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Its beyond doubt. Google is the leading search engine in the world, by far. Google indexes over 23 billion pages, against Yahoo’s 20 billion and Bing’s 17 billion. They command 89% of the market share in the UK. Google has transcended its own organisation and found its way into common use in the English language – ‘I’ll Google it.’ (more…)
With so many marketing channels driving traffic to your business, how are you supposed to know which one is responsible for pulling in customers? Was it that blog article you wrote six months ago, or the Facebook article you posted last week?
To help you analyse which channel is converting into sales, you need to use a multi channel attribution model.
Attribution models are frameworks that help you determine the value and conversion rate of each touch point in your marketing channel. These touch points are the points of engagement that provide information about your business to the consumer.
The six most popularly used multi channel attribution models are:
Using a multi channel attribution model can help you analyse the performance of your marketing channels, run tests and gather data to better optimise your conversion rates. Let’s take a look at each of the models in more detail.
With the first interaction model (also known as the first-click model), the first touch-point that the consumer interacts with is the one that receives all the credit for bringing in the customer. Any other touch-points that could have been interacted with before the purchase are ignored.
For example, if the customer finds your company through Twitter, this channel will get all the credit regardless of whether they viewed your paid ad two weeks later and visited your site.
Advantages:
Disadvantage:
When to use this model
If your industry has a short buying cycle or you need to bring in a large quantity of top-of-funnel customers.
Similar to the first interaction model, in the last interaction model (also known as the last-click model), the last touch-point that the customer interacted with is the one that receives all the credit for bringing in the lead. Any other touch-points that led up to the purchase are ignored. This point is often just before the conversion.
For example, the customer might have interacted with the company multiple times but the point that will be counted is the moment they go to your website directly and make a purchase. This model is often the default model used by platforms including Google Analytics.
Advantages:
Disadvantage:
When to use this model
The last interaction model is great if your industry has a short buying cycle and there aren’t many touch-points before your conversions. You can also benefit from this if you have a sales funnel that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.
With this model, the interaction that gets the credit is the last interaction before the direct search or the paid ad click. This helps to eliminate any direct traffic before the conversion.
Advantage:
Disadvantage:
When to use this model
If you want a model that’s similar to the last click model and has a lot of direct traffic links for you to analyse. It can be hard to determine how customers that enter via direct traffic knew about you to begin with.
Even Google Analytics and other platforms have trouble identifying the source of direct traffic. Traffic will sometimes be marked as direct if the platform is unable to pinpoint where the visitors came from.
With this model, you split the credit for the conversion equally between all the interactions and touch-points a customer has had with your business.
For example, if a customer bought a £200 digital course through a paid ad and you have 5 touch-points, each would get 20% credit and are valued at £40.
Advantage:
Disadvantages:
When to use this model
If you want a model that is simple and easy to explain to your clients, this will demonstrate the value of each channel.
This is similar to the linear attribution model as it spreads the value across multiple channels but instead focuses on when the touch-point occurred. The point closest to the time of purchase is more valuable than the point furthest away.
Advantage:
Disadvantage:
When to use this model
This model is best if your industry has a long sales cycle such as those with expensive B2B purchases.
This model splits the credit for a customer purchase between the first and last interaction. This has also given it the name “U shaped” attribution. With this model, 40% is given to each of these points and 20% is spread out between the rest.
Advantage:
Disadvantage:
When to use this model
If you want a focused model that still acknowledges the importance of all the touch-points in your marketing strategy.
Each of these multi channel attribution models can be used to determine the ROI for all of the marketing channels you have in place. It is worth noting that there is no “best” model. They all can be used in different circumstances and all come with their own benefits and drawbacks.
The most common difficulty in trying to decide which model to use is that they all have their own flaws, and many focus too much on a single point in the cycle. You will need to decide which point is the most important factor in your strategy and which touch-points you are willing to forgo the value of.
If you are looking to increase your conversion rates and maximise your revenue, it is important that you consider your multi channel attribution models and set your marketing channels up correctly.
As a digital consultancy with 15 years of marketing experience and a focus on conversion rate optimisation and paid ads, we have helped many companies achieve their goals and raise their revenue.
If you need help with setting up your marketing channels in a way that maximises your returns, get in contact with 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.
Do you feel like your Google listings are like islands in a sea of search results, promoting the same brand but existing separately?
When visitors search your company name, your Google+ page will appear in the Google organic search results. It’s also where you engage with your followers and target audience. Completely separate is your Google Local page, which contains reviews and appears on Google Maps searches. Historically, the two have existed in tandem, without any interaction – social content and follower growth plays no part in your local listing traffic, and vice versa.
It’s frustrating, I know.
Well, in this article, I’ll talk you through how you can merge your Google Local listing with your Google+ brand page, so they can coexist in a more symbiotic way, for better search rankings in the future.
1 in 3 searches on Google is local. Yes, 33% of searches on Google are related to location. That’s why every business should take their place in the Google+ directory of all businesses on the internet to maximise their visibility in search results.
Many business, though, are confused about where they need to be listed and how functions like Google Local and Google Maps relate to Google+. Some are frustrated, too, that they have to create separate but duplicate brand listings on Google Maps, Google Local and on Google Plus, without any interconnectedness between services.
Many brands have more than one G+ page, a local listing that shows in the SERPs next to the main search results, and a seperate G+ page that they setup, with the brand, followers and reviews, and custom URL.
But how can you get these two platforms working together?
Thankfully, Google have announced a new function that will take elements of your Google Local page and combine them into your Google+ brand page. By combining your Google services, you’ll benefit from the localisation of your local page, while maintaining the brand, reviews, followers and custom url of your Google+ page.
Put simply, you’ll benefit from far greater visibility. All reviews, maps and address information can be transferred from your local to your brand pages.
So how do you do it? Well, let me talk you through it. Here’s my step-by–step guide to merging your Google Local Listing with your brand Google+ page.
Step 1: Login to your Google+ account, select ‘Pages’ from the left-hand navigation , choose your Local page and click ‘Manage This Page.’
Step 2: Choose ‘Settings’ and scroll down to ‘Link A Different Page to This Location’. Choose your main Google+ brand page that you would like to connect to Google Maps. Wait for a message confirming that the two accounts are linked. Your Google+ brand page should now display a Verified Local Badge (tick mark) below its main icon.
That’s it…
I strongly recommend merging your Google Local listing with your brand Google+ page as soon as possible. It only takes a few minutes, and you’ll notice a major improvement in your online visibility. Still not sure why or how to link them up? Get in touch, today. I’m your outsourced digital director and will be happy to help.
