In this day and age of Online Sales and Digital Marketing, do you know what to look for when optimizing your strategy for advertising online? That's the question that I'm going to answer today. With a lot more questions!
The biggest purpose of Digital Analytics and Marketing is to always keep asking, how can I be more efficient? The key to that question is going to be finding out what separate parts of your strategy can become more efficient. Are you spending money in the wrong places? Are you stagnant and lacking growth? Are you forgetting about possible tools at your disposal? Where do I start with so much to do?
The best thing about all of these questions is that it doesn't matter where you start as long as you don't stop.
These are my Top 4 Hacks that I've learned in my time working in Digital Marketing and Analytics:
1. Keyword Mining and Negatives! This is the most brain-dead and simplistic technique that you're going to love. Go into your Google Ads or even Bing Ads campaigns and look for Keywords to either add or negative out. What does this do? It gives you a better scope of traffic on the plus side, and it saves you money on clicks from people who are looking for irrelevant products. A great personal example I have is an automotive company that I work for with a bed cover brand called Gator. A lot of people search for UF Gators Bed Covers (As in linens) and we were able to save ourselves a lot of money by negatively blocking anyone that searches for +UF, +University, +Florida as Broad Match Modifiers in our campaigns!
2. A / B Testing. Is your ad awesome? Great! Try doing some A/B Testing with some Dynamic Google Search Ads that can give you an idea of what works and what doesn't! This would take way too long to explain, so here's an incredible YouTube Video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2obKm3V6fc
3. Are you doing a Search Campaign with a Display Opt-In? Don't. Super Simple, don't do it, it's lazy, ineffective and looks terrible. The Display Opt-In is essentially throwing a normal search Text-Ad into the Display locations where a Display Ad could be. Do yourself a favor, take a few minutes and make a Display Ad specific to Display, or just avoid it all together!
4. Optimizing Quality Score. Want to save money? Want to increase your position? Want to force competitors to have to bid higher to take your top spot? Well this is your golden ticket! Google tests your website and gives it a quality score on a number of factors.
What are these factors?
Expected Click Through Rate: Are people actually Clicking on your Ads?
Ad Relevance: Does your Ad match the KeyWords and Search Terms people are looking for?
Landing Page Experience: Do the Ad and Landing Page add up? Is the Ad relevant?
If you want to take a closer look, check out https://ads.google.com and get your Academy Certifications!