Most teams do not miss on effort. They miss on design. They try to make a finite query volume do infinite work, let broad match roam without constraints, optimize to shallow conversions that never become revenue, and send high‑intent clicks to pages that read like internal product briefs instead of buyer‑safe narratives. These same four mistakes still appear, and they now come with two failure modes created by AI search behavior and privacy enforcement. The guidance below preserves what still works from your old playbook, and it replaces what no longer serves a modern B2B motion.

Mistake 1: Trying to Scale What Will Not Scale

Search is capture, not creation. In focused B2B categories, query volume taps out quickly, and doubling spend often buys marginal clicks that do not match ACV, buying committee reality, or your revenue band. That ceiling feels even lower when teams replace firmographic logic with broader keywords and hope the system finds the right people, which is why CMOs in niche markets often conclude that “Google does not make sense” when the real issue is that demand creation never happened upstream.

How to fix it now. Keep search as your demand‑capture engine and create demand where you control audience and creative at scale. Demand Gen lets you choose channels across YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and the Google Display Network, which means you put creative in front of the exact audiences you want without letting spend spill across placements you do not value. Tier your TAM, warm Tier 1 and Tier 2 with narrative and proof, and plan your return paths into search so the lift is visible in branded and category queries rather than only in vanity reach that sales cannot convert.

Mistake 2: Running Broad Match Without Guardrails

The system will happily stretch a small keyword list into a very large reach footprint. Broad match can work when it is fed qualified conversion signals and fenced with negatives, yet using it naked still floods spend into irrelevant queries because close variants prefer reach unless you instruct otherwise. Phrase and exact remain the right default for bottom‑funnel capture while you test broad inside tightly controlled sandboxes that you can monitor and prune.

How to fix it now. Put three controls in place before you judge performance. Apply brand exclusions in Search and Performance Max so you do not cannibalize easy branded demand and mistake it for effective prospecting. Build account‑level negative lists and attach them globally so you stop playing whack‑a‑mole at the ad group level, then use Performance Max transparency and search‑term insights to refine themes with evidence rather than hunches. Treat expansion as a privilege that must earn its keep against SQLs, pipeline, and revenue, not as a default setting that looks efficient only because it leans on your brand.

Mistake 3: Optimizing to Shallow Conversions That Sales Does Not Want

If you tell Google to get page views, it will get you page views. If you tell it to get demo form fills, it will do that too, only now you often end up optimizing to the cheapest forms that never become pipeline. B2B math rewards teams who teach the system what a qualified opportunity looks like and who measure against the same milestones finance cares about, since that is the only way to align bidding logic with bookings rather than with proxies that create a credibility gap at the board table.

How to fix it now. Implement Offline Conversion Imports and upgrade to Enhanced Conversions for Leads so the platform can see which clicks became SQLs, opportunities, and closed‑won. Connect your CRM through Ads Data Manager, assign values to meaningful milestones, and bid to value rather than volume so the algorithm learns from pipeline instead of page events. When you optimize to what your CFO funds, CAC falls, forecast confidence improves, and the conversation about Google shifts from spend to return. Bonus if you also track what becomes closed-lost as a secondary conversion, this will inform overtime what is not resulting in qualified pipe.

Mistake 4: Treating the Post‑Click Experience Like an Afterthought

High‑intent clicks will not rescue a weak offer. Many teams still pour budget into keywords and then drop visitors on generic pages that neither qualify buyers nor resolve the risk questions that stop deals, which is exactly how “bad leads” show up downstream as a sales complaint when the root cause lives in marketing. In enterprise cycles, the landing experience is where you either accelerate the sale with proof and clarity or lose the meeting to a competitor with tighter narrative and an obvious next step.

How to fix it now. Align copy with buyer awareness and use Reason‑Why structure so evaluators understand who you help, how the mechanism works, and why it produces the outcome, then layer quantified proof that reduces perceived risk. Architect the page to move like a good sales call and test until you beat the control, because conversion delta lives in the words, the evidence, and the CTA rhythm more than in the color of a button. Give buyers a skip‑action path to a calendar when intent is clear, and reserve gated assets for research stages where the ask matches the value.

New Reality: Two Failure Modes You Cannot Ignore

Ignoring AI search surfaces. AI Overviews and conversational answer experiences change how people interact with results, and ads can appear above, below, or within those AI responses. If you only optimize for the classic results page, you will miss inventory that exists inside the answer itself, and you will misread shifts in impression share when users get what they need before they scroll. Your creative must read as a logical next action from an AI summary, and your measurement must account for assisted demand created by these experiences.

Breaking measurement in the EEA. If you advertise in Europe and deploy Consent Mode incorrectly, you quietly degrade remarketing and conversion modeling, which starves smart bidding and makes paid media look worse than it is. Several teams wrote off performance when the underlying problem was missing consent signals that blocked data use for measurement and personalization. The fix is plumbing and policy, not higher bids, which is why finance and marketing need to agree on compliance and data flow before they argue about budget.

Platform Reality Checks That Change How You Plan

Performance Max now provides useful transparency, including channel‑level performance and search‑term insights that expose where queries originate and how your themes behave. Use that visibility to refine negatives, confirm incrementality, and keep PMax as an additive prospecting or amplification layer rather than a black box. When you evaluate it against revenue‑aligned imports instead of shallow conversions, you can finally see whether it expands qualified reach or simply rides your brand.

Demand Gen has matured with explicit channel controls, which means your team can deliberately choose YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and GDN rather than accept ambiguous distribution. If you tested Discovery or early Demand Gen and walked away, revisit it with these controls because the placement mix and creative tooling now align with B2B buying behavior. Video Action campaigns have been consolidated into Demand Gen, which changes how and where your video runs, so align creative and bidding to the new campaign type rather than letting a migration guess your goals.

Auto‑applied recommendations can be helpful, yet treating them as set‑and‑forget in enterprise cycles is still a budget risk. Audit the Auto‑apply settings monthly and opt out of bundles that add broad match, rewrite assets, or change bids without review, since those changes can undo your qualification logic and pollute tests. Your team owns intent and incentive design, not the recommendations tab, and that ownership is how you protect CAC while you scale.

Your Fix List

• Wire revenue into bidding. Connect CRM, upgrade to Enhanced Conversions for Leads, import offline milestones, and bid to value so the algorithm learns from SQLs, pipeline, and revenue instead of page events. 
• Fence expansion before you scale. Apply brand exclusions in Search and PMax, maintain account‑level negative lists, and use PMax transparency to police search themes and channel performance. Expansion should serve revenue, not replace strategy. 
• Treat landing pages as quota‑bearing assets. Build pages that qualify buyers for sales, not merely to sales, and use Breakthrough‑style awareness mapping with Reason‑Why proof so each click has a clear, credible path to a meeting.
  

The Bottom Line

Google Ads is still the fastest path from intent to income in B2B, and the way you win has not changed in spirit. Constrain algorithmic drift with brand and negative controls, teach the system what revenue looks like through enhanced and offline conversions, build landing experiences that resolve risk and accelerate decisions, and meet buyers inside AI answers with copy that earns the next click. That is how you lower CAC, protect forecast integrity, and move the conversation from spend to return. When you measure and optimize the milestones finance funds, marketing gains the credibility to scale with confidence.

If you want an expert second set of eyes, our team will audit structure, guardrails, and measurement end to end. We will show you how to make Demand Gen and Performance Max additive rather than cannibalistic, how to convert search interest into booked revenue, and where to reclaim wasted spend in the first month. Request a Google Ads strategy call with our team and we will walk you through the quickest wins and the roadmap to durable efficiency.

The post 4 Common B2B Google Ads Mistakes and How to Fix Them appeared first on Directive CA.

As you start to design ad creative for your next online advertising campaign, one of the first things you’ll need to decide is how to size your ad banners. The Google display network supports a diverse range of banner sizes, which can sometimes tempt the uninitiated to simply pick whichever ones seem most convenient and forge ahead to create ads.

Unsurprisingly, this is usually a bad move.

The Google display ad sizes that you choose can and do have a huge impact on the overall success of your campaign. Even if you know how to create display ads, choosing the wrong sizes for your campaign could mean that all your hard work goes to waste.

Every digital marketing professional should be aware of the best performing and most common ad sizes supported by the Google display network. In this resource, we’ll highlight the most popular Google display ad sizes, explain the relationships between ad size and performance and supply you with a cheat-sheet of the top-performing display ad sizes on the Google network.

Why Google Display Ad Sizes Matter in 2025

Choosing the wrong size means wasted ad spend, low click-through rates, and unconvincing ROI issues no marketing team can afford. You might be missing valuable mobile traffic or losing to savvy competitors who know exactly which sizes work best.

Today, Responsive Display Ads (RDAs) are the default for many advertisers because Google uses machine learning to auto-fit assets to the best sizes and placements. However, Google display ad sizes still matter because:

1. Some Placements Still Prefer Specific Sizes

• Not every publisher or website uses fluid, flexible ad slots
• Some premium publishers monetize inventory using tried-and-true IAB sizes like 300×250 or 728×90.
• If your assets aren’t sized or designed to display well in these slots, you can lose out on impressions, even if you use RDAs.

2. Auction Competition & Cost Efficiency

• Google’s algorithm favors ads that fit more inventory and earn higher click-through rates. If you neglect top-performing sizes, your ads may appear less often or pay higher CPCs due to limited eligible inventory.
• RDAs are great for broad coverage but well-designed static ads can still outperform them when hyper-targeting premium placements.
• Knowing which sizes dominate the Display Network helps you prioritize creative assets that deliver the best ROI.

3. Brand Control & Creative Flexibility

• Some brands prefer to craft custom creative for specific placements like homepage takeovers, interstitials, or rich media which often require exact dimensions.
• Relying solely on RDAs means you have less precise control over how your ads appear in each slot.

What You Should Know about Display Ad Sizes

The available data continues to show that larger display ads outperform smaller ones in terms of both click-through rates and conversions. This isn’t surprising—bigger ads take up more screen space, demand more visual attention, and are harder to ignore. Marketers have long favored these formats for campaigns that prioritize performance, and the 2025 results reinforce that trend.

However, performance alone doesn’t guarantee results. Just because a larger format drives more clicks doesn’t mean it should be the only option in your media plan. In fact, relying too heavily on large ad sizes can limit your campaign’s reach. That’s because inventory availability within Google’s Display Network heavily favors medium and smaller placements. If you only serve oversized creative, you may see strong individual engagement but fail to reach enough people to scale outcomes.

Inventory availability matters just as much as ad performance. Google’s ecosystem is saturated with mid-sized and mobile-friendly ad slots that appear across thousands of websites and apps. These placements are essential for reach, especially in a mobile-first environment where screen real estate is limited and user behavior varies widely by device. With mobile usage now dominating internet traffic, advertisers must pay special attention to responsive design principles and mobile-friendly formats to ensure maximum reach and engagement. Without them, your ads may simply not show often enough to move the needle.

To strike the right balance, marketers need to blend large, high-performing formats with smaller, inventory-rich options. This approach ensures strong engagement without sacrificing scale or placement diversity. A smart creative mix—especially one that includes responsive assets designed for both desktop and mobile environments—will outperform single-size strategies every time.

Top 1o Most Popular Google Display Ad Sizes

Based on a comprehensive analysis of thousands of campaigns across multiple industries, these seven Google display ad sizes consistently deliver the best results in 2025. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) continues to recognize these dimensions as standard formats that maximize reach and engagement.

Like many forward-thinking marketing professionals, you can start with the top two sizes for brand awareness—300×250 and 728×90—and expand once you see the results.

728×90 – Leaderboard Banner

The leaderboard banner remains one of the most popular display ad formats today. According to a recent Google Ads benchmark report, this format achieves an average click‑through rate of 0.47%, which is significantly higher than many smaller formats. It’s commonly placed at the top of a webpage, making it one of the first things a visitor sees.

When implemented correctly on high-traffic pages, 728×90 leaderboards can deliver substantial brand exposure while maintaining reasonable CPM costs. This makes them particularly valuable for awareness-focused campaigns.

300×250 – Medium Rectangle

The inline rectangle, often called the “medium rectangle” is a top-performing ad dimension that consistently drives strong engagement metrics. According to Google Ad Manager, it appears on over 90% of display‑enabled websites, making it one of the most ubiquitous and effective placements. This format fits seamlessly within article content or at the end of blog posts, balancing visibility and user experience.

The 300×250 format works exceptionally well on both desktop and mobile interfaces, making it one of the most versatile options for cross-device campaigns. Its compact yet visible presence allows for creative messaging without disrupting user experience.

336×280 – Large Rectangle

The large rectangle is similar to the medium rectangle but offers more space for your message. The large rectangle offers more room for your message, allowing for compelling visuals and clearer call-to-action elements. It works well embedded within text content, blending seamlessly with articles while still capturing attention. It works well embedded within text content.

300×600 – Large Skyscraper (Half-Page Ad)

The large skyscraper, sometimes called the “half-page ad” delivers exceptional viewability metrics and is increasingly favored by brands seeking stronger visual impact. While CPMs for this format tend to be higher than smaller units, the engagement metrics often justify the investment for campaigns focused on brand awareness and visual storytelling.

160×600 – Wide Skyscraper

A staple of sidebar advertising, the wide skyscraper format offers vertical staying power that keeps your brand visible as users scroll through content. It’s more impactful than the older 120×600 and is recognized by Google as one of its top-performing ad sizes, thanks to its high inventory availability and strong placement along webpage sidebars. Ideal for brand awareness and retargeting, this format balances visibility with non-intrusiveness across desktop environments.

320×100 – Large Mobile Banner

This format offers more visual real estate than the mobile leaderboard, allowing for richer creative without dominating the screen. It’s ideal for campaigns that need balance with visibility plus engagement on fast-scrolling mobile feeds.

320×50 – Mobile Leaderboard

As the workhorse of mobile display, the 320×50 compact banner frequently anchors itself at the top or bottom of mobile sites and apps, delivering consistent brand messaging without distracting users. It commands roughly 12% of global mobile display impressions, reinforcing its ubiquity and effectiveness in mobile-first strategies. Advertisers value its high visibility (sticky placements included), and Google even ranks it among AdSense’s best-performing mobile units. That premium placement often leads to CTRs that can rival or outperform larger formats in mobile environments—supporting your point that smaller size doesn’t mean weaker engagement.

300×250 – Mobile‑Friendly Inline

The versatile 300×250 rectangle shines within mobile content, slotting neatly between paragraphs or at content breaks. It delivers enough space for eye-catching visuals and text without disrupting the reading experience. According to ClickPatrol, this format consistently ranks among the highest CTR performers, thanks to its natural blend into content flow—making it a reliable format for campaigns focused on product visuals and text detail.

250×250 & 200×200 – Square / Small Square

Combined square formats offer flexible placement, especially in sidebars or grid-style layouts. The 250×250 provides slightly more creative canvas than the 200×200, enabling more detailed messaging while ensuring your ads don’t get lost in the analytics shuffle or overlooked by users.

970×90 – Large Leaderboard 

A premium take on the classic leaderboard format, the 970×90 offers expansive header real estate, which is ideal for high-end branding where visual storytelling matters. Though not as widespread as the standard 728×90, its adoption across major publishers has surged in 2025, giving marketers access to highly engaged audiences through standout placements.

Top 4 Best Performing Display Ad Sizes on Google

The great people of Google have done us a service by publishing the top-performing ad sizes across the Google Display Network. All of the display ad sizes in this list were among the most common except for the 320 x 100 large mobile banner which occupies the fifth position and is only served on mobile devices.

According to Google, the best performing display ad sizes are:

1. 300×250 – Medium Rectangle
2. 336×280 – Large Rectangle
3. 728×90 – Leaderboard
4. 160×600 – Wide Skyscraper

How Much Do Different Ad Sizes Cost to Run?

Marketers frequently wonder if ad size affects cost. While base CPMs across platforms remain roughly consistent, larger or premium formats often drive higher CPM bids due to elevated demand and limited inventory. For instance, the 300×600 Half‑Page unit, rare and high-impact, typically commands a significantly higher CPM than more common sizes like 300×250 or 728×90. Competition for premium placements has intensified in 2025, with advertisers increasingly willing to pay more for formats that deliver measurable brand lift and engagement. As campaign ROI comes under scrutiny, understanding these format-based pricing dynamics helps justify spend, set realistic CPM expectations, and ensure higher-cost formats align with performance goals.

Going Responsive: HTML5 & Dynamic Ads

Responsive HTML5 ads intelligently adjust layout and appearance to seamlessly fit a variety of dimensions and devices, eliminating the need to create multiple static versions for the same campaign. This adaptive flexibility ensures your ads render optimally across the vast inventory of the Google Display Network—covering desktop, mobile, and tablet placements. Technical teams should define clear viewports and breakpoints within each ad to prevent distortion or illegibility when scaling. Best practices include using a minimum font size of around 14 px for readability and maintaining strong contrast between text and background to ensure clarity across all devices. Beyond simplified creative operations, responsive HTML5 formats deliver strategic advantages: increased reach, improved viewability, and greater efficiency.

Summary

To optimize your next PPC display campaign, it’s important that you choose the top-performing ad sizes with ad placements that are most likely to generate impressions and conversions for your campaign. You’ll need to choose a variety of sizes and include both text and image ads for desktop and mobile devices. Test multiple sizes when possible, and closely monitor performance metrics to optimize based on your specific audience response.

We hope this information about Google display ad sizes helps you design high-performing creative for your future advertising endeavors. If you want to make sure that your revenue goals are met with an optimal marketing mix, let’s get on a call.

The post Top 10 Most Popular Google Display Ad Sizes in 2025 appeared first on Directive CA.

Privacy changes from more and more restrictions on user data collection and the use of personal data means the quality of your first-party customer data is going to be key to your tech company’s future marketing success.

Tracking identifiers like third-party cookies, device IDs, and UTMs will gradually disappear thanks to the latest series of user privacy updates (I’m looking at you iOs17).

This is where Enhanced Conversions comes in.

What are Google Ads’ “Enhanced Conversions”?

Enhanced conversions are Google’s answer to third-party data depreciation and the need for better first-party customer data. The feature enhances the accuracy of conversion data while still meeting consumer privacy regulations.

Google uses a patent method SHA-256 (Secure HAsh Algorithm 256 bit) to encrypt customer data uploaded into its ads platform and assigns code numbers to those data fragments that can’t be reverted back.

This means that the solution operates optimally when Google can correlate the uploaded customer information within their existing accounts, which would require the users to be logged into Google.

This also means that there is a level of data modeling that happens when the observable data gathered through first-party conversion data uploads can’t be matched. Google leverages the behavior of observed groups to predict the behavior of unobserved groups, all without identifying specific individuals.

The Benefits of Enhanced Conversions

Enhanced Conversions need to be implemented sooner rather than later. Failing to do so will leave advertisers’ ad accounts with no conversions recording, zero attribution, and operating budgets in the dark.

By implementing Enhanced Conversions, you’ll see:

1. Increases in your conversion observability by recovering lost conversions and observing the net new conversions through first-party conversion data.
2. Better modeling and overall conversion reporting since improved observability will allow Google’s conversion modeling to be more accurate, aka higher data accuracy.
3. Improvement in bidding and attribution since better data is being ingested by bidding models such as tROAS/ tCPA and attribution models (DDA).
4. Improvement in performance with higher ROAS, better CVR, lower CPA, and statistically significant outcomes in incrementality studies.

But I Have OCT, What Makes Enhanced Conversions Implementation More Efficient?

Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT) is NOT a complete solution for Enhanced Conversions. While OCT does help improve observable data and align CRM performance by using GCLID (Google Click ID), it also requires us to modify lead forms or CRMs to store GCLID.

The enhanced conversions for leads solution takes away the need to do this modification and utilizes the first-party data provided to measure sales and transactions that happen off the client site.

This solution will be more compatible with new features that would come out in reaction to more privacy laws or restrictions.

How Enhanced Conversions Google Ads Work

There are two layers for Enhanced Conversions:

Enhanced Conversions for Web

• Sends hashed first-party data from your website when a user converts through form fills, purchases, etc. The data is used to match the customers to Google accounts that were signed-in when they clicked the ad.
• Doesn’t require any upload of data.
• Can increase reported conversions that were missed due to browser restrictions on cookies and improve the measurable conversions.
• Adopted accounts have experienced a 5% increase in their conversion rates for Search and a 17% increase in conversion rate forYouTubee.

Enhanced Conversions for Leads

• Works with offline conversion data such as qualified leads or converted leads from CRM.
• Allows you to use hash, first-party data from your website lead forms for offline lead measurement. When these leads are uploaded, the provided hashed information is used to attribute those back to your Google Ads campaigns.
• Doesn’t require you to modify the lead forms or CRM systems to receive a Google Click ID ( GCLID).
• Should be set up with scheduled uploads at a regular cadence with Google Sheets (eventually there will be API integrations with Salesforce or Zapier).

Preparing for Enhanced Conversions Setup

The Three Prerequisites of EC for Web:

• Sitewide tagging
• Google Ads or SA 360 as a conversion source
• Customer data submitted on page

The Three Prerequisites of EC for Leads:

• Sitewide tagging
• Auto-tagging enabled Google Ad account
• Customer data submitted on page

How to Implement Enhanced Conversions

Step By Step Guide on How to Implement Enhanced Conversions for Web

Enhanced conversions for web can be set up in three different ways – through Google Tag Manager (GTM), the Google Tag, or Google Ads API. Since most are set up with GTM, we’ll show you how to do that one specifically:

Click on “Tools & Settings” in your Google Ads account.

Click on “Conversions”

Click on “Settings”

Expand the “Enhanced conversions” panel

Check on “Turn on enhanced conversions”

Select “Google Tag Manager”

Click “Go to Google Tag Manager”

Completing enhanced conversions for web can be set up in three different ways – automatic collection, code, or manual configuration. This is how to do it by code.

Grab your website developer to help you complete this! Before you start you’ll want to make sure the variables you need like email address, address, and phone number are available on the conversion page where the Google Ads conversion tag fires:

Afterwards, click “Workspace”, and then click on “Tags”.

Click on the Google Ads conversion tracking tag you want to implement enhanced conversions with.

Next, click the pencil icon next to “Tag Configuration”.

Check off “Include user-provided data from your website”.

Click the dropdown of “Select user-provided data variable”, then select “New Variable”.

This will open a New Variable. Under “Type” select the “Code” button at the bottom of the list.

Under Data Source, select “New Variable”. A new variable toggle will open up.

Click the pencil icon in the “Variable Configuration” and select Custom Javascript.

Enter the following code into the custom Javascript variable:

function () 
return 
{ "email": yourEmailVariable , // replace yourEmailVariable 
with variable name that captures your user’s email "phone_number": 
yourPhoneVariable , // repeat for yourPhoneVariable 
and following variable names below "address": 
{"first_name": yourFirstNameVariable , "last_name": 
yourLastNameVariable , "street": yourStreetAddressVariable , 
"city": yourCityVariable , "region": yourRegionVariable , 
"postal_code": yourPostalCodeVariable , "country": yourCountryVariable 
}} 
}

For each type of customer data in the code above, replace the placeholder variables (for example, yourEmailVariable) with the name of the global javascript variable containing that piece of customer data on your conversion page.

1. First name, last name, postal code, and country are all required. At least one of the following fields must be provided:
   • Email Address (preferred)
   • Address
   • A phone number can also be provided as a standalone match key but is recommended to be sent along with an email address.
2. Click Save on your two variables and your tag.

Step By Step Guide on How to Implement Enhanced Conversions for Lead:

Completing enhanced conversions for leads can be set up in two different ways – Google Tag Manager or Google Tag. This is how to do it by Google Tag Manager.   Grab your website developer to help you complete this! Before you start, you’ll need to identify your website lead forms and pick a field from the form that uniquely identifies your leads. At least one of the following variables must be used when you configure enhanced conversions for leads on your website and when you later import the conversions:

• Email Address (preferred)
• A phone number

Click “New conversion action” in the “Conversions” section.

Select “Import”.

Select “Other data sources or CRMs” and “Track conversions from clicks”, then click “Continue”.

Fill out the conversion action information (goal and action optimization, conversion name, value, count, click-through conversion window, attribution and click “Create and continue” and then Finish.

Go to “Settings” and click on “Enhanced Conversions for leads”.

Select “Turn on enhanced conversions for leads and select Google Tag Manager in the drop down.

Click “Go to Google Tag Manager”.

You’ll need to make sure you have read and accepted the customer data terms which will only show for the manager account.

Select View Terms next to “Customer data terms” and read the “Policies and Additional Terms for Customer Data”.

Click the checkbox beside “I have read and accept the terms on behalf of my company”.

Click Agree. Your status will appear as “Accepted”.

Next you’ll need to adjust the Google tag: Go to “Tools & Settings” and click “Google Tag” under “Set Up”.

Click “Manage automatic event detection” and turn on the “Form interactions” toggle.

Close the menu.

Open Google Tag Manager” and click “Tags” and then “New”.

Click the pencil icon for “Tag Configuration” and select Conversion Linker.

Click the pencil icon next to “Triggering”. In most cases, you should use a trigger that fires on all page views, or on specific page views where site visitors will land after an ad is clicked.

Save and publish your tag configuration.

Repeat the steps to set up the tag and variable logic that were done in web!

How to Validate Your Implementation for Enhanced Conversions

Validate your implementation using Chrome Developer Tools for Enhanced Conversions for Web

1. Right-click on your web page and select “Inspect”.
2. Select “Network on the right-hand side.
3. Enter “Google” in the search bar.
4. Find the network request that’s going to “googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion/” (or “google.com/pagead/1p-conversion/” on some browsers).
5. Click Payload to view the list of query string parameters.
6. Look for a parameter “em” with a hashed string as the value. The value should start with “tv.1~em” followed by a long string of characters. If you see the “em” parameter, this means that the enhanced conversions tag is picking up and hashing the enhanced_conversion_data object.

Validate your tag setup using Preview mode for Enhanced Conversions for Leads

1. In your Tag Manager workspace, click the Preview button at the top. A new tab opens with Tag Assistant.
2. Enter your website’s URL in Tag Assistant. Tag Assistant opens your website and the Tag Assistant summary. Keep both tabs open.
3. On your website, fill out your form.
4. Check the “Tag Assistant” summary. Your Google Ads User-Provided Data Event tag should be listed under the “Tags Fired” section in the summary.
5. If your tag is listed under “Tags Not Fired”, you need to adjust the tag’s trigger settings.
6. Click on the tag to see which values were passed to the tag. Check if your input was received. If the tag did not receive any input:
   • Verify your implementation method
7. If another tag fires before the Google Ads User-Provided Data Event tag, edit the “Form Submission” trigger. Set the “Wait for Tags” option.

Best Practices and Tips

Grab your developer

If you aren’t good with code or JavaScript, it’s best to bring your web developer to add in the appropriate javascript you need with the variables just to ensure all the information is captured correctly!

When in doubt, talk to Google

Google has a team of implementation specialists who will work with advertisers on the spot to whip up the script, help you navigate adding the script to your site, and testing things to make sure it’s all working how it should. Reach out to your rep to get a call scheduled with them.

Test it out

Don’t just set it up and assume it’s working. Test it to validate your hard work.

Now, go set up enhanced conversions!

Now that you know the why and how to set up enhanced conversions, you won’t have to worry about the accuracy of your conversion measurement dropping off. Ready to take the next step? As PPC Consultants for SaaS, we take your campaigns to the next level. Book a discovery call and position your company at the forefront of your industry.

The post How to Setup Google Ads Enhanced Conversions appeared first on Directive CA.

Like with any campaign, what you are saying, and to whom, is extremely important, otherwise you can completely miss the mark.

In addition to those key factors, below are some things to pay attention to in order to get the most out of this ad format.  

Open Rate

What it is

Total opens divided by total sends.

This metric is somewhat vanity/flimsy, as it is often on the higher end due to people wanting to clear the red notification from their inbox. There are however ways to try and improve.

Why this metric is important

Sends are incredibly valuable and the first step in the process. Remember, prospects can only receive ONE piece of inMail every 30 days, from ANY sender. If a competitor beats us in the auction, we have to wait a minimum of 30 days to reach the prospect.

Given how hard it is to reach our target market, we want to make sure we’re at least getting a chance to start a conversation. Messages that never get opened are a huge missed opportunity.

Levers to Pull to Improve  

• Sender: The user’s profile picture is one of the first things they’ll see in their inbox. Test out different senders here. You can also try having the sender input their job title in their name to increase relevance to your target audience.

• Opening Headline: Your opening line is actually visible in the message preview in a receiver’s inbox. Increase relevance through using dynamically inserted properties (such as %FIRSTNAME% or %COMPANYNAME%) or even tease an incentive you are offering so not only are they inclined to open the message, but interact with it to learn more:

Click to Open Rate

What it is:

Percentage of people who clicked after opening your InMail (sponsored messaging clicks divided by opens).

Why this metric is important

Despite LinkedIn reporting CTR for Sponsored Messaging as “opens/sends”, this metric is actually more representative of a true CTR.

This metric actually measures users who engage with your ads. Again, a lot of users will simply open up the message to get rid of the notification, but this metric actually lends insight into what percentage of people are interacting with our messages.

The main goal is to get people to click through our convo ads and open our lead forms. This metric measures that interaction.

Levers to Pull to Improve  

• Audience: How are you targeting your users? Is your entire total addressable market (TAM) grouped into a single campaign? You can likely improve relevance through segmented, single persona campaigns. What targeting options are you using? (if you’re not using job titles, you’re likely getting a ton of traffic that’s only mildly relevant.)

• Messaging: You are in front of these prospects and have their attention; what are you saying? If your messaging is identical across multiple targets, you’re missing a golden opportunity. Chances are the Chief Information Security Officer has very different needs than an Information Risk Manager: they should be in separate campaigns and they should be getting different messages.

• Look up your segment’s general job description online. Craft your messaging to position your client in a way that helps them meet their needs and goals.

• If you have industry segments, talk specifically about other companies within the same industry and results your client was able to drive for them.
• Sell them on that next step. While an incentive helps nudge them into agreeing to give us their information, we still need to do a good job of getting them pumped for what’s next, like a demo/meeting. What are they going to learn? Other than the incentive, why should someone take time out of their day to meet with you?

• A potential prospect would have to do their due-diligence and make sure they hear these new strategies. Whether they go through with Directive or not, they gain more from the meeting than the level of effort required to attend.

• Test imagery: Convo ads are fast becoming a popular ad format. One way to make your message stand out and drive engagement is testing the use of imagery. You can utilize an image as a banner to the right of the message, or within the message itself

Conversion Rate

What it is

There are actually 2 ways to look at this one:

• Leads/Lead form opens

• Or, manually calculate Leads/Sponsored messaging clicks

The former only takes into account people who have opened the lead gen form, while the latter takes into account anyone who has interacted with your Convo Ad. The latter provides a much more realistic story, as someone could click through a few buttons in our convo ads, never open the form, and therefore would not be reflected in the LinkedIn provided “lead form completion rate”; not a super realistic picture.

Why this metric is important

Just like on a landing page, this measures how well we are providing the user with relevant messaging and a desirable next step.

Levers to Pull to Improve  

• Using an incentive: Think of trade shows: very crowded, tons of booths, and all the vendors want people showing up to theirs. How do they do it? Free SWAG. The incentive is your chance to break through the noise and get your foot in the door to start these meaningful conversations. People are more likely to give you their time if they feel they are getting something valuable in return. Not convinced? Here is a look at a client who was hesitant, and wanted to run a side by side A/B test on with versus without offering a gift card (GC).

• Even with the incentive costs, it’s still cheaper to convert users this way, and much more scalable for volume.
• Here is a look at varying levels of incentive from Directive’s data

• Not shown here is volume. Keep in mind that if CPL does go up, but you are actually able to scale % of volume further and drive more leads, that is a win considering the finite amount of users in our audiences and the tough 30-day reach rule for all advertisers on the platform.
• The messaging: This point is very similar to the one above in the Click to Open Rate section. Conversion rates will naturally increase if you are crafting a specific message to a specific segment of your TAM, and selling them on the benefits of the meeting. Not just something general like “Take a Demo and Get a Gift Card” but like the Directive example around “learning new strategies you had no idea were possible”.
• The lead form: just like on a landing page, the language you use on your forms can make a huge difference.
• Test out different language here
• Restate the value of the meeting and what they’ll gain from it
• Touch on the incentive

What To Test (Messaging Prioritization Framework)

So you got this far – or skipped this far – and need a quick summary. That’s fine by us – TLDR doesn’t offend a fellow busy marketer. You can review the list below for some quick take aways on what to test:

• Subject Line – This is the first element of the ad someone sees
• Offer – There’s a clear correlation between a higher gift card getting more responses. When you are trying to reach decision makers and executives, think about how much they earn and how busy their day is. Will a $50 gift card be enough to get a 30 minute meeting with a CMO? Probably not.
• Initial message – Naturally, the higher up you test messaging the more it will be seen (think above the fold tests with landing pages)
• Body – Here you can test leading with problems vs outcomes for example
• CTA Buttons

The post How to Optimize Convo Ads appeared first on Directive CA.

For example, say you are bidding on “cybersecurity software” terms. With a $25 eCPC bid, you are telling Google that you are willing to spend up to $25 for that ad click regardless of who is searching that term. That could include a chief security officer for an enterprise company or it could be a college student that just got a new laptop. By utilizing smart bidding, Google will see the nature of who is searching compared to the kinds of people that lead to conversions in your funnel and create bespoke bids for each auction based on that information.

Here are 4 crucial tips on how to make Google Smart Bidding systems work for your SaaS business.

Tip 1: Good Conversions In = Good Conversions Out

The first principle of using an automated bid strategy with a conversion-based target (CPA or ROAS) is good conversions in = good conversions out. Smart Bidding works by seeing which searchers lead to “primary” conversion actions set in Google Ads (and which ones don’t) and then curates bids based on that information moving forward.

You must find the balance between giving Google the highest-quality conversions to optimize toward and conversion volume. In a B2B/Saas environment, this means providing Google with the conversions closest to providing real business value. You also want to make sure each bid strategy (at the campaign-level or bid strategy level) is receiving at least 30 conversions per month to give ample data for learning and effective bidding.

This principle relies heavily on offline conversion tracking (OCT) to show Google which conversions are providing business value. Google tags don’t work throughout the lead process, so it is crucial to set up OCT conversions in Google by connecting your CRM and creating conversion actions for the most valuable stages in the lead process.

In the visual below, we want to give Google conversions as close to the center of the target that are also over 30/month for a given campaign. If we only gave Google closed-won conversions, Google only has two data points to optimize off of per week. This doesn’t allow the system to learn which kinds of searchers are most likely to enter the sales pipeline; there are likely many other people out there that are likely to convert and don’t look like anything like those two deals Google sees in a week. The appropriate conversion type to send to Google for bidding optimization is MQLs in this case, since that is the conversion stage closest to realized revenue that also has ample volume for learning. Note that OCT is necessary to pipe in closed won deals, SQLs, and MQLs, while demo requests can simply be counted through a conversion tag.

Tip 2: Introduce Google To Your Clients

Google uses a variety of auction-time signals to inform bidding decisions, most of which aren’t able to be influenced by marketers (i.e. time of day, device, etc.). One signal that can be supplied by marketers are the audiences one gives the system, specifically lookalike audiences from customer match lists. Google doesn’t have insight into the kinds of people your clients are until you introduce it to them. By applying lookalike audiences, you are telling Google “these are the kinds of people that use our software. Go find more of those within the efficiency targets and budget we give you.”

Note that Google will not take these lists and automatically bid up or down on them, but rather use that searcher’s audience membership as a bidding signal to inform its bid. If a searcher belongs to a lookalike audience based on current clients that has converted well in the past, it knows they are likely a valuable searcher and will raise the bid to get better ad positioning. 

Tip 2: Make Smart Efficiency Targets

So, you’ve created the right audiences and honed in on your conversions. The next step is to determine your efficiency target you want to have for the system. This must be made considering the lead stage you are sending as a conversion to Google, not necessarily closed won conversions. For example, by providing a max conversions bid strategy that is seeing MQLs as a conversion with a target CPA of $200, you are telling Google to target spending $200/MQL. 

To find which target to set your bid strategy to, consider the closed won revenue gained from Google-generated leads over a significant amount of time (at least a quarter, ideally one year). Divide that amount by the total number of leads at the stage you are giving to Google as a conversion. 

Using the example above, if I saw $780K in closed won revenue from 1,300 MQLs throughout the past year, that provides me an MQL value of $600 per MQL. In this case, a $200 target CPA setting would average out to a $3 ROAS.

Tip 3: Set Up Your Campaigns For Success

The easiest way to manage smart bidding strategies is at the campaign level. This typically allows for a large enough traffic base to have ample conversion volume while still being able to have granularity of bidding control for specific types of search traffic. Based on this, it’s best to structure your campaigns by funnel stage, region, and/or product offerings for quick and easy adjustments to bidding based on historical performance or business factors. 

Say there are marketing budget cuts that require you to scale back on middle-of-funnel traffic. If your campaign structure is such that MOFU keywords are all together, you could scale back budgets while also targeting a lower CPA, which will allow you to show for middle-of-funnel search terms for only searchers that have the highest likelihood of converting later on down the funnel. In this situation, budget cuts don’t necessarily lead to killing the lead pipeline.

Tip 4: Ride The Faders

The two main levers for managing Smart Bidding strategies are budgets and target settings, both of which must be seen as rudders on a ship. The most effective way to use a rudder is to make small changes over time, rather than knee-jerking every time you see you are going off course. Smart Bidding strategies use the target efficiency settings as a way of grading itself, if you change it too drastically or frequently it won’t be able to find a steady state of performance.

Two rules of thumb for managing these strategies are 1) avoid making individual target changes greater than 30% the current value, and 2) avoid more than 2 target changes per week. These are dependent on the number of conversions you have flowing from these campaigns (the more conversions = quicker learnings with new settings), but the principle still stands.

Another thing to keep in mind is that bid strategies will rarely hit efficiency targets on a consistent basis, especially in the B2B/SaaS space. Lead flow can be sporadic and behavior will often differ from what Google has seen in the past. To hit the “true north” efficiency for a given campaign, utilize the target efficiency settings to alter bids and move closer to your true target. 

For example, say my true north target for a campaign is a $200 CPA, but performance for the past few weeks has been closer to $300. Google will eventually start bidding lower and move toward that efficiency, but it could take a while to do so. By updating the target to $170 from $200, I am telling Google to re-evaluate its past performance against a more efficient target and it will take more dramatic (and necessary) steps to achieve a lower CPA.

With a little bit of calculation and configuring on the front end, enabling Google’s Smart Bidding in your B2B/SaaS campaigns can save you immense amounts of time and wasted money in the long run by actively working for the highest-quality leads and updating bids for you in a constantly changing bid landscape.

The post 4 Crucial Tips for Using Google’s Smart Bidding in SaaS Marketing appeared first on Directive CA.

Google Tag Manager allows non-coders to track code, control complex rules, add heat map trackers, and many more. 

Before Google Tag Manager, you had to do all of that by hard-coding the pixel in your website, but today you only need to insert the pixel on your website and that’s pretty much it.

But there’s more to the Google Tag Manager (GMT) than meets the eye and this article will explore that in detail. 

We will explain how GTM works, how it’s different from Google Analytics, its benefits, and why SaaS companies should integrate GTM into their analytics. 

But first, let’s go over what Google Tag Manager is. 

What’s Google Tag Manager 

Google Tag Manager or GTM is a tracking tool that you can use for free. It’s also a management platform that allows its users to add marketing tags, triggers, and variables to their website in order to track and collect valuable customer data. 

The users of GTM can easily implement the tags on their websites, without the need to modify the code on their website. This makes Google Tag Manager an extremely useful tool, especially when combined with Google Analytics. 

Marketers, media professionals, and SEO experts have one of the biggest uses for GTM since they gain so much insight from the data they collect from their websites. And since Google Tag Manager doesn’t require coding skills, they can autonomously implement GTM on their website without waiting for their software developers to help them out. 

One more great thing about Google Tag Manager is that it codes the tag for you— the code you receive that you need to insert on your website is automatically coded by GTM. This prevents quite a lot of human error and speeds up the entire process.  

These tags allow marketers to use one of their favorite functions such as:

• Ad tags. Ad tags or advertising tags allow marketers to place digital ads by communicating between websites, ad serves, and other platforms. 

• Retargeting. Retargeting tags allow marketers to track the visitors of their website to, later on, target them with ads for the site they have visited. According to Invesp, the average click-through rate of a retargeting ad is 10X higher than the regular display ad. 

How does Google Tag Manager work

When you install the Tag Manager on your website, the website will gain the function to communicate with Google Tag Manager servers. You then use the Tag Manager’s interface to set up the tags, triggers, and variables so when a specific action occurs on your website, the tag sends the signal to the server. 

Since all of your tags, variables, and triggers are saved under one container tag on Google, you can easily integrate them even into your mobile apps and on other websites as well. 

There are three terms to get yourself familiar with. They are: 

• Tags. Tags are code snippets that are used to send information to do a certain action on the webpage. The tag tells Google Tag Manager what needs to be done and how to do it. 

• Triggers. Triggers will tell you if a tag is active and functioning properly or if it’s malfunctioning. A trigger activates a tag to appear and triggers can come in different forms on the websites such as user scrolls, clicks, heatmaps, etc. 

• Variables. Variables are the information that’s used to properly operate tags and triggers. When GTM is trying to figure out if there’s a right condition for a trigger and tag, the value that will tell them that is a variable. You can use variables if you want to track certain actions like clicks on the URL. 

Google Tag Manager vs. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free analytics tool (also made by Google) that will help you analyze the traffic that your website is pulling from all sources on the internet. The platform provides in-depth measurements that can be extremely useful when creating marketing campaigns. 

Google Analytics is the hub for data while Google Tag Manager is the transmission unit.

GTM is in charge of which information is being sent to Google Analytics, while Google Analytics stores that information and allows you to gather insights from it. GTM stores and deploys tags, but it can’t be used to analyze reports of that data— for that, you need Google Analytics, which is why the data goes there (automatically).  

So you should use Google Tag Manager alongside Google Analytics to get the necessary data that you can turn into insights. As a SaaS company, it’s essential to have both GTM and Google Analytics to track your website’s traffic and create campaigns that would improve your business. 

The benefits of using Google Tag Manager for SEO and Paid Media

There are multiple benefits of using Google Tag Manager for a SaaS business. Here are the most impactful ones: 

Fast deployment of tracking codes

The old way of tracking codes was way more complicated than using Google Tag Manager. 

Before, the process looked something like this: 

• Marketer figures out that they need to track user behavior on their platform
• The marketer gets the code and sends it to a software developer
• The developer puts that on a “to-do-later” pile of tasks 
• You wait (optimistically) weeks for the code to get implemented on the platform

With Google Tag Manager, you yourself become that developer with the capabilities to implement the tag (code) immediately. Google Tag Manager made this process easy, fast, and available to everyone without learning how to code. 

All tags are in one place

Before GTM, all of the code snippets were written directly in JavaScript, but they were scattered all over the website’s source code. So updating the code was a nightmare since the developer had to find all the codes and then update them…manually. 

But when you use Google Tag Manager, you get all codes in the same place (one container). So making any changes and updates on the single tag applies it to all the other tags (integration). 

Built-in testing tools

Google Tag Manager will let you know when a code is broken or malfunctioning. And it’s way easier to do any kind of correcting or troubleshooting since all the tags are in the same place. 

On top of that, if there’s a malfunction, the system will let you know where the error is. Also, you can pre-test the tags to see if they work before they’re live on your website. 

Recycled container templates

Another benefit of the GTM is that you can export all of your tags, triggers, and variables into a single file. With this, you can create your own tracking codes and settings since you can import the tags, triggers, and variables to any website you want (that you have access to). 

This is a must-have feature for any marketing agency that will have to work with multiple clients on setting up their goals in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager options. 

Simple event tracking

Before GTM, you had to use a custom JavaScript code to track events like form submission and clicks. But GTM changed that by implementing auto-event tracking— a feature that enables Google Tag Manager to automatically look out for particular website interactions. 

There’s a small setup required for it, but it’s relatively easy, especially when you take into account what the auto-event tracking can measure: 

• Clicks
• Link clicks
• Time on page
• Form submissions (like subscriptions)

It’s free

Google Tag Manager is a free tool and just like Google Analytics, you can use it without any payments. However, Google offers a premium service that you would need to pay for— Google Analytics 360 Suite. 

But for most users, the free version is just enough.  

Built-in tag templates

Google Tag Manager has many built-in tags that you can use for Google Ads conversions, remarketing, and many more options. 

Currently, there are over 100 of these templates available to you.

Custom templates

Back in 2019, the team at Google Tag Manager released a feature called Custom Templates. It helps users create templates on their own (like a Facebook pixel). On top of this, Google added a library of custom templates that were uploaded by other users so you can use templates created by other marketers or add your own template. 

Versions

The great thing about the container in Google Tag Manager is that when you make a change in your tags, triggers, or variables, it saves the previous versions on their server. So anytime you want to backtrack and find the older version of your tags, it’s still there in GTM. 

So if you make a mistake with your new tags, triggers, or variables, you can also go back to your previous version and solve the problem.

Workspaces and environments

Workspaces and environments are a must-have feature for any company doing projects that last for months, agencies that are working with external vendors, or simply teams that make quite a lot of changes to their website.

The environments feature enables you to control your tag manager across live websites or applications. With this, you can publish your tags to different environments so you don’t make a mistake on the live version of the website. 

The workspace feature enables you to work with other teams in the same Google Tag Manager container without overwriting. Only when the job is done are the versions connected into one, final version. 

Security

You’re safe with Google Tag Manager— Google scans all the scripts and immediately stops them if they match a malware domain, IP address, or URL.  On top of that, you can revoke access to your GTM accounts any time you want so you have security options. 

An additional feature that GTM allows is whitelisting and blacklisting commands which adds another layer of protection and security to your SaaS website.

User permissions

Google Tag Manager provides you the option to give access to multiple people to your GTM account. But you don’t need to give them all the same rights— there are viewing, editing, and publishing privileges so you can choose who will have which clearance level.  

This is essential if you’re working with external vendors or for an agency working with multiple clients and has to give them rights to view, but not the ones to edit or publish. 

There are six levels of clearance in your GTM: 

• No Access
• Read
• Edit
• Publish
• Approve
• Publish

No real competition 

Google Tag Manager has no real competition. When it comes to a tool that provides the features, benefits, and options, Google Tag Manager reigns supreme. 

There are some tools that are trying to compete with the GTM, but their biggest differentiating factor is the support service (support system) that they provide to their clients. 

Tools like Amplitude Analytics, Heap, Mixpanels, and Pendo are all Google Tag Manager alternatives that are still not providing the plethora of features that GTM has. 

Conclusion

Having Google Tag Manager along with Google Analytics will help your SaaS business create reports from your traffic data. It’s not always easy to use this data to improve your business processes and grow. 

So if you’re having struggles with turning your traffic into sales-qualified leads for your SaaS business, you should book an intro call with one of our agents. 

The post Top Google Tag Manager Benefits for SaaS SEO and Paid Media appeared first on Directive CA.

Excellent search ad copy can make the difference between an impression and a click, but the space limitations associated with display and text ads can make it challenging to convey a meaningful message to your target audience. This is why skilled ad copywriters are among the most valued marketing professionals in the business.

As you learn how to create ad copy, you’ll be challenged to deliver a high-impact, targeted message that inspires action in as few words as possible. You’ll also discover that writing captivating ads for your target audience can be a lot of fun once you figure out the process.

To help you get there, we’ve created this short guide to help you get started on writing ad copy for your digital marketing campaigns. We’ll explain what Search Ad Copy is, why it’s important and share our 7 best tips to improve your Ad Copy based on best practices.

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What is Search Ad Copy?

Search Ad Copy is a special name for the text that digital marketers use in search or display advertising campaigns.

Image: Ad Copy Examples from Ads in the Google Search Network

The goal of an advertisement is almost always to encourage the audience to click on the ad. As a result, ad copy needs to effectively communicate the value of your product, service or offer in a way that captures the attention of target audiences and persuades them to click through to your landing page.

Poor ad copy typically translates into a low-quality score, poor bidding performance, low impressions and a poor CTR to boot, so it’s important that digital marketers take the time to write amazing ad copy and test it thoroughly to make sure it appeals to the target audience.

7 Tips to Improve Your Ad Copy

Understand Space Limitations

When writing search ad copy, digital marketers will always have to work within space limitations.

For text ads on the Google Search Network, advertisers can write up to three 30-character headlines and two 90-character descriptions. Google usually shows all three headlines as part of your advertisement, but it may remove the third headline to make your ad look better on some devices. That gives advertisers just 240 characters of space in some cases to capture the attention of users and persuade them to click through.

Use Your Focus Keyword

If you’re writing an advertisement to be displayed when someone searches for “CRM software”, one of the best optimizations you can make is to include “CRM software” in your ad copy.

Image: Ad Copy Examples for “CRM Software” search. Google uses bold lettering to highlight exact-match keywords in the ad copy, drawing the attention of users and encouraging clicks.

That way, prospects who are presented with your ad will see their exact-match keyword in your ad copy. This creates the perception that your offer is highly relevant to their needs and encourages the user to click through to your landing page. Keywords are so important for optimizing your ad copy that Google has created a Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) feature that inserts keywords into your ad copy automatically depending on what searchers type into their browser.

Don’t Be Too Repetitive

While you do want to mention your target keyword in your ad copy, it’s important to avoid repetition and keyword stuffing.

Image: By the time we finished reading this ad, the word “Honda” had lost all meaning. Maybe it works for Honda, but we wouldn’t recommend repeating your keyword this many times in your ad copy.

Mentioning your target keyword repeatedly is unnecessary and takes away valuable ad space that you could be using to create urgency, highlight an important benefit of your product or preemptively address an objection. It can also negatively impact your clicks and quality score if audiences find your ad copy too repetitive and off-putting.

As a general rule, include your focus keyword once near the beginning of your first headline and maybe once in the description.

Offer Something Valuable

Here’s the single biggest question that your audience has when they encounter one of your text ads online:

What’s in it for me?

If you’re not offering something of value, how could you possibly persuade a rational person to click on your advertisement?

Your ad copy needs to entice users by giving them a suggestion about what you’re offering so they’ll actually be excited to click through to your landing page for more information. It’s also important that your offer connects with what users actually want when they see your ad – that’s part of effective audience and keyword targeting.

If you’re selling a product or service, use your ad copy to highlight the most important features and benefits. If you’re working on a lead generation campaign with emails or webinars, use your ad copy to tell audiences exactly how those things are going to deliver value and solve their problems.

Make Ad Copy Contextually Relevant

A great way to improve your ad copy is to make it more contextually relevant.

One way is using Google’s Dynamic Location Insertion (DLI) feature, which lets you dynamically customize your ad copy with location-specific pricing, inventory availability and calls-to-action.

Another effective tactic we’ve seen in Google search ads is referencing an upcoming holiday like Mother’s Day or Valentines Day and encouraging audiences to shop for a gift.

Delivering ad copy that is more customized and tailored for individual uses increases relevance, which ultimately drives CTR, conversions and overall search campaign performance.

Include Social Proof

Social proof works simply because users are often more likely to undertake a specific action if they perceive that others around them are doing the same thing or have done so in the past with good results.

Image: This ad includes social proof to convince prospects that it is both trustworthy and effective at advising buyers about software purchases.

Including social proof is a great way to show off your successes and instantly build trust with audiences, even when you have just a few characters to spare. The impact of social proof on customer response makes this one of the most effective marketing strategies we’ve seen for writing ad copy.

Include a Powerful Call to Action (CTA)

A CTA is the part of your ad copy where you directly ask the audience to take action by clicking through to your landing page.

Image: These ads for stock image websites all include a call to action.

Your CTA should clearly tell the audience what steps you want them to take after clicking on your advertisement, whether that’s redeeming a free trial offer, subscribing to a service, or purchasing a product. The CTA is often found at the end of your ad copy, but you’ll also find plenty of examples like the ones pictured where the CTA can be found in the middle of the description.

We’d usually recommend putting the CTA at the end of your ad so potential customers read through all of the features and benefits that you highlight before you ask them to click.

Summary

Thanks for reading through our list of recommendations for improving your search ad copy!

As you gain more experience writing ad copy, you’ll be able to quickly whip up persuasive ads that will earn you higher click-through rates when they feature on search engine results pages. By following these best practices, you should be in good shape to create some solid text ads, but don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with new ideas for connecting with your target audience.

We hope these ad copywriting tips help you create more high-performing search ads.

The post What is Search Ad Copy? 7 Tips to Improve Ad Copy appeared first on Directive CA.

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind and some tips on how to choose a budget that will work for your company, your industry, and your desired outcomes.

What Is the Average B2B Budget for Ads?

Budgets will inevitably vary by organization depending on financial restrictions and campaign goals. However, understanding what the average company spends on advertising can still be helpful.

A few years ago, the biggest U.S. spenders came from the retail and automotive industries respectively.

In 2018, the average firm was expected to allocate 42% of their marketing budget to online initiatives, and this rate is looking to grow each year.

Additionally, in a 2018 report from Hanapin Marketing, 62% of respondents said they planned to increase their PPC budget in the next year. 78% of those surveyed specifically planned to increase their Google Ads budget.

This makes sense when you consider that on average, businesses earn $3 for every $1.60 spent on Google Ads.

But here’s the catch: Depending on the industry you’re in, not all spending is the same.

Even if every company had a Google Ads budget of $1 million, few would see the same ROI for their campaigns.

That’s because Google Ads work better for specific industries over others.

SaaS companies, for instance, tend to see higher ROI from their campaigns than business services.

This makes sense because a lot of Google Ads’ success depends on chosen keywords. For example, insurance companies may find added difficulties because “insurance” as a keyword is one of the most expensive. Finance industries may be in the same boat if they try to rank for keywords like “loan” or “mortgage.”

When it comes to ROI, it makes sense that a B2B company that wants to rank for the keyword “business services” might not see that much success. It’s considered highly competitive!

Additionally, understanding things like keyword costs, general industry spending habits, and potential ROI can all help you keep things in perspective when setting your budget.

But that still leaves the ultimate question: How much should you be budgeting on your Google Ads campaigns?

Here are the 3 key questions you should ask yourself when determining your spending:

• How do I set up a Google Ads budget?
• How much is the cost per click (CPC) for the keywords we want?
• Which key performance indicators (KPIs) matters most to our company?

Here are a few ideas on what the answers to those questions might look like.

How do I Set Up a Google Ads Budget?

Like other types of PPC advertising, Google Ads work by placing bids.

You’re not spending thousands of dollars on those bids at once. You typically will select a monthly budget for spending, which you can change based on the results you see over time.

The trouble with having to plan out an easily-changed monthly budget is that it can be tempting to adjust it continually as you track your metrics.

When it comes to budgeting, I’ve found it’s better to do keyword research first, rather than set a CPC cap. This helps to get an idea for what competitors are bidding on and how much it will cost to compete.

You’ll also learn which keywords are more valuable based on how many people are bidding and what their prices are; then shape your budget around that!

At Directive, we manage daily budgets by taking a prioritization approach where the aim is to reduce the amount of impression share being lost to budget in our top performing campaigns.

Once the top performing campaign isn’t losing impression share to budget, we allocate budget to the next best campaign and so on.

This kind of approach to budget management ensures that the account is spending money in the best possible places.

What is the CPC for Your Desired Keywords?

You will also want to determine your budget based on the success of your chosen keywords.

For example, if you decide to use keywords that have high competition, you may not see as much ROI for your ad spending as you would for less competitive keywords.

The average CPC for any given keyword is calculated by a relatively simple formula: CPC = Total Costs / Total Clicks.

To give you some idea, the average CPC for the B2B industry is $1.64.

While you do have control over the maximum CPC you pay for each keyword, you will always pay more for highly competitive keywords.

There are a few strategies when choosing a budget for CPC:

• Do keyword research first and get an idea for what competitors are bidding on and how much it will cost to compete.
• Set a budget limit and choose to bid on fewer keywords or run fewer ads.
• Determine which keywords you want and create your budget around their CPC.

If you have an idea of the budget you want to spend, you may be better off setting a cap for your CPC and choosing keywords in that range.

On the other hand, if you know your budget is flexible, spend more time on keyword research. Then you can choose those with the best potential ROI and set your budget there at the start.

AdEspresso recommends that you first select a range of acceptable CPC for your ads. Then, calculate the number of visits you will need to generate one sale, like so:

Once you have that, you can determine the ROI of each sale.

For example, let’s say you only have a conversion rate of 1% but are spending more than $1 per click. In this case, you may be losing money unless you have a significant number of visits!

If you see conversion rates at 2-3% or higher, then a $1 CPC is acceptable.

To determine if your traffic will be high enough to sustain your desired CPC, you can use Google’s Keyword Planner.

Under “Tools” select “Get search volume and forecasts” and enter in your chosen keywords.

From there, select “Get Started,” and you should see something like this:

Your daily estimates will be in the bottom right-hand corner. If you hover over the graph, you will see your suggested CPC maximum.

After entering your bid, you will see the daily cost and traffic estimates for your keywords.

You can then multiply the total daily cost estimate by 30.4 (the average number of days in a month) to determine your monthly budget.

For example, if your daily total was $4.25 for an ad group, your monthly budget for that ad would be $132.24.

4.25 x 30.4 = 132.24

Depending on how many ads you run, this should give you a sense of how much money you should spend.

If you don’t want to spend time analyzing each bid, you can also set them to run automatically using Google’s Enhanced CPC (ECPC) bidding.

ECPC works by automatically adjusting your manual bids for clicks that seem more or less likely to lead to your goals.

ECPCs can be helpful if you’re not too concerned about your budget flexing up and down. But fluctuation may happen because ECPC will increase your bids on your behalf based on a set of predefined signals, like browser type, location, and time of day.

However, if you have a set or limited budget that must be adhered to strictly, you may want to focus on manual bidding so your budget remains consistent.

What KPI Metrics Matter the Most to Your Company?

Of course, CPC isn’t everything. Other performance indicators will also affect your Google Ads budget.

KPI metrics help you measure the performance of your ads over time, so you know whether or not campaigns are meeting your expectations.

Some typical KPIs might include:

• Impressions – Every time your ad is displayed it’s considered an “impression.”
• Click-through rates (CTR) – A CTR measures how often your ads are actually clicked.
• Conversion rates – This measures actions taken after someone has clicked your ad and landed on your site (did they fill out your form, etc.).
• Cost per conversion – This shows you the average amount of money you spend on PPC for every conversion earned.
• Average position – Average position is an indication of where your ads fall when they’re triggered and how much traffic each location receives.
• Quality score – Quality score is an expression of how reliable your company is at showing relevant content in your ads (low scores pay more).

While all of these KPI metrics are technically important, some may mean more to you and may be more helpful in determining your budget.

For example, your ads may see relatively similar ROI no matter which location they’re placed in, so “average position” wouldn’t be as important to you. You may choose not to bid on certain areas.

On the other hand, cost per conversion may be a much bigger deal if one of your goals is to increase sales.

If you’re spending money on ads that aren’t converting, you’re wasting a considerable portion of your budget on something with little to no ROI.

Keep in mind that KPIs can vary widely within particular industries and for specific companies.

So the KPIs your competitors are measuring (or other companies who aren’t in your industry are measuring) may not be appropriate for judging the success of your campaigns.

You’ll want to spend some time figuring out which KPIs matter the most so you know where to put your money for the best results!

How to Determine Your Google Ads Budget

In putting all of the above together, you should have a good idea of where to begin when it comes to setting your budget and monitor KPI metrics.

You will want to start by determining how much of your company’s total marketing budget should be allocated to PPC.

For most B2B marketers, PPC advertising takes up between 8-10% of the budget.

You also want to take into account how much of your marketing budget you want to allocate to Google Ads specifically.

There are plenty of other PPC options that may appeal to you too, especially if your company is in an industry that doesn’t always see high ROI with paid search.

You want to make sure the channel you’re spending the most on is also the one with the best ROI. At the very least, you may want to divvy up the budget between different channels.

Remember, you should also do some research into which keywords will have the best impact in your industry. Keep in mind that your budget can make room for any keyword strategy you choose.

For actual budget numbers, you want to calculate the CPC and ROI of your keywords (as shown earlier using Google’s Keyword Planner). That will show you the exact amount of money to allocate per campaign every month (based on daily estimates).

That formula would be: Daily estimates x 30.4 = monthly budget.

It’s important to understand that you can see success with any budget, so don’t think that you need $1 million for your ads to do well.

You need to know which ads will give you the most return for your money and which Google Ads spending habits will break the bank.

Conclusion

Since you must base your budget on many variables, such as your current marketing budget, your desired spending amount, your ultimate campaign goals, your chosen keywords, your CPC rates, and your KPI metrics to track progress—there’s no specific formula for how to determine your paid search budget.

The more time you can spend developing researching keywords with better CPC in your industry and narrowing down your KPIs before you create your campaigns, the more successful they will be.

Additionally, make sure you’re taking the time to watch your campaigns closely, especially if you’re using ECPC. This will allow you to see which campaigns are giving you the best ROI and which ones are wasting your money.

Using a Customer Generation approach to your marketing strategy ensures that your paid efforts are tied directly to your customers. If you’re interested in learning how our tech marketing team can start generating revenue for your company, let’s get on a call.

The post How to Optimize Your Google Ads Budget From KPI Metrics appeared first on Directive CA.

Unfortunately, many of them fail.

That might be a hard pill to swallow. But drink some water and chug it down because the faster that you realize it, the better your advertisements will be.

But what makes the difference between a failed campaign and a successful one?

Often, it’s the marketer’s ability to iterate on their current AdWords campaigns regardless of how trashy it is. Improving your ad, rather than creating a new one every time, will usually result in a higher click-through rate, lower cost-per-click, and increased revenue generation.

Think about it. If you iterate an old ad instead of creating a new one, you can test the sales copy, targeted keywords, and focused audience.

With a new ad, that potential falls by the wayside.

Here’s the problem with creating advertisements from scratch.

The problem with creating advertisements from scratch

There’s no such thing as a perfect advertisement. But a new ad will always be further from perfection than one that’s been refined by fire.

With an advertisement built from scratch, you can’t continue to polish out the imperfections of your AdWords campaign. Consequently, your ROI will falter.

But here’s what’s worse.

Instead of trying to improve on the PPC ad when it fails to bring in clients, you create another brand new ad from square one, killing any momentum that you had before.

In the end, there’s no such thing as a perfect advertisement, but there’s also no such things as a failed AdWords campaign. You can always learn from your mistakes and adapt your keywords, target audience, and sales copy instead of creating a new, untested, ad.  

To completely understand why this iteration is so much more powerful than its infant counterpart, let’s briefly discuss how your customers make decisions.

In a word, micro-moments.

(Image Source)

Google defines these as the moments that your customers or prospects are ready to take action.

Most moments of the day, your customers will mindlessly browse the internet out of habit. But every once in a while, a customer will open their smartphone and know exactly what they want to do, find, know, or buy.

You know these moments. When you go online and already know that you’re looking for a specific piece of information (i.e., “How to replace my car battery”), or you’re ready to buy a specific product (i.e., “Athletic running shoes”).

As Google says that, “They’re the I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-buy, and I-want-to-do moments that are loaded with intent, context, and immediacy.”

These are the most important moments for your AdWord campaigns to shine.

But here’s the thing: they can only shine if you iterate your strategy, targeting the keywords that define these moments for your customers. And you can only iterate your strategy if you consistently improve the same ad.

In other words, winning those decision-making micro-moments is a matter of running relevant ads to the right people, which is far easier with iteration than it is with directionless change.

That relevance also impacts your quality score — which Google uses to help determine your cost-per-click. The higher your quality score, the lower your cost-per-click and visa versa.

And the two factors that contribute most to quality score are relevance and user experience.

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The more that people like your ad, trust your ad, and click your ad, the better your quality score.

But, again, that relevance and user experience are built on correct keywords, appropriate sales copy, and optimized landing page context.

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The success or failure of those factors depends on your ability to learn from your wins and losses and then make educated changes to your AdWords campaigns.

But iteration isn’t just more effective. It’s faster.

Instead of setting a new budget, adding a new image, writing new copy, researching keywords, entering billing information, and selecting a new name and type every time you want to run an AdWords campaign, you can alter a past ad.

This will produce a better ROI for your money and time.

Now that you know the problem with new advertisements, here are all of the ways that improvement will allow you to win and why beginning again won’t.

Keyword research

Wizards don’t just wear pointy hats. They also run AdWords campaigns.

When a basketball team named the Wizards was trying to sell tickets to its upcoming games, their marketers looked to AdWords.

Here’s what they knew.

They knew that they didn’t want to compete with high-end ticket brokers by targeting the most popular keywords. They knew that if they were going to be successful, they’d need a different strategy.

One where they targeted keywords that wouldn’t cost them a fortune to compete but could still generate sales.

What did they do?

They used AdWords ad extension to encourage customer engagement. Which meant that someone searching for the Wizard’s schedule wouldn’t just see a list of games. They’d see a list of games that were specific to their individual interests.

The ad itself was dead simple.

(Image Source)

In just four months, the Wizards won a 277% ROAS.

But they couldn’t have done that if they didn’t run an ad that was relevant to their fan base. And while they started off on the right foot by targeting keywords that they could afford, many AdWords campaigns require iteration after iteration to gain that kind of insight.

Another person, named Jordan, hired an agency to run his AdWords campaigns because he was unsuccessful doing it himself.

Needing to generate leads quickly and unable to spend more than an hour’s worth of money on consultation, Jordan asked to see what the agency could do with his campaign in a single hour. Here’s what the agency said about the experience.

“While it normally takes many hours to build an effective AdWords campaign, in this case 1 hour was sufficient — because we were able to leverage all of our previous SEO work: keyword research and target lists by category as well as messaging and positioning. The campaign was live and getting clicks by the end of our meeting, and by the next morning one of those clicks had turned into a high quality lead.”

That might seem to contradict to the point I’m trying to prove, but it doesn’t.

The agency may have created a profitable AdWords campaign in one hour, but it was only because they leveraged all of their previous experience — keyword strategies that took years and years of iterations to perfect.

Another example of an AdWords campaign that tested keywords relentlessly comes from the mental health department.

Ross, the AdWords expert, started by selecting keywords he thought might be relevant to the target audience. But after running some tests with his list of keywords, these were his results.

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Clearly, the top two results were the ones most attention-worthy.

So he focused his marketing efforts on those two sets of keywords.

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The result was the dream of any AdWords campaign. He swiftly turned $520 into $6,120.

But only because he ran preemptive advertisements with different keywords to determine which keywords would perform the best.

That iteration made for a positive ROI.

But even with such remarkable success, Ross said that there was still something he should have done differently to increase that ROI even further. He should have used negative keywords.

Negative keywords basically tell Google who you don’t want your advertisements to target. That way, you’re not increasing your cost-per-click by showing your ads to too broad of an audience.

This can help increase your quality lead generation, meaning a higher CTR, fewer clicks, and an increased conversion rate.

(Image Source)

All of that keyword magic can only happen if you improve your current ads instead of constantly creating new ones from scratch.

Segmented advertising

One of the best AdWords strategies is targeting different people differently.

In other words, segmenting your advertisements so that low-commitment keyword searches display different ads than high-commitment searches.

But when it comes to segmentation, iteration is the only route to take.

One storage company used ad customizers and group clusters within AdWords to segment over 2 million advertisements. This allowed the company to test the factors of their advertisement at scale.

And all of that segmented testing and advertising resulted in a 113% increase in their CTR.

(Image Source)

This illustrates how helpful segmentation is in your AdWords campaigns. But what happens without segmentation?

A case study from BoxCrush, an online marketing agency, paints a clear picture.

Before BoxCrush came along and started segmenting their client’s AdWords campaign, impressions were high, and CTR was low. Afterwards, just the opposite was true.

(Image Source)

BoxCrush wrote on their blog about how they did it:

“The account was split into meaningful campaigns that targeted specific demographics. Ad Groups were built within each campaign. And targeted ads were written for specific audiences within each group.”

The results were consistently promising.

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But targeted and complex segmentation is only possible if you take the time to understand the versatility and complexity of your customer base.

Every business caters to a variety of different ideal clients. Through testing and iteration, you can determine who all of these ideal clients are and then target each group with appropriate advertisements.

You can also segment your AdWords campaigns by language. Here’s a graph that shows the most common language (other than English) in each state in the U.S.

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When you’re running ads in specific states, you might want to consider the second language that your audience speaks and try running some ads to that group of people as well.

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By iterating your current ads instead of creating new ones, you can segment your advertisements to cater to a larger variety of customers, increase your CTR, and generate higher-quality leads.

Seasonal advertising

Sometimes, the best time isn’t the best time.

It would be easy to create loads of AdWords campaigns that run during the holiday season in anticipation of Black Friday or Christmas. And for some companies, that will work. For others, it will take some adjustment.

Here’s the kicker. The cost-per-click during those times is going to skyrocket. And if you can’t afford that steep price, you’ll need to adapt your strategy.

One marketer had a $15,000 AdWords budget that was dedicated entirely to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day – the busiest times of the year for ecommerce businesses.

But his overall sales weren’t performing well. Here’s what his September looked like.

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The problem was that, during his chosen advertising times, the competition is through the roof, meaning the cost of advertising is as well.

But he knew he still needed to advertise during the biggest shopping days of the year.

Because of that, the company turned its attention to focus on long-tail brand-related and product-related keywords in hopes that the massive amount of online traffic during Black Friday and Cyber Monday would make up for the lower traffic generation his ads would produce.

Here’s one of the ads they ran.

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And here’s one where they added urgency.

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In the end, the company generated over $25,000 in sales over three weeks.

We can at least partly attribute this success to the wisdom of the company in targeting long-tail keywords instead of highly-competitive ones and adjusting their overall AdWords strategy during the busiest shopping days of the year.

Your business probably needs to run advertisements during certain times of the year, but that doesn’t mean you need to do it like everyone else.

Because doing so will increase your cost-per-click.

But to know what to do instead, you need to test your current advertisements and iterate on their strategy. When you’re trying to generate leads during the holiday season, the last thing you want to count on is brand new, untested ads.

Conclusion

Your ROI lives or dies based on the way you run advertisements. At least, that’s partly true.

A positive ROI depends on an AdWords strategy that iterates upon itself rather than using a random shotgun approach and constantly creating new ads that may or may not work.

Because the reality is that untested ads are… well, untested. Which means that they could work, or they could be a total disaster.

AdWords campaigns, on the other hand, that test and optimize keywords, segmentation, and seasons will increase your click-through rate (CTR), lower your cost-per-click, and give you a better chance at generating high-quality leads.

These ads might be old, but it’s for that very reason that they are so effective. They’ve been tested and iterated rather than created, deleted, and recreated.

The post Why Improving Failed AdWords Campaigns Creates the Best B2B Advertising Campaigns appeared first on Directive CA.

You could spend thousands of hours (and dollars) trying to organically rank for big keywords and still find your website stuck in the SERP swamps.

Not every company has the kind of time and resources to sink into SEO, anyway.

The reality is that unless you’re already one of the biggest, baddest brands out on the market, you’re probably not going to rank on the first page.

That’s harsh but true.

So if you’re trying to rank for the biggest, baddest keywords to rank for – forget it.

Millions of other sites are trying to do the same thing, and the odds probably aren’t in your favor.

But that doesn’t mean hope is lost. You just need to change your B2B marketing strategy.

There are ways you can rank on Google’s first page (just maybe not with all that organic, natural, gluten-free traffic you were hoping for).

Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Rank Organically

Search engine marketing is more than just organic traffic.

Organic traffic relies heavily on keyword formulas. But massively popular keywords are also massively competitive.

These tend to be something like “best + keyword” or “top + keyword” or even “keyword + review.”

For example, look at the types of businesses that rank for “best email marketing software”:

You will notice there are over 37 million hits for that search alone. The first four results are paid ads, followed by a rich snippet.

If you scroll down a little further, you will notice that the rest of the organic results are reviews.

The first instance you get of a real email marketing company is near the bottom of the first page.

And guess what? It’s MailChimp, one of the biggest B2B email marketing companies out there.

So the chances of your business ranking anywhere close to a keyword like this are nil.

The reason for this is two-fold:

1. Your site probably hasn’t been around long enough and doesn’t have the authority
2. The competition for your chosen keywords is too high

You always have the option of trying to rank organically for smaller keywords, of course. You should still target long-tail keywords whenever possible.

But that also means you risk missing major sales from companies looking for big businesses that come with big keywords.

So are you totally screwed over if you can’t rank organically?

Of course not. Take another approach with your B2B marketing strategy.

Here’s what you need to do instead:

1. Launch a Paid Search Campaign

Money is always the answer to shortcut a lot of SEO problems.

You will notice that Google’s first page results are often riddled with paid ads. A search for “email campaign software” turns up four ads almost immediately.

But you’ll notice that not all the ads are from large companies. Sure, you have Zoho and Campaigner in there, some of the top-rated ones in the business.

However, you also have links to lesser-known review sites, too (we’ll get to those in the next point).

The perk of paid campaigns is that you don’t need to wait to get onto page one.

As opposed to organic optimization, which requires long-term link building and improving the keyword orientation over time, PPC is different.

Sure, you may have to shell out some money to net the bigger keywords, but even if you’re going after less competitive keywords, you still have an advantage.

It’s a quick fire way to get ranking on a higher page of SERP.

PPC also gives you a way to track your results in a way that organic link building doesn’t.

You know your Cost Per Click and your Cost Per Acquisition.

PPC metrics are thankfully transparent. You can immediately see what’s working, what’s not, and what you need to do to improve.

So if you’re not sure you have the ability to rank organically, dip your toe into the water with paid search.

2. Use Strategic Digital Placements

Digital placements offer another workaround if you don’t want to spend a ton of money on paid campaigns.

These influential third-party sites often fall somewhere between paid and organic results.

For example, they’re commonly directory and review sites, like Yelp and Clutch, that function almost like mini-SERPs.

Instead of attempting to rank directly on Google, you can submit your company information to directories and review sites because they’ve already done the work for you.

Then you can optimize your presence on those sites to pull in more interested prospects who’re evaluating their options.

The biggest benefit to this is that you can rank without actually having to rank.

The second benefit is that it’s far more cost effective than paid ads.

The third benefit is comparison shopping. Customers can see how you stack up against your competitions in a way they can’t with Google search results.

This is especially true if you’re at the top of the directory’s list.

It’s also far easier to get reviews from these sites which then helps boost your conversions, too.

In fact, one Avanade study found that 61% of B2B buyers look to third-party review sites before approaching a business.

Another study done by Clutch found that the quantity of reviews on these sites directly correlates to traffic, noting, “Each additional review added slightly less than 20 monthly views to a company’s profile.”

In short, if you can’t rank on Google, rank on a directory that already ranks on Google.

3. Get Your Images on the First Page

Images also play a big role in Google’s SERPs.

Google Image Packs are image results displayed as a horizontal row of visual links that click through to a Google Images search. Like so:

They usually appear in searches where Google deems that visual content is valuable.

Statistically, a third of all searches performed in Google are for images, and 12.5% of SERPs show Image Pack results.

The trick is that you have to be in a highly visual industry – think commercial photography, real estate, and so on – to really rank for these.

A workaround for B2B companies (especially eCommerce ones) wanting to take advantage of something similar to Image Pack is to submit products to Google Shopping.

This has a similar result for SEO in that your product images are front and center.

There’s also a few other things you can do to ensure your shopping images appear front and center, like optimizing your product feed and utilizing keyword research to rank for your desired products.

Optimizing shopping campaigns isn’t easy. But it’s one of the best ways to cut to the front of the line and dominate SERPs that you’d otherwise have no business showing up on.

4. Generate Some News (Google News)

As they say, there’s no such thing as bad press. Except maybe no press, that is.

In addition to rich snippets and paid ads, Google has also been adjusting their algorithms to feature links to sites that appear in the news (or generate their own news).

The Google News result block appears when you search for brand mentions or trending topics.

These news block can have up to three links with the first link often enhanced by a thumbnail image.

This can be an excellent tool for B2B companies that regularly publish content, news and updates about their company, or are featured in the news in one way or another.

Becoming a Google News publisher yourself isn’t easy. So once again, think outside the lines.

Let’s repeat the strategy you just used for digital placements above.

Find out who already is a Google News publisher in your space. Do a few searches and see whose content is already showing up. Then you can track down those individual journalists writing each piece to pitch your next great campaign.

5. Videos

If you really want to go the extra mile to rank, try video.

Videos already make up 64% of all Internet traffic and are predicted to grow to 80% by 2019.

Emarketer estimates that $14.38 billion is spent on video advertising, with a mobile growth rate of 65% annually.

The best strategy is to use videos specifically for ranking on Google’s SERPs.

Here’s what I mean.

Basecamp and other SaaS or B2B software companies will create video tutorials that answer the questions people are already typing into search engines.

This means including videos on landing pages that target specific terms, the same way you would with keywords. Only, in this case, you’re more likely to rank for video search terms organically.

People are already asking these questions. Your customer service department is one of the best places to start.

And then you can expand those initial ideas to the following keywords so that you’re more likely to rank:

• Tutorial
• Review
• Test
• What is
• How to
• Demonstration
• Explanation
• Video

When looking to produce videos, you want to make sure that you’re making videos that add real value, though.

You don’t just want a giant ad for your business because there’s bound to be less interest (no offense).

If you’re an ecommerce site, consider doing product demos and reviews.

In addition to posting videos on your own site, you should definitely create a YouTube channel if you’re going with this approach.

Google owns YouTube. It’s the second largest search engine and the third most visited site next to Google and Facebook.

So if you’re looking to rank on Google, YouTube is one of the best stepping-stones to get there.

Conclusion

Look, ranking on Google’s homepage organically is tough.

And it’s probably downright impossible for the biggest key phrases in your industry.

Those are already dominated by the biggest companies in the world spending millions on advertising and promotion.

That’s OK, though.

There are fortunately a few options still available to you.

The trick is to change the rules of the game. Don’t compete head-on with these behemoths.

Go around them. Change up your B2B marketing strategy.

Launch new paid campaigns to dominate the first few positions. Get listings in all of the prominent digital placements that are doing the hard work.

Get your campaigns in the news, use shopping campaigns to monopolize image search, and make videos to answer the questions your customers are already asking.

Attack your rankings from all angles, and you stand a much better chance of showing up on that coveted page one.

The post 5 B2B Marketing Strategies to Show Up on the First Page of Google without Ranking Organically appeared first on Directive CA.

The vast majority of clicks went to the first few positions.

So getting into the first three positions meant everything. Even the third position would receive exponentially more clicks than positions six through ten.

However, that’s all starting to change.

SERPs are personalized to each individual. They’re also evolving to include a variety of different layouts, placements, sponsored listings, and more.

But here’s the real kicker.

Today you can get more clicks than people ranking above you.

All without changing positions necessarily.

The trick is to focus on increasing your SERP click-through rate instead of swapping rank positions.

Studies show that organic CTR data can make an impact on Google’s rankings. Therefore, if you focus on your CTR, first, higher rankings could follow later.

Here’s why your ranking isn’t as big of a deal as you might think. And why you should focus your marketing activities instead on raising your Google CTR.

The Relationship Between Ranking and CTR

AJ Kohn first reported his informal findings on how SERP click-through rate can influence ranking signals.

He included a couple of eye-opening quotes to back up his claim, like this one from former Google Engineer Edmond Lau:

“It’s pretty clear that any reasonable search engine would use click data on their own results to feed back into ranking to improve the quality of search results. Infrequently clicked results should drop toward the bottom because they’re less relevant, and frequently clicked results bubble toward the top. Building a feedback loop is a fairly obvious step forward in quality for both search and recommendations systems, and a smart search engine would incorporate the data.”

More evidence started pouring in from the unlikeliest of places.

For example, the Wall Street Journal got access to an FTC document that explained the following:

“The (search engine result page) ranking itself is affected by the click data. If we discover that, for a particular query, hypothetically, 80 percent of people click on Result No. 2 and only 10 percent click on Result No. 1, after a while we figure out, well, probably Result 2 is the one people want. So we’ll switch it.”

Historically, this was never the case.

For example, images like this have been used forever to explain how CTR changed based on SERP position:

(image source)

The CTR you could expect would fall as your position was lower on the page.

Human behavior at the time meant that people would naturally gravitate towards the higher listings.

However, all of that is beginning to change.

It’s possible now to invert those numbers above. You could get a higher CTR even though you ranked lower.

That would be like position #3 getting a 30% CTR while the second position only received 20%.

So even though you technically “rank lower,” you’re getting more traffic and visibility than the guy ranking above you.

(image source)

If that’s happening consistently, it will give you another bonus.

Those excellent results could serve as a sign to Google that those two results should be flip-flopped.

Rand Fishkin conducted one of the most popular tests of how SERP CTR can influence Google’s search results.

He wanted to see if click-through rate, alone, could move rankings.

So he asked people to click a specific link to his blog post that was sitting firmly in the seventh position.

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The short influx of clicks did, in fact, launch his blog post up to the first position in Google.

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However, these were only temporary changes. The short-term ranking boost eventually fell back down to Earth as clicks died off.

The inflated CTR wasn’t natural, so results eventually regressed back to the mean.

It’s just like how you can’t increase your AdWords Quality Scores simply by clicking on your own ads a few times. This is the oldest trick in the book, and it just doesn’t work. (Sorry.)

However, it does show that there is a direct correlation.

Increasing your CTR can not only bring you more traffic, but it can also increase how and where you’re showing up in the result pages.

The best news of all is that increasing SERP CTR with marketing activities is almost always easier than doing the hard, time-consuming work of improving your ranking by getting more high-quality links, for example.

Here’s how this process works.

How to Raise SERP CTR to Skyrocket Traffic

Larry Kim’s data highlights two important takeaways about how all of this stuff works:

1. Higher than average SERP CTR can eventually lift your position.
2. While lower than average SERP CTR can also drop your position.

So there’s an upside when you get things right. But a downside when you screw it up.

You can’t afford to screw it up.

Here are three tactics from Larry’s research and our own that will help you find the page click-through rates that are already sabotaging your results.

1. Start with Your Low Hanging Fruit

Most people want to focus on their new content or new blog posts. They think that’s what’s driving the most traffic and leads over the past month or so.

But that couldn’t be further from the case.

In reality, it’s the old stuff that’s driving most of your results.

That’s good news believe it or not. It’s often easier to go back and update old stuff than to put all of your resources behind cranking out the new.

So let’s see how to find your old ‘low hanging fruit’ for a quick ROI.

First, start by making sure you have Google Search Console setup. Then integrate it with Google Analytics, so they share data back and forth.

Now, head over to the Acquisition section inside Google Analytics, click on the “Search Console” drop down, and then finally hit “Queries” towards the bottom.

Your queries report will tell you most (some) of the search queries people are using to access your site. The reason it doesn’t show all of them is because of Google’s removal of keyword referral data.

There are ways to unlock not provided keywords, but we don’t have the time or energy to cover that right now as well.

So back to the Queries report. Here, you will not just see clicks and impressions, but the CTR number we’re after.

Look for the queries that send you the most traffic, but have the lowest CTR and position.

You can check out the actual SERPs for those keyphrases to determine how competitive each will be. Otherwise, the trick will be to focus on rewriting your title tags and descriptions to not just focus on keyword optimization but driving more clicks.

Here’s how to do that.

2. Treat Your Organic Copy like AdWords

Here’s how you used to write title tags to rank well in search engines.

• “Keyword” or “Post Title” | “Brand Name”

So the title tag for this post might read something like this:

• Google SERP CTR | Directive Consulting

Obviously, that’s super explicit for search engines.

However, it’s incredibly boring for most users.

Let’s take a page from writing AdWords copy, instead, to make this more desirable.

For example, the average B2B CTR in AdWords is around 2%.

That’s obviously not very impressive.  Ideally, you want to see CTR’s of at least 8%+ from ads.

That tells you that your ads are doing their job. They’re making people interested and grabbing clicks away from your competitors.

The way you increase AdWords ad CTR is to use copywriting principles while still hitting your keyword.

So instead of just keyword stuffing “SEO Keyword Research Services,” you’d add something a little extra.

Maybe that’s a certain specialty you work in. Maybe you use proprietary methods or tools to drive better results.  Or maybe you will include client case studies to help overcome people’s potential objections to working with you.

Now apply this same strategy to your organic search strategy.

For example, instead of churning out the same old boring “keyword optimized” title tag and meta description.

Case in point:

You can also use tricks like a phone number, hyper localization, specific client improvements, etc.

3. Develop Brand Awareness Before You Need It

Wordstream has found that brand aware people are “twice as likely to click” on your ads.

The goal behind this marketing activity is to use inexpensive, consistent, paid social campaigns to help develop brand awareness.

Facebook expert Andrea Vahl has pointed to video ads as one of the best ways to cheaply build a custom audience on Facebook. You can get views for as little as a cent or two each.

That means you can start building out custom audiences with thousands of potential customers for less than a hundred bucks.

These campaigns are so cheap that you can afford to run them continually, and then retarget them with ongoing content offers as they come out.

That way, by the time they do need your product or service and start searching, your name will get their attention first.

Conclusion

Rankings used to be the one and only search metric anyone cared about.

You did whatever it took to get into the top few results because that’s where the bulk of the visitors went, too.

Those days, thankfully, are going away.

Today, consumers have become more discerning. They’ll scroll down the SERP on the lookout for the best option that meets their query.

They won’t just blindly click on the first few.

That means you can rank in the third position but possibly rival the first for viewers.

The better your CTR performs on these pages, the more you’ll be rewarded with moving up organically.

That presents one of the best ‘hacks’ around today.

It used to take months (if not longer) to move a page’s rank through time-consuming methods like link building.

But now, you can simply rewrite your title tags like ads, work on increasing brand awareness and recognition with cheap campaigns and start moving up ASAP.

That’s why it’s easier, cheaper, and faster to worry about your CTR before obsessing your marketing activities over the temporary ranking.

The post 3 Marketing Activities to Increase Your Google SERP CTR appeared first on Directive CA.

As an agency that specializes in B2B marketing, we’ve seen our fair share of keyword strategies. More importantly – we’ve seen our fair share of mismanaged keyword strategies.

A strong organic strategy is not always defined by how many keywords you can rank for. At Directive Consulting, we’ve noticed that it’s often times more cost-effective to increase your market share for your most valuable keywords than it is to rank for endless new variations.

In this case study, we’ve compiled 180 Series C funded Software companies and analyzed their organic search metrics. We’ve ranked them in terms of keywords, but the spreadsheet includes two other metrics that we feel better represent the value of the keywords you target.

Click to download the eBook to learn where your company ranks (and how it holds up to your competitors).

Click here to Download the Series C Case Study for Free!

The blog post will dive into analyzing the data to see what we can learn from these sites – and how the can better nuance their keyword strategy for more value and leads.

Introduction

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is often a long term investment in generating leads via organic results on search engine result pages (SERPs). By many, SEO is considered the more long-term, cost-effective alternative to PPC. As it can generate higher returns from less spend – when done correctly.

In the B2B marketing space, a great deal of time and resources are dedicated to long term campaigns designed on growing ROI over time. These longer-timeline projects include strategies like brand building, demand generation, public relations, content marketing, and many more. But what unites all these different strategies is the goal they share: leads.

Whether you are an SEO specialist or a PPC manager, your CEO or CMO isn’t concerned with your search performance. He wants leads for his pipeline and revenue for his business.

Especially for Series C funded software companies looking to distinguish their brand and solution across the search engine, prioritizing the right growth metrics is key. If your end goal is to generate more leads via organic, you need to reorient your metrics to adapt.

This will mean tracking metrics that report the actual value of your keywords and rankings. If you are looking for insights in the wrong places, even your optimization and growth strategies will veer off course.

To make things easier, the folks here at Directive Consulting have compiled a case study analyzing the organic search performance of Series C funded software companies.

While most search marketers are over-emphasizing the number of keywords they can rank for, too few are looking for the actual value. This is where your Organic Traffic Cost comes in. The organic calculation of keyword value via AdWords bid prices is based off the money-making potential of the keywords you are ranking for.

On top of that, we’ve created a new value metric that shows you how valuable (on average) your rankings are. With this new metric – Average Organic Keyword Value (OKV) – you can take your vague SEO efforts and refocus them into truly data-driven demand generation campaigns.

The goal here is not to say that the metrics or strategies you are currently using are wrong or useless. And it’s not to say that OKV is the new golden metric that will redefine search marketing. Instead, this case study and metric are meant to reorient your focus towards more directly growth-related tactics. These custom metrics aren’t meant to be the end-all-be-all of your new strategy. They are meant to point you in the right direction and encourage you to think of search engines as marketplaces of opportunity as opposed to just a new keyword to boost.

Tracking the Right Organic Search Metrics

So, why is it that you’ve been trying so hard to boost your rankings up to page one? Because page one takes up the vast majority of traffic for any given search entry. SEOs aim for page one of the search engine in hopes of increasing the visibility of their website and the authority of their brand.

But these are indirect representations of value. It’s difficult to pin down just how “strongly built” or “visible” your brand is. And this is where SEO has developed some bad reputations in regards to a laggy turnaround and frustratingly low ROI.

So, if SEO is supposed to be more cost-effective than PPC, why is it that so many search marketers today are so frustrated by SEO? Why is it so difficult to convince C-level executives of SEO’s value? And why is reporting success and growth one of the industry’s largest pain points?

Because many SEO specialists have been barking up the wrong tree.

The issue with tracking indirect growth metrics is that it places you at risk of running into the “blind optimization” pitfall. What is blind optimization? Well you can check out the infographic below to see.

We all want to rank as high as possible for as many keywords as we can. But aiming for the featured snippet across all your niche’s SERPs is probably not realistic. You need to prioritize where you spend your time and resources towards your most valuable keywords.

While the means may be improving your organic rankings, the ends are always the same: leads for your pipeline and revenue in your pockets. And you want that to be as short a distance as possible.

Here’s how to identify, target, and grow your market share for your most valuable organic keywords.

Tracking Value Over Random Growth

To avoid blind optimization, you’ll need to start off tracking the right metrics from the get go. There are a few organic metrics that most search marketers rely on to report organic growth or SEO wins.

• Number of Keywords
• Number of Keywords Ranking in the Top 3
• Organic Traffic Cost
• Organic Content Engagements
• Conversions from Organic Search

These are all important metrics. And each tells a slightly different story of how your organic campaigns are performing. But, the problem is that these metrics don’t show you the value of where you are placing your brand.

Search engine marketing is all about placing your brand on the most highly frequented and valuable digital placements. These can be organic results, paid advertisements, display ads, search ads, etc… But the key is to place your brand where your end customer is reading.

To do this, you need to target the right keywords. And I stress here – the right keywords. Too often these days search marketers resort to chasing low search-volume, low-competition keywords to ease their ranking efforts.

Now, long-tail keywords can be very valuable. In most cases, these search terms generate less but more qualified traffic. Long tail search entries are usually further down the funnel. For example, a search user typing “What is PPC?” into the search bar probably isn’t looking for an agency. But someone searching “PPC Agency pricing models” is most likely looking to convert/buy.

However, there are two primary drawbacks to ranking for only long-tail keyword variations.

1. The first drawback is their low search volume. While targeting long-tail keywords usually means more qualified users, it typically brings in far less of them. This can be a serious problem if you are looking to generate initial brand awareness and demand for your service.

2. This takes us to the second drawback: demand generation. Here’s a thought for you – if somebody doesn’t know what “PPC” even is, how would they know to search “PPC Agency pricing models?” This is the issue with targeting only long-tail keywords. You can’t generate enough initial demand to get the ball rolling.

The B2B Marketing Pain Point: Demand Generation

Demand generation is a huge pain point in the B2B Marketing industry. It’s an arduous process that requires multiple touches across many different social B2B marketing channels. And seeing returns can take a painful amount of time.

But why is it that demand generation is so difficult for search marketers? Well the answer is laughingly straightforward.

You can’t make your end customer search your keywords more. But, what you can do, is show up more whenever they do search your keyword.

The more market share you can take up for your most profitable keywords, the more likely you are to capitalize from the demand you generate. It’s then up to your content to take that demand and turn it into leads to fill your pipeline.

Solving Demand Generation with Demand Supply

Targeting more SERP market share is based on the understanding it’s more cost-effective to supply the demand than generate it from scratch.

There are two reasons for this. For starters, the primary keywords you’d have to rank for to generate necessary demand are often very competitive. Especially in a saturated market like search engines, an SEO can drown in the competition of high volume keywords.

The second reason is theoretical, but quite serious. The truth is that even if you manage to build the top of your funnel from scratch and generate all of that demand, there is nothing stopping a competitor from hopping on that traffic wave and taking all the leads from you.

If you take nothing away from this blog post, at least remember this:

Ranking for keyword isn’t guaranteed to get you more leads or revenue.

It’s much more feasible to build on top of demand that already exists in the search engines. By diversifying how you target your most profitable SERPs you can take up the market share for already high demand, high volume markets. These are the placements you need to be doubling and tripling down on.

So how do you focus your efforts and resources towards the right keywords? How do you know you are headed in the right direction? SEOs deal in an array of vague tactics like link brand building and digital PR that making tracking a nightmare. We need a metric that can point us in a focused direction.

And that’s where OKV comes in.

The Money Metric: Average Organic Keyword Value (OKV)

This new metric reports on the value of the keywords you are targeting in your organic campaign. The calculation is quite simple. But first we have to look at two other metrics under the microscope.

Number of Keywords: The number of unique keywords bringing users to your site via Google’s top 100 organic search results – essentially how many different keywords you are ranking for organically, whether you are ranking on page 1 or page 10.

Organic Traffic Cost: Estimated price of organic keywords in Google AdWords – essentially shows you how much you would be paying in AdWords to show ads for the same keywords you are currently ranking for organically. Ideally, you are generating this same traffic for free via your organic rankings.

Increasing the number of keywords you rank for doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to see an increase in traffic cost. Especially if you’ve been bitten by the over-optimization bug and are ranking for only long-tail keywords, you probably aren’t seeing any actual returns or lead gen from your SEO efforts. And probably for one of two reasons:

The first: lower search volume for long tail keywords. While these search terms usually generate more qualified traffic, the SERPs that they generate are seen by far less users. This means that, even if they are qualified, you are generating only a small percentage of your potential leads. Which can make hitting growth goals difficult.

The second: demand generation. To generate leads for your business you have to leverage the existing demand in the market or create the demand for your service/solution through education and brand exposure. Targeting long tail keyword variations is only half of the equation. You have to make sure that the customer knows to search your long-tail keywords at the outset. The primary, top-of-funnel demand and brand awareness still has to be developed.

The biggest issue sabotaging your ROI is most likely your SEO strategy itself.

More often than not, search marketers get caught up in vague metrics from the get-go, from keyword targeting to optimization goals. While boosting vanity metrics like Number of Keywords maybe an impressive SEO feat, it’s not going to directly raise your bottom line. Instead, start looking at the value of the keywords/SERPs you are targeting as opposed to the rankings of those SERPs.

Average OKV shows you this value in dollar amount. By dividing your Organic Traffic Cost by your Number of Keywords you get an average dollar amount – a single number ratio you want as high as possible.

Now, let’s take a look at OKV in action and see what insights it provides.

OKV eBook: Breakdown of Series C Software Industry

The spreadsheet below includes all the data that the following sections analyze. The spreadsheet’s subject group is the top 180 Series C funded Software companies (as well as Directive Consulting, for transparency’s sake).

For each site we’ve compiled the Number of Keywords, Organic Traffic Cost, and calculated the Average OKV.

Click here to download the spreadsheet for free!

Now that you’ve found your site in the rankings – let’s take a look at what we can learn from the different range of results.

Analytical Breakdown of Series C Software OKV

To make things easier, we’ve broken down the analysis into sections determined by the number of keywords. This way you can compare and contrast your keyword strategy to companies who are employing a similar number of keywords, but may have a different OKV. These insights should show you how you can improve your own keyword strategy and organic campaigns to beat out those of your competitors.

For the most part, there are four primary categories that the results fall under. First, there are those with a massive amount of keywords and a high Organic Traffic Cost (let’s call these “big winners”). Then, there are those with a significant amount of keywords but a more reasonable Organic Traffic Cost (one that doesn’t spike into the millions – let’s call these “the solid sites”).

Then there are those sites that have one of their number skewed, either a radically high number of keywords or Organic Traffic Cost. I’ll call these sites “Up & Comers” because skewed metrics like these often mean one of two things. Either 1: the company has recently identified it’s highest SERP markets and has yet to rank high for them, or 2: the company has an abnormally high Organic Traffic Cost by only targeting high volume, primary keywords – which means that is must be doing something right.

Lastly, the fourth category will cover sites that have no apparent keyword strategy and are targeting only a small number of keywords (less than 1000) and often have a negative OKV ratio. These sites need guidance in the most urgent sense. But, in terms of actual insights into how to improve their campaigns, there’s only one real take away for them: build an actual strategy and start treating search marketing seriously!

For more actionable insights into how you can improve your keyword strategy to target more valuable opportunities, fill out the form below. By providing us with your company and two main competitors, we’ll analyze your Organic Traffic Cost and Average OKV for you and respond to your email with an in-depth analysis.

Case Study Takeaways: Understanding OKV

So, having combed through the different range of results, we’ve seen that there are many different ways to leverage your brand across different keyword opportunities.

In search marketing, the rules are not very different from real-estate. Rules one through three are still “Location,” “Location,” “Location.” However, the rule does not stress how many locations, but the value of a singular one.

If you can start applying the same logic to the SERPs, you are more likely to see an ROI that pleases your bosses upstairs. So, how can you present this new metric and improve it to show your executives a keyword strategy with a climbing OKV and continually increasing ROI? By taking up search market share on your most valuable SERPs.

Improving Average OKV with Increased Market Share

Search Engine Market Share is a new model of search marketing developed here at Directive Consulting.

We noticed that many search marketers are stressed to hit growth metrics by improving their own vanity metrics. An SEO will work to improve on-page SEO and rank new pieces of content, but that is a direct form of lead generation at best. Many times even multi-channel digital agencies that employ SEO, PPC and Content Marketing are caught up by the wrong focus.

By reorienting your growth team to focus only on leads and deals won/closed, you can reallocate resources to do the same. This is where OKV and high-value, data-driven demand generation come from. Each is part of a larger picture – taking up more search engine market share to improve SEM’s ROI and lead gen power.

Conclusion: Value Metrics > Vanity Metrics

Whether you were at the top of the rankings or the bottom, the conclusion is the same. As a whole, search marketers need to be wary of the keywords they are targeting beyond their SEM purposes. This means developing strategies that grow value, leads, and revenue instead of just organic search metrics.

There are two voices battling in the minds of search marketers. The first is the specialist; the SEO or PPC technician who wants to optimize every page and post for Google’s crawlers. The other is the marketer, the businessman; the one who has to make money for the company.

Too often these two voices are at odds with one another, or simply one wins out and the other is silenced. It’s high time they start to work hand-in-hand in a focused, comprehensive search marketing campaign.

Download your free spreadsheet to see the full case study/analysis.

The post Ranking the Keyword Value of 180 Series C Software Companies appeared first on Directive CA.

So what is the right balance? How do you identify the right recipe for your SEM campaign?

The two major fields of SEM are recognized as SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click advertising).

The first focuses on increasing organic traffic through optimizing your keywords, content, and site architecture to impress the search engine crawlers and raise your SERP (search engine results page) ranking. Optimizing these different on-site and off-site factors improves your ranking, or where the search engine naturally places your link and increases organic traffic (traffic that is generated by users clicking on your SERP link, instead of advertisement).

The second focuses on paid search and optimizing your conversion rate from the number of people who click on your paid ad. With a combination of Quality Scores, relevancy, and bids, you can optimize your PPC ads to pay less per click and increase the viewership of your ads on the top and right-hand sides of the SERPs.

“We are all Google’s children.”

With Google (and other search engines) continually growing more adept at predicting and customizing the information they provide users, the SEM world is rapidly becoming more complex. The more advanced Google becomes, the more nuanced and sophisticated our SEM campaigns need to be in order to adapt to the way users are finding information.

Isolating your online marketing practices to just SEO or just PPC is essentially cutting off your access to half of the SERP, and limiting your audience to a single method of interaction. In today’s digitally advanced and Google-oriented market, you need a blend of both SEO and PPC practices if you really want to optimize your SEM performance.

As Search Engine Marketers, we are at the whim of Google’s developments – constantly adapting and optimizing our own tactics in response to any new development in Google’s algorithms or any improvement to how they provide and organize information for their users.

So how does we optimize our blended SEO and PPC search campaigns? What is the right ratio of organic to paid traffic? And what are the strengths of each that we should be optimizing? To answer how we need to adapt to Google’s evolution, let’s first look at how Google started us down this long and winding road.

“In the beginning, there was vertical search.”

Think about whenever you type something into the Google search bar. You have the options of picking from the categories: “all,” “images,” “videos,” “news,” “shopping,” “maps,” and so on. These are each, in and of themselves, vertical searches.

Originally Google only functioned with each of these search silos as separate SERPs. With the primary SERP being categorized under “web” instead of “all.” The “web” vertical search would provide you with results like websites and content pieces that were relevant to your search but not categorized as “news.”

These silos made it easier to focus your primary keywords based on the specific Google vertical search your product or service was trying to rank for. For example, if you had a page focused on kittens, you could focus your primary page aroud the keyword “kittens” while using the keyword “images of kittens” or “kitten pictures” to improve your ranking on the Google Images SERP.

Google’s algorithm, which takes into account content quality, relevance, authority, and countless other factors, made keyword optimization the backbone of SEM practices indefinitely.

“Let there be Keyword Optimization!”

So how did keyword optimization work for SEO and PPC back in the days of vertical search? Essentially the same way it does now, though less intermingled.

Although they both can be considered the children of Google’s SERP algorithm, keyword optimization for SEO has always been fundamentally different from keyword optimization for PPC. The fundamental difference between the two has consistently been the time-investment necessary in relation to the amount of money necessary in order to see results.

Where PPC ads can yield very quick results because you are paying for your spot at the top of the SERP page, they can be costly and do not always lead to an increase in actual conversions. While SEO focuses on optimizing your site and content to increase conversions (and doesn’t cost you per click), it can take quite a long time to actually improve your ranking on the SERP, so you may end up waiting a while to see the conversions you’ve been promised.

Because of this, PPC was previously the big dog of the SEM game. PPC metrics are easily measured and calculated, not to mention PPC campaigns are very easily adjusted for optimization. If you pay for an ad on Monday that doesn’t seem to be working, you can drop the payment and have a different ad running within the same week. SEO, on the other hand, relies on measuring more abstract metrics such as “quality,” “relevancy,” and content engagement. These more user-centric metrics are very important, but are simply harder to monitor.

However, PPC’s domination of the SEM battlefield was halted when Google decided to change the game all over again with Universal Search and blended results.

“And Google said: ‘I shall give you the universe.’”

As opposed to vertical search silos, Google’s universal search considers the volume of search modifications related to any query, no matter the format, and provides “blended results” on the SERP to account for a more universal mode of search engine usage.

With universal search, if you were to type in “kitten” into the search bar, the blended results SERP would automatically provide you with images of kittens as one of the possible results to your query. Any and all relevant results from your query will appear on a single SERP together, with the option to “specify” your search back into the vertical style. This allows users looking for specific pieces of content to narrow their search to just images, or just news.

An example of a blended SERP for “Italian food”: organic, local, image, &c.

With blended search, the SERP world became exponentially more integrated and complex. SEO instantly became the best way to account for and optimize the relevancy of your pages in order to rank higher on these blended SERPs. Paying for the siloed PPC keywords became oversaturated and bid prices per click started to increase. With such a complex and integrated form of search engine user interaction, the KPI of focus quickly became conversions over traffic.

But on the seventh day, Google did not rest. No, it’s still going, making search engines even more adaptive and predictive to the user’s queries and interests. Now, on top of just universal search, we also have the Knowledge Graph.

The Knowledge Graph is a huge step forward in Google’s initiative in becoming a search engine database built on providing users knowledge, not just information.

The Knowledge Graph takes into account the relevant topics and information related to your query and provides you with a panel to the right of the SERP with the necessary information that others found useful combined with related information from the Knowledge Graph index (see above for the search: Charles de Gaulle”). All of the information in the panel, like date of birth, bio, books, related cities, other historical figures, etc is pulled from different authoritative sites already on the SERP.

This changes the way we have to optimize our SEM strategies drastically. Why? Because Google is providing the users our pages’ information click-free! The bulk of users using Google to answer simple, general questions, are now provided their answers without ever having to click on a single link or ad to take them to another page. Now, what can we do?

“Do not be sad. Optimize.”

In response to an increasingly more universal search engine, we must adapt our SEM strategies to be more universal themselves. Blended results require blended optimization practices. Here is where the recipe comes into play, how can we take the two temptations of SEO and PPC and blend them into one, grand, optimized SEM campaign?

Keyword optimization remains the backbone of any and all SEM campaigns. But customizing your keyword research for an adaptive universal SERP requires the right dash of SEO here and the right dollop of PPC there. Use each tactic to its strength and you’ll be able to dominate the entire SERP instead of just your little corner of it.

SEO keyword research is highly in-depth to make your content more adaptive to the user’s specific queries. Although the Knowledge Graph may be stealing away first dibs for most general information, the long tail keywords are still yours for the taking. The niche user is still going to be looking for specific and detailed information and/or answers on the actual links of the SERP, he/she won’t be satisfied by the brief panel Google has slapped on.

Use your long-tail keyword research to help format your page and your content into incredibly useful information for your users. Don’t settle for being relevant, make your results pertinent in the eyes of the user.

PPC keywords have been pushed out to sea a bit resulting in the developments in universal search and the Knowledge Graph. Shelling out big bucks for ads that show up when a user types in “SaaS SEO agency” or “PPC company” into the search bar just isn’t financially efficient if the majority of those searches aren’t going to convert on your landing page.

Instead, consider using your PPC ads for more targeted, branded search results that have a much higher conversion rate that make them worth the money. When you are paying per click on your ad you want to make sure that each click counts. Don’t get bogged down by putting up ads on the most expensive and popular words just to try to cut out your piece of the pie.

Your SEO keywords should focus on increasing your visibility and engagements, while your PPC ads should focus on converting. The first constitutes more of the upper funnel while the latter should be solidifying the bottom.

“Optimize as you can. Not as you want.”

The biggest difference between organic and paid search campaigns (besides the fact that money is involved with one and not the other) is the time it takes to see results. Developing brand awareness on the search engines isn’t a sprint. But it isn’t a marathon either.

It’s a marathon of weekly sprints. Time is an incredibly important factor. 

Developing a viewership is necessary to get any SEM campaign off the ground, and if you are looking to draw traffic to a new landing page, PPC is probably your best way to go. Optimizing your pages for better results that generate organic traffic instead of paid traffic is how you make your PPC campaigns more autonomously effective. This is where SEO takes control of the wheel.

As the above graphic illustrates, your PPC campaign should be used to jumpstart your page’s traffic generation while you steadily develop your organic keyword optimization. Once your SEO tactics begin to bear their fruit, you can use your PPC campaigns to better inform your long-tail keyword research and content marketing roadmaps. Instead of relying on your ads for traffic generation and conversion, you can use them as foundations of keyword research.

Use the metaphor of a professional baseball player as a guideline for how to balance your SEO and PPC campaigns. Where when first learning to swing a bat, a novice ballplayer would have to focus intensely on the fundamentals of the motion and the specific technique. You can conflate this with PPC ads, that focus on the tangible improvements of your ads.

But once he’s developed into a full-fledged professional stud, you’d think it odd if he focused that diligently on his fundamentals. In fact, it’s proven that the more an expert focuses on the minutia of his task, the worse he’ll perform. The “task” at hand here is keyword optimization and developing organic traffic. As your SEO campaign grows more expertise, you’ll want to rely less on your “fundamental” PPC ads to generate traffic, otherwise, it’s just inefficient.

Combining your SEO and PPC campaigns does more than account for the complicated balance of blended SERPs. There are several ways in which PPC research and data can inform your SEO campaigns, and many ways in which optimizing strategies usually reserved for SEO can be applied to PPC campaigns. The truth is that the two work better when blended together than they do when used in isolation.

“Idle pages are the devil’s playthings.”

So we’ve developed the roadmap of Google’s evolution and the blending of paid and organic search along with it. But the balancing act of SEM is like walking a tightrope in between two titans of the industry. How do we know we have the right balance between the two? And what are some common pitfalls that lead to the long plummet down to the bottom of the SERP?

The two major pitfalls that will cause you to lose your balance are, thankfully, fairly easy to avoid. Issues usually arise with a blended campaign due to a lack of communication or a failure to play to either tactic’s strengths.

If you aren’t using either tactic to inform the research of its counterpart, you may very well end up with overlapping keywords that are just burning a hole in your pocket. Or, worse than that, you may be using SEO tactics on branded keywords that you could be capitalizing on far quicker with PPC ads.

Or, even worse than that, you might be paying for PPC ads that aren’t converting at which you could abandon and replace with keyword optimization to boost your ranking instead. Playing to the strengths of each individual factor is the key to any blended recipe. Don’t mix up the salt and pepper.

“Reclaim the SERP: Deus Vult!”

Accounting for two very different online marketing campaigns makes for quite the balancing act, that’s a given. But knowing what KPIs to look for and what strengths to emphasize in your paid and organic search campaigns will make optimizing both for universal search far more natural.

Playing to the strengths of the two children of Google’s search engine is the best way to take on the original Titan. Take back the authority your pages deserve by tackling the ever-changing Google monster with the two weapons that were born of the sole need to adapt to it. The future of SEM is surely an evolving one, but using PPC and SEO as brothers who help one another where the other falls short is the best way to usurp their father.

Turn the conflict into collaboration, and you’ll be doubling your conversions sooner, rather than later. To practice the fine art of SEM is to adapt constantly, Google wills it!

The post The Right Recipe: Blending Paid and Organic Search Campaigns appeared first on Directive CA.

Facebook introduced the Brand Awareness Campaign in late 2015, and has been slowly rolling it out to advertisers in waves. Unfortunately not everyone has access to it yet, but even if you don’t, you’ll be ahead of the game when it does come out for everyone.

The first thing you’ll need to do is create a Business Manager account. If you’re completely new to Business Manager, get up to speed with our comprehensive guide. It’ll walk you through setting up an account as well as giving you a tour of the platform.

Step 1: Creating Your Campaign

After you’ve set up your Business Manager and created your Ad Account, select the “Create a Campaign” Button. 

This opens up the Campaign creator.

From here you can select what type of campaign you want to run. Facebook gives you a number of different options, but for this walkthrough we’re going to select the “Increase Brand Awareness” campaign featured at the bottom of the list. By hitting the “Show Advanced Options” drop down on the right hand side, you can set a campaign spending limit. Here at Directive Consulting, we usually run our awareness ads continually so we skip this section, but if you’re on a tight budget and want to ensure you don’t go over it I would recommend setting a spending limit. The minimum limit you can set is $100 (although if you’re planning on spending less than that throughout the entire campaign, there’s no need to set a spending limit. The campaign will just stop when it reaches the lifetime budget set in the Ad Set). Go ahead and title the campaign appropriately and hit Continue.

Step 2: Setting Your Audience

Previously, the only awareness campaign option Facebook had was the Local Awareness Campaign, which was effective when it came to reaching a lot of local people, but severely lacked when it came to setting a  specific target audience. The “Increase Brand Awareness” campaign gives you the ability to create that specific audience while also targeting their geographic location.

Most of this is self-explanatory, but here’s a breakdown of what it all means:

• Custom Audiences: This is where you can add pre-created audiences based off of website traffic or email lists. If you’re not using Custom Audiences, start now.
• Locations: This allows your to target Facebook users based on their geographical location. If you’re a retail store, targeting people within 10 miles of your store would be a good place to start. If you’re like us at Directive Consulting, and do mostly online work, see where the majority of your website traffic is coming from and start with targeting those areas.
• Age: Select an age range for your audience. You can target people from ages 13 to 65 and up.
• Language: Target specific people based on the language they speak (This will automatically target English speakers if left blank).
•  Detailed Targeting: This is where you get to really narrow down your audience. Target Facebook users based on Demographics (i.e. income, religion, relationship status, etc.), Interests (i.e. music, baseball, hiking, television, etc.), and Behaviors (i.e. online shopper, real estate investor, high-end retail buyer).
• Connections: Target people who like your Facebook page(s), friends of people who like your Facebook page, or exclude people who like your Facebook page.

In the upper right hand of the Ad Set page you can see the potential reach of people that meets your detailed specifications as well as a spectrum showing you how specific or broad your audience is. I try and shoot for an audiences that’s in the center of the spectrum, a healthy middle between broad and specific.

For building Brand Awareness, having a larger audience is usually best, but make sure your audience is interested in your product in the first place, or else you’ll be wasting money spreading your brand to people who won’t convert. Your potential reach will differ depending on your specific goals, but the three different Brand Awareness campaigns we’re running average a potential reach of around 400,000 people.

Step 3: Budget and Schedule

Below the audience section in the Ad Set is the budget and schedule section.

The first thing you’ll want to do is decide whether to have a daily budget or a lifetime budget. At Directive Consulting, we usually use the Daily Budget because our ads run continuously, and it’s a pain to keep upping our budget when the lifetime amount is reached. For both lifetime and daily budgets, the minimum spend per day is $1.00. If you don’t plan on running your awareness ads continuously, you can select a start and end date under “Schedule” (again, keep in mind the minimum spend is $1.00 a day).

On the right hand side you can see the daily estimated reach, which will change depending on the amount of money you’re willing to spend. Keep in mind this is just an estimate, so your actual reach may be lower than the estimation.

The ad optimization can be set for Brand Awareness (as shown above) or Reach (shown below).

Optimizing for Reach requires you to select a manual frequency as well as a manual bid. Personally, I recommend the Brand Awareness optimization because Facebook will automatically set a bid amount that helps you get the most brand awareness at the best price, which usually gives you the best bang for you buck.

When you’re done with the budget and optimization settings, hit “Continue” at the bottom of the screen.

Step 4: The Ad Creative

Here you’ll choose which format to use for your ad. As you can see above, you have the choice of a single image or video, or multiple images (which Facebook calls a carousel ad). The most common format is a single image, but if you’re a retailer you could highlight multiple products with a carousel ad. Even at Directive Consulting, we use carousel ads to highlight our work in PPC, SEO, Content Creation, and Social Advertising. Videos can also be a good option because of their auto-play feature, but for this example we’re going to select a single image ad.

You have the option of browsing stock images, browsing your library of previously uploaded images, or uploading your own new image. If you do upload your own image, it’s important to note the recommending image size of 1200 x 628 pixels and to make sure your ad image doesn’t include more than 20% text. Facebook’s tool is a great way to double check the 20% text rule.

You can add up to 6 images for each ad at no extra cost, which is great for A/B testing, and something I definitely recommend!

When you’ve selected the appropriate ad image(s), you’ll be able to preview it depending on which placement you select (Mobile Newsfeed, Desktop Newsfeed, and Instagram).

Now it’s time to start filling in your ad copy. Here’s a breakdown of what everything means.

Text: The part that goes as a “status update” above the ad design. (Recommended: 90 Characters)
Website URL: The site the ad directs to when clicked.
Display Link: How the link is shown on the ad.
Headline: The title right below the ad image. (Recommended: 25 Characters)
News Feed Link Description: The short description right below the headline. (Recommended: 30 Characters)

You can add a Call to Action button (i.e. Learn More, Shop Now, Contact Us, etc.) to encourage even more engagement on your ad.

You’ll see below the Call to Action is Pixel Tracking. You can connect a Facebook Pixel (a snippet of code pasted on your website) in order to track conversions and website visits. This is a whole other animal, which we’ll be covering in another blog post soon!)

Facebook Ad Testing: The 20% Text Rule

As Facebook advertising has grown over the past few years, they’ve constantly updated and changed their guidelines and rules for ads. Not too long ago they introduced the Brand Awareness Campaign, and the most recent change involves the 20% text rule. Before the change, Facebook required all ad images to have no more than 20% text, so advertisers couldn’t cram in additional copy outside of their headlines and link descriptions. Anytime an advertiser wanted to launch an ad or promote content, we had to use a text overlay tool to ensure our ads met the guidelines, or else they wouldn’t be allowed to run. It looked something like this.

As you can see, the text takes up 28% of the image, and therefore wouldn’t be allowed to run as an ad. Finding the balance between an eye popping and appealing image and keeping the amount of text under 20%. It used to take me multiple tries to get the exact image that I thought appealed to both of those aspects.

The text takes up only 20% of the image and would be allowed to run!

The 20% Change

Recently, Facebook updated their policy to allow images with more than 20% text, but offered up this warning for advertisers wanting to include a high amount of text in their ad images.

While it’s nice that Facebook alerts you when your image contains too much text, this warning is pretty ambiguous. Does Facebook really lower the reach if your image has more than 20% text? That’s the question we wanted to answer, so we set out to discover the answer.

The Parameters of our Facebook Test

http://gmehrguth.wistia.com/medias/j6rfyzwjqr?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=700

For this test, we promoted a blog article that we wrote which highlights a number of free social media marketing guides. We chose this article because it’s a listicle, which we know from previous experience performs well on Facebook. We began with a broad audience of 1.3 million people who had an interest in marketing and ALSO had an interest in Social Media Marketing.

We wanted at least a million people in our target audience. Facebook can limit the reach of your ads if our audience is too specific. We’ve seen this happen in the past, so although Facebook gives you the ability to be super specific with your targeting, it doesn’t always benefit you. By being too specific, we have seen such a low amount of impressions that our CPM was close to $40. We ran three different ad sets with the same audience and same budget to ensure the only change was the amount of text in the ads. The three different ad images are below:

With this in mind, we ran three different ad sets with the same audience and same budget to ensure the only change was the amount of text in the ads. The three different ad images are below:

We launched these ads simultaneously beginning on July 1st, and ran them for a week, ending them on July 8th. We created individual ad sets for each image so that the budget and reach would be spent evenly. If you launch different ad images in the same campaign, Facebook will automatically try and optimize that campaign, so the ads that have the most engagement at the beginning will be shown more, and take more of the budget than the ads that didn’t see as much engagement. We wanted everything to be completely identical, from target audience to ad copy, with the only changing variable being the amount of text in the featured image. We spent $33 per image, coming in at just under $5 per day.

We wanted everything to be completely identical, from target audience to ad copy, with the only changing variable being the amount of text in the featured image. We spent $33 per image, coming in at just under $5 per day.

The Results

We saw some very interesting results from this test, and I’ve got to be honest, it was a little different than what I expected going into this experiment. One thing that held true that I was expecting was the large text image reaching the least amount of people. However, it wasn’t nearly as low as I thought it was going to be. With almost 44% of our ad image covered with text, it only reached 197

One thing that held true, which I expected, was that the large text image reached the least amount of people. However, it wasn’t nearly as low as I thought it was going to be. With almost 44% of our ad image covered with text, it only reached 197

With almost 44% of our ad image covered with text, it only reached 197 fewer people than the image with no text, and 663 fewer people than the medium text. One thing that was interesting was the amount of engagement we saw across the different images. The full results can be seen below:

Even though the medium text image reached nearly 500 more people, it had 24 less engagements than the image with no text. Obviously, this means the cost per engagement was lower as well. However, we did notice that the medium text image led to more link clicks and page likes, which I think most every Facebook marketer would agree, are much more valuable than just post likes. The most decisive thing we learned in this test is that having more than 20%, or in our

However, we did notice that the medium text image led to more link clicks and page likes, which I think most every Facebook marketer would agree, are much more valuable than just post likes. The most decisive thing we learned in this test is that having more than 20%, or in our case nearly 50% of our image covered in text, definitely hurts not only the amount of people reached, but also the amount of engagement.

Our Conclusion

This was a very telling test, and provided a lot of good information not only on how the amount of text affects reach; but also, how it affects engagement. We can definitely see that the reach is affected when the ad image includes more than 20% text, and we can safely assume that if you upped the budget, the difference in reach would be much more drastic.

When it comes to engagement, this test definitely isn’t a tell all. Our images, while on brand and creatively designed, probably aren’t going to get as much engagement as a picture of a beautiful sunset or a 15-foot shark breaching the sea.

However, it’s safe to say that including SOME text on your ad images is a way to drive more engagement. Naturally, our eyes and attention are drawn to images more than words. Adding a small amount of text ensures that people’s attention is still driven towards the image, but there’s a better chance they’ll click on the link because the image now tells them what to expect from the article.

If you also look at our results, the image with a medium amount of text (still under 20%), brought more traffic to our site, more traffic to our Facebook page, and resulted in a share as well. Below you can see some examples of posts we’ve promoted for clients that have done extremely well on Facebook, and have a nice balance of captivating images and enticing text.

When you’ve completed everything and made sure your ad looks exactly the way you want it hit the “Place Order” button at the bottom of the screen. And that’s it! You’ve just created your first brand awareness campaign. If your campaign doesn’t immediately go live, don’t panic. Sometimes it takes Facebook up to 24 hours to review the ad and make sure it’s compliant to all of their ad guidelines.

Now that you’ve created your first campaign, don’t just rest on your laurels, optimize them! Split test using different ad images or ad copy, analyze for a week, then try something new!

The post The Ins and Outs of Running a Facebook Brand Awareness Campaign appeared first on Directive CA.

With it’s highly relevant and targeted platform; it gives you the opportunity to focus your advertising budget on a specific target audience that is looking to buy. Such laser focus gives businesses the upper hand in both profit and ROI, making Google AdWords a must.

From the B2B marketer’s point of view, however, you’re sure to know that AdWords Accounts require an audit pretty regularly for prime optimization. This guide will help you know the why’s, where’s, and how’s of auditing an AdWords Account.

Why Audit Your B2B AdWords Account?

There is No Such Thing as a Perfect Account: No matter how efficient, user friendly, or even successful your AdWords Account is, problems are sure to arise. This is because there is no such thing as a perfect account, and treating your account as such could lead to tedious problems down the road. Understanding that every account will come with issues allows you a window of preparedness when the time comes.

Performance Issues

Your AdWords Account may be showing some performance issues, and a Google AdWords audit will help you know what they are and why they’re happening. Perhaps your ads are lagging, there’s poor storage, or data just isn’t being recorded like it should. An audit will expose these problems and more, allowing you to correct them.

Avoid Wasting You or Your Client’s Ad Budget:

Most businesses have a set budget for their advertisements, and it’s up to you, as the marketer, to maximize their campaign performance with the budget given. Avoid wasting your own budget and the budgets of your clients by consistently monitoring your AdWords Account so that it’s as efficient as possible.

Where Do I Start?

Select the Correct Date Range:

The date range is important because of ad activity. Some ads may experience more traffic during the week, while others have peak interaction on the weekends. To choose the correct date range, use the “Time view” in the Dimensions tab of your AdWords Account.

At least 30 days of data…If Not More:

A monthly date range is the typical time frame to measure ad performance, but you can do more. 30 days of data is the minimum, but you can actually add more days of data if needed.

The More Information You Have the Better Decisions You can Make:

With longer date ranges, you have more information to work with, which leads to better decisions. Monitoring ad performance over a longer period of time gives you a much more accurate view of ad performance because you can see developing patterns, down times, and high times in customer interaction.

Compare Your Data to the Previous Period:

If you want to know how your ad campaigns did one week, compared to the week before or after, you can compare date ranges.

This option can be found in the “Campaigns Section” of your AdWords Account. Simply click the down arrow located in the date range in the upper right corner of the page. From here, set the “Compare” option to “ON.” Then, set the date range you want, go to the “Compare” section, and select whether you want to compare the previous period, the same period a year ago, or you can make a custom comparison. Finally, click “Apply,” to get things started.

Context is King:

You can always guesstimate how well performance is doing from week to week, but this is no way to make decision. Context is the best way to improve your ad campaign and comparing date ranges of data is the most effective way to get the data you need.

Understand your KPIs:

Your KPIs or “Key Performance Indicators” are what will tell you how well your ad campaign is actually doing.  Your AdWords KPIs will vary from business to business, but these are the most important:

• Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who are completing a desired action.
• Cost Per Conversion: Tells you how much it costs for a user to complete a desired action on your website, whether it is filling out a form, signing up to an email list or buying your product.
• Quality Score: How AdWords determines how well your ads are doing on landing pages and what you can improve on, cause there is always something to improve.
• Clickthrough Rate: The percentage of users who see your ad and click on it. The higher the number the better your ad is performing. Remember a high CTR means little if your visitors aren’t converting or you’re not tracking conversions.
• Return on Ad Spend or CPA: Your return on investment after all expenses. The best way to showcase your campaign’s overall profitability.
• Lifetime Value: Expected sales from the average customer over the estimated lifetime of your business.

What Metrics are Most Important to Your Company:

Deciding which metrics are most important to your company will help you decide which ones to cater to and focus on. This depends heavily on the type of ad campaign you’re creating and your target market.

Choose Your Columns Carefully:

The columns in your statistics tables will help you glean important information about your account. Some columns are more helpful than others to your specific campaign or business, so you must choose which columns you’d like to see carefully.

Be Sure to Include all the Necessary Statistical Columns to Aid in your Analysis: For the most accurate analysis, you’ll want to include all necessary statistical columns. You can identify these by finding which one’s measure value, conversion, clicks, cost, and performance.

Example: Value/conversion; converted clicks; cost/converted click

The Audit

Settings:

This is where you’ll begin your Google AdWords audit. Through the settings tab, you’ll be able to see the finer points of how your AdWords account and how your campaigns are operating.

• Are you targeting BOTH Search & Display in one campaign? If so, you found your first problem. Both are different in their own ways and thus should be treated as such.
• Device Targeting: The devices you’re targeting with your ad campaign are those giving maximum conversions, which means they should be getting a large share of your budget.

Mobile vs. Desktop:

Customer demographic is the biggest indicator of which device(s) you should be targeting. Searches performed on mobile devices is a growing trend, therefore you should be creating mobile friendly ads and landing pages.

What Makes Sense for Your Business?: Knowing which device to target depends upon what makes the most sense for your business. Are your customers primarily on mobile devices? Or are they using desktops? The more you know your customers, the more informed your decisions would be.

• Ad Rotation: Google’s default option is they’ll show the ad that is expected to receive more clicks. If you’re auditing your account(s) on a more frequent basis and you’re split testing your ad copy, then it make sense to choose the “rotate evenly” option. This way your ads are getting equal share of impressions and you can make better decisions on their performance.
• Location: Are you targeting the places your users are in? Wherever your users are is a location you should be targeting.
• Language: Understand your audience to be sure you’re not running your ads in a language they won’t be able to understand.
• Ad scheduling: This allows you to see when your ads are performing better. Days of the week and hours in the day are the main performance measurements and the data returned can help you form a solid day-parting strategy.

Account Structure

Campaigns:

Most often you’ll have only a few campaigns, unless your account is large. Each campaign should be based around a broader theme and will contain your ad groups. Before you start, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are your campaigns easily distinguishable?
• If you are an e-commerce company, do you have separate campaigns for each product category?

Your structure should be easy to understand and in most cases mirror the structure of your website.

Ad Groups:

Ad groups contain your keywords and ads for each specific campaign. Ask yourself the following questions to see if your ad groups are easy to use and understand:

• Are your ad groups sub-categories of your campaign?
• Example: Campaign: Shirts. Ad Group: Men’s Polo Shirts. Keyword: Men’s Red Polo Shirt.
• Do you have more than 20 keywords? If so think about keeping it between 10-20.

Keywords: Broad vs. Phrase vs. Exact

The match type you choose is important in controlling when your ads are shown and are critically influential of your Quality Score.

Broad Match:

These are great at generating lots of impressions for your ads, but also will show your ads for searches that don’t relate to your business. The way you can control your broad keywords is by adding an (+) in front of it. This is known as a broad match modifier.

Example: If you have a broad keyword such as ”red polo” your ad could show for variations like “red pants” and “blue polo.” So by adding a (+) in front “+red +pants” now your ad will only show for searches that contain “red pants” in the search query. Variations such as “pants red” or “red stripe pants” will also trigger your ad. This is an effective way to find new keywords for your ad group.

Phrase Match:

By adding quotation marks around your keyword such as “red polo shirts” your ad will only show if a search query contains that exact phrase in the search. A search for “red polo shirts for men” can still trigger your ad. Again, this can be useful in finding hidden keywords.

Exact Match:

The most precise keyword targeting. By adding brackets around your keywords such as [men’s red polo shirts] your ad will only be triggered if a search query contains that exact phrasing.

Mine Search Query Reports:

You should frequently mine your search query reports because they will return valuable information on what people are specifically searching for and can lead to finding those important long-tail keywords. Mining your search query report will also show you irrelevant search terms that don’t relate to your business, now you have the power to exclude this term from triggering your ad in the future. Consistently monitoring your search terms report can save your business money in the long run.

• • • • Focus on Long-Tail keywords: when bidding on competitive keywords, you’re going to notice you’re spending a large amount of your ad budget with little ROI. Finding these long-tail keywords can lower your cost-per-click and increase your ROI. The more precise your keyword, the more likely someone searching for that keyword practically has their credit card in hand, waiting to by your product/service. Using a (paid) service such as Long Tail Pro will no doubt help finding these profit generating keywords.

Ads:

Of course, a huge part of your actual Google AdWords audit is the ads themselves. Checking in on the details of your ads will give you much needed insight to how they’re performing and what you can improve on. Use this list to check whether your ads need some fine tuning:

• Do they follow Google guidelines? A successful ad should follow the guidelines put in place by Google. If not, you can be violating Google’s AdWords policies, which could be costing you or your client money and could potentially lead to a suspended account.
• Clear CTA? A clear and concise call-to-action lets your customers know what “action” you want them to take. Whether it’s downloading an e-book, signing up for your email list, or buying your product.
• Do they include your relevant keywords? Your ads should contain your high-quality and relevant keywords. This will help you reach your target audience, when you want to.
• Do the ads reflect the copy on their landing pages? Your ads should clearly reflect the copy on your landing pages. This creates an unmistakable sense of fluidity and continuation and lets customers know they’re in the right place.

Quality Scores:

Quality scores give you a clear view of how your ad is doing. Improving your quality score will save your campaign money in the long run and affects your overall ad rank.

Ad Extensions: Ad extensions are easy and highly effective. In fact, ad extensions offer one of the biggest ROIs for both time and effort. They actually improve CTR up to 20% on the average ad campaign.

Display Ads

Using the power of the Google Display Network (GDN) your ads can be placed automatically on websites and mobile apps, when your keywords are related to the site’s content. You can also manage the sites your ads show on, if you want to target specific webpages, demographics, topics, etc.

Are you targeting the right people?

1. 1. 1. Demographics: Pay attention and understand your audience. The more you know your target market the better. For example, if you were targeting young female adults, it would not make much sense to place your ads on webpages that are historically targeted towards males.
      2. Interests: This is more generic but also highly useful. Knowing the interests of your target audience give you more options for display ads. If your target audience is into hiking, you can place display ads on fitness sites, health food sites, etc.

Exclusions: Like negative keywords lists, Google AdWords allows you to exclude your ads from automatically showing on sites irrelevant or inappropriate to your audience. To utilize this tool, simply:

1. Navigate to your display campaign
2. Click on the Display Network tab, then the “+Targeting” button
3. From here you can add and manage your exclusions for both your campaign and ad group.
4. As always be sure to save your changes.

Utilize the Keyword/Display Planner:

The Display Planner feature allows you to utilize information on effective placements, times, and groups by planning what you’ll display, where you’ll display it, and when. To find the keyword and display planner, navigate to the Tools drop down at the top of the page.

Install Conversion Tracking on your Landing Pages:

Each of your landing pages should be tracking conversions in order to know how your ad campaigns are doing. Installing conversion tracking is of utmost importance as it returns a wide breadth of invaluable information for your business. To learn how to install, go here.

If you’re not tracking conversions, then why even audit your account? Some businesses don’t install tracking conversions on their landing pages, which begs the question: why not? This tool is one of the best and most important improvements you can make. Don’t wait; install conversion tracking NOW!

Compare Data With Google Analytics for Deeper Insights:

It’s always good to have a number of data resources to study and research. By comparing your data with the Google Analytics data, you gain a deeper understanding of how your ad campaigns are actually doing. The different takes on performance paints a clearer picture of effectiveness, which helps you make better-informed decisions about changes to your account.

Outside Resources such as Heat Maps can be Great Tools to Improve your Landing Pages and thus your AdWords Campaigns:

A Heat Map is another tool that allows you to monitor visitor engagement on your webpages. By creating color-coded images, heat maps reflect the most, as well as the least, engaging parts of a page. This is usually measured by, either eye tracking or mouse tracking on the landing page.

Heat maps are important in gathering useful data on where you can improve your website and/or landing page.

This guide will help even the savviest marketers make their ad campaigns even better. A Google AdWords audit may seem tedious, but it is the most effective and successful way to tell how well your AdWords Account is shaping up. By diving deep into your account, fixing errors, and continually striving to improve your campaign, you’ll be doing yourself a service, as well as your clients.

The post Auditing an AdWords Account: The B2B Marketer’s Guide appeared first on Directive CA.

Not only does it offer a streamlined way to manage your ads in one place, but it also gives you a space to reach all of your customers at once and observe data on who’s seeing your ads, interacting with them, and engaging with them. Overall, Facebook Ads using Business Manager make it easier to do your job, but how do you use it? This guide will break it down for you.

Why Use Facebook Business Manager if Your B2B

To start, you may be wondering why using Business Manager is better than what you’re already doing. In truth, Business Manager comes with a number of features that makes managing your B2B ads easier and more modern, bringing your B2B agency or marketing methods well into the modern age. Aside from this, however, there are a few great reasons why using Business Manager is best for your advertising needs.

1. Security

Prior to using Business Manager, you may notice that the level of privacy and security you have is rather low. This is because you have to friend coworkers on Facebook to actually work with them, which means they have access to your personal information, and you to theirs. This can be problematic for a number of reasons, least of all limited to a breach of privacy between employers, employees, and coworkers, which can lead to sticky situations if individuals aren’t careful.

With Business Manager, your coworkers will only be able to see your name, provided email, and the ad accounts you have given access to over Business Manager.

2. Easier to Manage Multiple Business Pages

This feature is especially helpful to B2B advertising agencies and marketers because it allows them to manage the multiple businesses using their services. With Business Manager, you can add pages to your single account using two simple methods:

• Requesting Access to Manage a Page in Business Manager
• Claiming a Paging to Transfer into Your Business Manager

3. Easier to Manage Multiple Ad Accounts

If you have multiple ad accounts to keep track of, Business Manager makes it easier to manage them all from one location. In the past, advertisers and marketers using Facebook had to create login aliases just to manage other ad accounts not connected to their main page. With Business Manager, you can add your ad accounts to your single login using these three ways:

• Requesting to Manage an Ad Account in Business Manager
• Claiming an Ad account to Transfer to Business Manager Permanently
• Creating a New Ad Account (as long as it’s under the ad account limit)

4. More Professional

Previously, ad agencies and marketers managed their accounts from their personal logins and profiles. Of course, this isn’t good because it lowers professional credibility, gives way to distraction and lowers the amount of privacy and security your ads should have. Consolidating all of your different Facebook campaigns to a single, branded account can help give your ad campaigns a more robust and professional feel.

5. One Login for Ad Accounts

With Business Manager, you can manage all of your ad accounts from one login that is not your personal profile. With this option, you can navigate everything from admins and employees to data and customers from a single spot without putting your personal information in danger.

6. Modernize Your Business

In today’s modern world, professionals instantly gain more credibility when they use social media. This is because social media is the easiest way to market yourself, your agency, and your content. Not only that – social media is were you clients are really interacting with your content. When you switch to Business Manager, you give yourself a chance to move into the modern world by taking advantage of this useful tool and streamlining your advertisements in one fell swoop.

Facebook Manager Setup

To get things started, you must first set up your business manager. The setup process is fairly simple, but it does contain a number of steps.

Follow this guide to get things done:

Transitioning from Facebook Ads Manager:

Moving from Facebook Ads Manager to Business Manager is simple enough to do. To start, you must become the admin of the manager tool by creating an account at http://business.facebook.com. This way, you’ll have access to both business and ad pages.

Bringing Over Facebook Pages

If you already have Facebook advertising pages, you can add them to Business Manager by going to the setting tab in manager and finding the “Pages” tab. From here, you’ll click on the button in the top right corner titled “Add New Page”.

Transfer Ad Account Permissions

Transferring ad permissions requires you to go to Ad Manager and then into your Account Settings located on the top bar (You may need to login again to access your settings). Once here, look in the Ad Account Roles area and select “Add A Person”. To add a person, type in the correct email address or a name. Once this is done, you will select the role “Ad Account Advertiser” and hit ‘Submit.”

Notify Clients

Let your clients know you have made the switch to Business Manager by creating a custom audience. This feature allows you to reach out specifically to clients you already know you market and advertise for. To understand more, check out Facebook here.

Add the Team

Now that Business Manager is set up for you, you have the option to add your team to the account. This is super helpful if you have employees or co-workers who help with advertisements who need access to the manager as well.

New Client Setup

Next, you’ll need to add your clients to the manager. This allows them to see ads before they’re distributed, request edits, and have other access privileges that make the job easier on both of you.

Set up your clients with these steps:

Business Page Access:

To give your clients access to business pages, you have to add them to your business manager. Go to the settings tab, choose the “Business Setting” button located on the left-hand side of the navigation tab, click “People”, and “Add New People” on the top right corner. Add clients by entering emails and assigning them access to the business page.

Instagram Access:

For many of your clients, Instagram is a huge avenue for advertisements, and Business Manger gives you access to this social media platform as well.

To add clients, go to your Business Manager page and on the left side bar select Business Settings and click “Instagram Accounts”. Here you will be able to “Claim New Instagram Account”. Once that is all set up, you can go to your Ad Manager and create a New Campaign. There you will then see a new option to advertise on Instagram at the bottom creative section.

Ad Account Access:

Ad Account access requires you to go through “Account Settings” in Ad Manager. Once here, scroll through the Ad Account Roles choice, and select “Add Person.” By entering either their name or email address, then hitting “Submit,” you can grant access to the ad account of your choice.

1. Is It Their First Time Advertising?:

When giving clients ad account access, you can manage how much you assign them depending upon their experience level. For clients who are just starting out, you can give less access and responsibility, allowing them to simply manage their ads. If they have a more experience, you can assign more charges to them. Do this by going to the ‘Account Roles’ and choosing the level of access. Since Facebook Advertising = $9,900, you’re sure to be getting new clients looking for Facebook ads to promote their businesses.

2. Access Levels:

As the Admin, you have access to the entire Business Manager account. This gives you charge over ads and account reports, allows you to create and edit ads, control payments, and of course, manage admin permissions to coworkers and clients. Other levels include Advertisers. These can view ads, access reports, and create and edit ads, and Analysists who can view ads and access reports.

Issues with Facebook Business Manager

Like with all tools, there are a few setbacks and bugs to be aware of. Facebook’s Business Manager has some issues that should be addressed to better help you handle them. Of course, much of these issues come with Business Manager being new, while others are soon to be worked out. Still, for advertisers and marketers using Business Manager, it’s good to know the following:

Limitation on Ad Accounts:

This limitation can become problematic for agencies managing a number of clients and ads, but there is a way around it. You can find the specific limit of ad accounts by going to Business Settings, then Info. From here, you can review the Ad Account Creation Limit.

If you find you’ve hit your limit, you can request more ad accounts by increasing the ad account creation limit. To do this, go to “Report a Problem” located in the upper right corner. Explain your need for more ads by filling out a request form. Someone should be in touch with you in a few days.

Data Discrepancies with Google Analytics:

Once of the most important parts of online advertisements is having the ability to track how well your ads are doing. Unfortunately, there is a data discrepancy between Facebook Business Manager and Google Analytics.

While this might not be a problem for some, it will make it more difficult to measure just how well (or poorly) your ads are doing. Facebook Business Manager reports Ad traffic through clicks, while Google Analytics measures data by page visits and views. To resolve this problem, go here.

Does Not Integrate with Facebook Ad Manager Account:

If you already have a Facebook Ad Manager Account, you won’t be able to integrate with your new Business Manager account. This means that you’ll have to start from square one when transferring data, pages, and ad accounts.

Tips and Tricks: From One Marketer to Another

Limitations aside, there are some handy tips and tricks that marketers should know to make their ad account experience better. With Business Manager, you get the following extras that you can use to the advantage of our ads and ad visibility:

Audience Insights:

Perhaps the most useful trick on Business Manager is Audience Insights. This tool allows you to glean information about the target audience of your ads. With such information, you can refine advertising content to be much more streamlined and relevant to your client’s customer demographic. With Audience Insights, you get a first-hand look at the following data:

1. Audience Demographic: This will tell the age, gender, careers, and even the relationship status of your audience. This is super useful for tailoring ads to parents, couples, singles, teens, men, women, and everyone in between.

2. Lifestyle Information: This collects the interests and activities your client’s audiences engage in on a daily bases. Whether it’s doing yoga, singing, enjoying a certain band, or a television show, lifestyle data has it.

3. Purchase Information: This will show you purchase behaviors, locations, data, categories, and habits of the target audience. Many advertisers find this useful for knowing where to promote, when to promote, and which products, services, and the like should be aimed at which audience members.

Power Editor for Extra Characters:

This free browser plugin gives you the ability to edit ads all together or in bulk. You’ll also be able to access the latest Ad Account features which include ad placement and bidding optimization. In addition, you’ll be able to create both ads and campaigns for all clients.

Report Garden for Analyzing and Reporting on Performance:

Facebook Advertising = $9,900 more for a business, and the report garden helps you track this down to the numbers. You can collect data on how your ads are doing with customers, which includes how customers are reacting, how they’re interacting, and whether or not they’re engaged with the ads you’re placing. You can find out how many people click an ad, visit an ad page, and more.

This “How to” guide should help you learn all the ins and outs of Facebook Business Manager for ads and ad accounts. With this tool, many ads have become much easier to distribute and control, making more traffic for the companies who need them. Now that you’ve transitioned to Business Manager, you have access to data and information that can only result in make marketing easier and ads better.

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