to promote your business. By following the best practice for Google Display ads in this guide, you could reap the following benefits:
1) Build brand awareness
Google Display ads target visitors on different websites who are unlikely to know you exist. This is because you are targeting visitors on sites that are relevant to their search history.
Putting your ads on different sites will boost your visibility. It also increases the likelihood that a single person will see or hear about you multiple times. As a result, people are more likely to buy from you since they are familiar with you and your brand.
2) Create powerful visual ads
Rather than leveraging standard written content, Google Display ads tend to be visual graphics or animations, which studies have shown to be far more engaging.
If you couple the visual element with the correct placement on a relevant site, you will likely see an increase in click-through rates and conversions from these ads.
3) Re-market to potential customers
Google Display ads allow you to re-market to customers that have previously shown an interest in your product or service. This refers to anyone that has visited your site or taken an incomplete action, such as abandoning a shopping cart.
With a re-marketing strategy in place, you can use Google Display ads to reach these people and nurture them into purchasing from you. By encouraging customers to return to your website, and by keeping them informed about your promotions, you are also helping to create loyalty and solidify their connection to your brand.
Now you know what Google Display ads are and why they’re valuable, here are some best practice tips to help you attract visitors.
1) Triple-check your work
You are representing your company, and even the slightest error you make will reflect badly on your brand. This means you should check for typos, grammar mistakes and image misalignments.
Always have a small team dedicated to checking, preferably with multiple stages, as this will help to eliminate human error.
2) Draw attention to your brand
The purpose of a Google Display ad is to attract attention while clearly displaying a branded message. As a visual marketing method, pulling visitors in using strong imagery should be your main goal.
You also want to reduce the barriers for the visitor understanding your key message and this means using striking high-quality images and easy to read fonts.
If you have used dull colours or an illegible font, the audience will not be drawn to your ad, and you risk losing their attention in the first few seconds.
3) Don’t cut corners
High quality should always be your top priority when creating ads, regardless of their size and scope. This means you should always use high-resolution images and brand elements that are clear enough to be read even at a smaller size (i.e. on a phone screen).
One thing to note, however, is that Google Display has a 150 KB file limit, so you should keep this in mind when choosing an image for your ad.
4) Keep it relevant
Everything on your ad needs to be representative of your brand and its voice. This means that the language you use, the colours, the style and font should relate to your brand image.
This diligence helps to ensure consistency in your ads and builds brand recognition and loyalty. Your customers need to be able to recognise your brand without prompt.
5) Include a clear call-to-action
There should be a clear call-to-action directing the person viewing your ad to the next step on their journey. This might be to contact you, subscribe to your feed or complete a purchase.
Without a clear path for people to follow, it is easy for them to ignore your ad. It also means that you miss the chance to redirect visitors towards the action you want them to take. Put simply, having a call-to-action increases conversions.
6) Use data to construct your ad
Research and collect data on your audience from your other channels and on related prospects. You need to watch out for the kind of language they use, the elements they respond to better and the components they liked or disliked about previous ads.
By including these elements into your design, you are able to help your audience relate to you better and encourage them to engage with you. People are more likely to interact with companies they feel understand them.
Using Google Display ads can be extremely effective in increasing customers and revenue. Failing to do it correctly can lead to a large amount of money lost for a mediocre return.
As a digital consultancy with 15 years of experience and a focus on paid search, conversion rate optimisation and more, we have helped many companies elevate their business to the next level.
If you need help and guidance with setting up your ads in a way that maximises returns, or if you need more in-depth Google Display ads best practice info, contact us today.
“Product Listing Ads drive traffic and sales to your website or local store by showing online shoppers rich images and details of items you sell.”
Are you ready to start selling your products globally through Google Shopping?
Product Listing Ads (PLAs) are a kind of PPC ad that e-commerce merchants can purchase through Google Adwords to increase the online reach of their products. PLAs feature a high-quality product image and differ from AdWords in that they are tailored towards product categories over specific keywords. They’ll appear on the left hand side and at the top of Google search results and once visitors click on your Google shopping ad, customers will be redirected to your website page to browse further and (hopefully!) make a purchase.
The great part is, you only pay for your ad when Google successfully directs a customer to your online shop!
Deciding whether Google Shopping is the right platform for your products can be difficult. There are several variables that you need to consider before taking the plunge. The first thing to consider is whether you have enough products to warrant Google Shopping. If you have under 5 products, for example, you’ll find it difficult to get any visibility on Google.
The next thing to consider is how competitive your product category is. There is significant revenue to be generated on Google Shopping in categories like toys, automotive, tools and furniture, but you need to be careful of using highly competitive products that generally receive a lot of clicks in your PLA campaign. You’ll be up against some of the most popular products out there!
The next stumbling block is how much you have to spend on your Google Shopping campaign. I understand that advertising budgets vary wildly, but if you want to ensure that your ads show up on Google and that you make a worthwhile profit on Google Shopping, you’ll need to spend at least £250.
What’s more, if you are operating within tight margins, you’ll need to work out what sort of return you’ll get on your investment. This will vary hugely depending on your products and how competitive your market is, and will dictate whether PLAs through Google Shopping is right for your business.
Ultimately, Google Shopping will only work for you if your website is up to scratch. Not sure if yours is?
If you’re planning to sell your products to multiple countries, and are looking to use Product Listing Ads (PLAs) to boost sales, you should first configure your site so that it’s ready to sell on Google shopping.
Google Shopping requires that you list your products for sale in the currency of the country you are targeting. Not only must you list them in this currency, the customer should be able to checkout and pay for shipping in that currency.
For ease, I like to setup a feed per country/currency in Adwords, allowing me to easily set and adjust prices per country. The separate feed per country also allows for better control over what products are available and will make it easier to ensure the correct fields are included according to that country’s specifications. To make product and currency segmentation easier when controlling bids, I suggest adding a custom tag field to each product that will then allow you to filter easily by that currency.
Want to know more? Why not let me help you get product listing ads to work for your e-commerce website with Google Shopping? I am Google Shopping and Adwords certified and in a fairly unique position to help you get the most out of this potentially lucrative channel.
Let’s face it, we’re all looking for ways to improve the quality and, vitally, the relevance of our leads using pay per click (PPC). An extremely effective way to do it is through re-marketing – re-targeting the people who have a proven interest in your website & its products or services.
(more…)
