Don't let the constant flow of new updates and features in the PPC world stop you from succeeding in paid search. This strategy has helped us ensure record-breaking results for our clients, so we're sharing it now in hopes that it will help you too.
Watch the replay here: http://www.roirevolution.com/promos/replay-webinar-new-PPC-strategy-2015.php
Welcome
My name is
Mark Curtis – Team Leader
This web clinic is specifically for those of you in leadership that want to insure consistent, predictable growth with your adwords initiatives over this next year because you have a proven way to think about advertising that allows you to make better decisions as the year develops.
Looks like we still have quite a few people joining us so lets go over a little about how we are going to make sure you get the most out of this web clinic today as well as what your going to learn
I speak quickly, to make sure you get all the information that we put together for you.
At the end of todays web clinic I am going to show you how to get access to a quick start that will insure you can put what you learn here into action yourself or delegate it to your team
When reflecting on the past, we can look at things like Search Volume, Search Trends, Competitors and…
new features or tools we can use with the platforms we advertise on.
There is a lot of knowledge out there on Search Volume, Search Trends, Competitors etc, so lets evaluate tools. After all, if all things are equal & we are in a competitive market, with similar products, our ability to skillfully choose & use the right tools is a key competitive advantage that must be focused on in 2015.
Okay, so lets take a look here,
In 2012 there were 9 key new feature advancements that were very significant,
In 2013 there were 16 significant changes
In 2014 there were 31 significant changes
Side note: In this historical review we are going to focus on two platforms Bing & Google, not because we don’t advertise in other places because we do. Its just that Bing & Google consist of 87% of the search traffic out there right now.
So when we look at the last 3 years what do we see?
The new major updates & new features are almost doubling every year.
What does this mean to us?
How many new features or major updates do you believe is going to develop this year?
We can’t predict the future, but it seems we should keep an eye on this doesn’t it?
With all these changes there has been a growing opportunities as well as a growing challenge.
After all, never in the history of advertising has there been so many opportunities to locate your ideal customer and customize the message they need to see in order to buy from you.
At the same time there has never been such a challenge with developing all the knowledge & skills to be able to fully leverage these new capabilities.
Lets dive deep into a few of these changes over the last year to pull out the learning’s we need to fully maximize our opportunities this year.
Here are 2012’s changes [CLICK]
(2013) [CLICK] ***Comment as needed***
(2014) [CLICK] ***Comment as needed***
2014’s record 31 changes is an average of 2 ½ major changes per month. In September alone there were 9!
One of the key factors to Bing’s increase in features is their push last year to make the Bing feature set similar to Google’s. Many of 2014’s Bing features (highlighted in blue) are similar to features that Google had rolled out previously.
So what does this mean for retailers and online advertisers? [CLICK]
This start with Google Shopping Campaigns
This was One of the biggest AdWords announcements of 2014 was without a doubt.
In February of 2014, Google introduced “Shopping campaigns” to all AdWords accounts. \
These new “Shopping campaigns” would eventually replace “Product Listing Ads” and become the top traffic generating ad block on the Google search results page for product-specific searches. [CLICK - NEXT]
Shopping Campaigns offer additional valuable features to advertisers. Some of these include: [CLICK]
(defer to Mark)
- (Better targeting for products and categories) – You can now group and target your products by category and subcategory levels within the AdWords interface, which wasn’t available before [CLICK]
- (Competitive data and benchmarking metrics) – Google now shows competitive data and benchmarking metrics from among your competitors who sell similar products [CLICK]
- (Advanced reporting) - Advanced reporting to better measure performance on a product, category or group level [CLICK]
- (Bid simulation) - The ability to simulate bids to better predict performance and traffic opportunities.
(Back to Nate)
To those familiar with the older ways of targeting with Product listing Ads, the upcoming Shopping Campaigns offered a LOT of key features that could help advertisers better achieve success.
This announcement was great news that was welcomed by savvy advertisers who understood the limits of PLAs. [CLICK - NEXT]
Because the transition from “Product Listing Ads” to “Shopping Campaigns” would take some work, Google gave advertisers lots of time to make the transition. Here is the timeline [CLICK]
[CLICK 4x slowly] *** READ & Explain Comments ***
[CLICK] If anyone took action on their account right now, they deserve a lot of credit. Very few jumped on this right away.
[CLICK] *** READ & Explain Comment ***
[CLICK] How quickly you completed the transition within this time frame determined whether you were an ACTOR or a REACTOR.
[CLICK] This was the deadline. August 31. September 5th is when Google started automatically making default changes for the advertisers who hadn’t done it themselves.
[CLICK] By September 22nd the migration was complete. All accounts with PLAs now had the new Shopping Campaigns, whether they liked it or not… or whether they even knew about it or not. Like we said in the beginning: “Paid Search moves forward with or without us.”
Initially we believed that most (if not all) advertisers did SOMETHING before the deadline. However, we are still SHOCKED when we consult with a prospective client that literally still has the default Shopping Campaign settings active (that Google set up months ago). This still happens at LEAST once a month.
[CLICK] This minority are the INACTIVE. Sometimes they’re just asleep at the wheel and have no clue about the changes going on around them, but sometimes they are simply too busy to do it all and just “haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
[CLICK 2x slowly] Some advertisers had 11 months to do it. Most had 7 months.
***Summarize lessons learned*** In this first case study, you’ll see exactly why slow adoption is a bad strategy.
[CLICK - NEXT]
----- Meeting Notes (1/8/15 11:13) -----
was this 2012 or 2013?
This first case study is a retailer selling custom paint supplies. We aren't announcing the company name at there request for strategic reasons.
As we look at this keep in mind that the line graph represents the cost per conversion.
The bar graphs represent the conversions.
[CLICK] This is 6 months of performance data for all of the Product-related ads in the account up until the launch of Shopping campaigns. We had increased volume and improved the Cost per Conversion significantly up until this point.
When we implemented the campaigns [CLICK] the 1st thing you’ll notice is the sharp drop in Cost per Conversion, which fell 39% from the previous month! This is important, because you ALWAYS want to focus on ROI FIRST, before scaling up to chase additional volume.
With conversions coming in at 39% cheaper, we had a big green light to scale up and aggressively go after large amounts of new conversions, which is what we did. In the 2nd month after launch [CLICK], you’ll see a sharp 74% increase in conversions, and the months after continued to produce an average of 480 additional sales each month for the next 5 months.
[CLICK 4x slowly]
By the end of month 5, this client had the highest Conversion volume in history at the all-time lowest “Cost per Conversion.” This all happened very soon after the feature was enabled,
LONG before most other retailers in their space were getting around to making these changes.
Those who immediately initiated Shopping campaigns had a 6-month head start to test, optimize and position themselves among the competition, most of whom were waiting until the last minute, or worse yet AFTER the deadline had passed.
[CLICK - NEXT]
Let’s take a look at the average amount of Conversions both before and after the changes were made.
[CLICK slowly and tell the story as you go] (stop at the end of the “Cost per Conversion” table, when it says “Gains”)
[CLICK] Based on these extra conversions AND the clients all-time average revenue per conversion for product ads, upgrading to Shopping campaigns SOONER (rather than later) enabled this client to gain just under $400,000 in ADDITIONAL revenue (not total revenue, additional). That’s about $80,000 per month of extra revenue, just from this One upgrade.
Here is the big lesson here.
Those who IMMEDIATELY rolled out Shopping campaigns had a 7-month head start to test, optimize and position themselves among the competition, most of whom were waiting until the last minute. Imagine if this extra $80,000 /mo in new revenue had been delayed or postponed.
Then ask yourself if this big of a gain would have EVEN been possible if we had initiated the changes immediately before or even after the deadline, when everybody else had already upgraded and were firing on all cylinders.
We believe that the reason that these gains were so big was because we got in sooner than most.
The BIG LESSON HERE IS TO GET IN FIRST
[CLICK - NEXT]
When AdWords announced Dynamic Remarketing, there was no deadline or forced migration. Just an opportunity to take if advertisers wanted it.
[CLICK - NEXT]
But first, let’s summarize what Dynamic Remarketing is, in case there are some on the call that may not be familiar with the concept.
[CLICK] Here’s how it works
[CLICK] Your website visitor (we’ll call her Jane) comes to your site and looks at some specific products that interest her
[CLICK] In the subsequent hours or days after she leaves your site and browses around other sites on the web, she is able to see ads from your site that showcase the exact same products that she was interested in
[CLICK] Jane can easily remember and reconnect with the products on her mind, and her ads are more enjoyable and relevant
[CLICK - NEXT]
So why aren’t more people using this?
(defer to mark)
(back to Nate)
For one, it required a lot more resources and time to set up than just about any other feature. For this reason, we find that a lot of retailers with limited technical resources just don’t use this very often. Most new clients we sign on are not using this, but it can be a relatively easy but big win, as you see right here
[CLICK - NEXT]
In this particular example, no action was taken to execute on dynamic remarketing until about 13 months after it was released.
When we were given the opportunity to implement this in our clients account, we found a steady flow of new traffic that they had been missing for over a year!
Defer to mark
[CLICK] These are the 6 months immediately before we rolled out Dynamic Remarketing
[CLICK] This is the launch month. [CLICK] At this point, would you call it a success? ***pause***
Remember online advertising is something you are doing, not something that is done, ever.
[CLICK] 2nd month and the “Cost per Conversion” started really climbing, but we still have some good incremental volume.
[CLICK] By the 3rd month in, “Cost per Conversion” is the highest it’s ever been, and we find ourselves losing about 40% of the volume from that first month. What do you think now? Would you call it a success? ***pause***
What would you have done here?
Lets be honest, its easy to call it quits here. In fact, our experience shows us that is exactly what most online retailers do.
But with constant attention and optimizations, lets see what happens over the next few months…
[Click 9x slowly] [STOP AT MONTH 11]
[CLICK] How about now? Was it successful?
Defer to Nate
Over time, Dynamic Remarketing became one of the most profitable sources of growth for this client, who saw large gains in revenue at one of the lowest Cost per Conversions ever.
This brings up another key takeaway for making decisions around your search marketing in 2015
: Yes, you have adopt changes quickly, but you MUST test for a definitive conclusion around the success or failure of any campaign.
extra
You cannot quickly try something (like sticking your toe in the water) then within a few days or weeks turn it off and call it unsuccessful, unless you have tried everything in your power to make it successful during that trial period. Killing a feature and forever ruling it out is an ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT action. It’s amazing how many times we ask a prospective client why they are not using a certain feature and hear a response like this: “Well, we tried it a while ago for a few days and it just spent too much money so we turned it off.”
Now… while it’s true that there are situations when something just WON’T work (despite your best efforts), and you MUST stop wasting money on it. But that should only happen after
we find that tenaciously optimizing and tweaking these new features will more-often-than-not bring rich rewards to those who stick with it and know how to fine tune them.
Let’s see the impact that Dynamic Remarketing had on overall remarketing performance.
[Click] First, lets look at traditional remarketing, shown in orange. Dynamic Remarketing did not replace traditional remarketing, but was run in addition to it.
Something to notice is that-- Both remarketing types ran side-by-side to maximize total conversions and revenue.
[Click 2x slowly] ***Comment on each click***
[CLICK] The blue bars are all of the new conversions gained from Dynamic Remarketing
(giving them adequate time to study and understand the numbers)]
[CLICK] The result was that we improved total remarketing conversions by over 300%
[CLICK] But what about profitability?
[Click 2x slowly] ***Comment on each click***
(At the end of the “Cost per Conversion” gains, summarize the 306% increase in total monthly remarketing conversions at a 27% cheaper “Cost per Conversion”)
What did this actually mean in dollars and cents? In this case, the client racked up an extra $607,000 in product revenue since the day Dynamic Remarketing was launched!
Now, it’s a staple to their account, consistently producing HIGHLY profitable conversions, and helping to reclaim the cost of other paid search clicks that did not convert on their first visit.
Remember, had we not stayed with it when performance was looking questionable and optimized it into success, we might have mistakenly overlooked that huge chunk of revenue AND new customers.
[GOLD RUSH ANALOGY]
Some of these brand new features are like a gold rush. You have to travel west to discover gold, but the earlier you get there the better. You want to be panning for gold BEFORE most of your competition even know that gold exists. However, why make the journey west to try a new feature, only to put your shovel halfway in the ground a few times, then turn back? You have to mine the full potential of these new features, before you see which ones “produce gold” and how much. And remember, with paid search features, YOU’RE NOT looking for flashes in the pan or mere nuggets in a stream. Once found, these features are much more like gold mines that continue to produce for months and years to come!
[CLICK - NEXT] Lets look at one more case study to before we move forward into your map.
In the 3rd and last example, we’ll be talking about Merchant Promotions, a way to bring more power and success to your Shopping campaigns’ product ads [CLICK - NEXT]
Defer to mark
[CLICK 3x] ***Comment on each “Benefits to advertisers” click***
[CLICK] If it’s a site-wide sale, set up is easy. It can be done in the AdWords interface. However, setting up sales for specific products or categories involves more work. Similar to Dynamic Remarketing, setting merchant promotions up will often involve the cooperation of web developers or those who have access to the Merchant Center product feed, consistently updating sales promotions regularly.
(defer to Nate)
Unfortunately, this is another feature that we don’t see often utilized outside of our clientele.
For most smaller companies, this is a lot of work. Perhaps this is a main reason why advertisers have not adopted Merchant Promotions as much as they should.
[CLICK - NEXT]
In this example, we first launched Merchant Promotions
15% off site wide
First week with feature in place
This time, we didn’t need to heavily optimize for it to work. It just worked.
[CLICK 3x SLOWLY] ***comment as necessary***
[CLICK] So we got more conversions (which is great), but more importantly: What happened to our Cost per Conversion and Return on Ad Spend?
[CLICK 3x SLOWLY] ***comment as necessary***
[CLICK] Here’s the data from the web interface. You’ll see that this change helped them make about $10,000 that 3rd week, just from product ads alone.
[CLICK - NEXT]
At this point you might ask (as we did):
“Were the Merchant Promotions REALLY a major cause of the performance increase? I mean, if they were having a site-wide sale, wouldn’t any click from any paid search source naturally have a higher performance?”
The answer is yes. Site-wide sales typically drive up performance everywhere in a paid search account. However, when we looked deeper into this interesting trend, we were amazed at what we found.
[CLICK] Right now We’re looking at Cost per Conversion and Returns on different types of clicks.
Some ads have multiple links in them, so this report should show us the different in performance based on which links visitors are interacting with. ***comment on metrics***
[CLICK] This is the performance of all clicks that week from Headlines, meaning the main link on each text ad
[CLICK] This shows performance for sitelinks, one of the smaller ads underneath the main ad, that typically subdivide into narrower categories. These clicks very commonly perform better than other clicks.
[CLICK] Product Listing Ads are the product ads now on Google shopping, that show a price and an image of the product itself. However, the metrics here show clicks from either the title or the picture in the ad
[CLICK] Finally, here is the performance from the Merchant Promotions links. These clicks came from the “Shop” button on the promotional links. [CLICK] ***Comment as needed***
We can see in this 3rd example how relatively simple and small features (like this tiny link under a product ad) can have significant impact on a company’s bottom line.
- This is the perfect example of why you can’t miss any updates.
Beingone of the few people that do it will have a much bigger impact on your business than doing it after everyone else is doing it.
Again, the moral of the story is BE AN EARLY ADOPTER IF YOU WANT THE BIGGEST opportunities to strike gold. Once a feature is mainstream, the results are less dramatic and your ads will not stand out as much as being one of the first to exploit a new feature. You HAVE to be among the first!
[CLICK - NEXT] – end of 3 examples
Start animating
Lets think now about how we can lead ourselves, or our teams into consistent predictable growth in 2015.
Step 1
Well step on in your map is to become an early adopter of change
Step 2
Make sure your team is educated & aggressive testers.
How do we do this?
First we have to get caught up to 2015
Start with the Top features checklist here & go through each one of these new features to make sure that each new feature is being leveraged to its highest potential.
Make this early adaptor guide a started part of the way you develop your search strategy in real time every month.
Knowing we are caught up with all features & we have become early adaptors its time to become an aggressive optimizer.
- You can do that by…
+ Read this Questionable Spend Report & putting to work what you learn. In this report you will get a worksheet designed to help you calculate questionable or wasted spend in your own account.
For those with enough data, you will also get a complimentary Google adwords Diagnostic Review. This is where one of our experts will actually look over your shoulder and show you the places you should improve in 2015
In order to get access to this information, fill out the feedback from you will see when you exit go to webinar after we answer these questions.
Mark what is the first questions?
You can do that by
Advertisers are gaining more control than ever before
Being prepared for the new updates in real time, ready to take action is a must.
Fast and thorough experimentation of new opportunities will to be the key to staying competitive in the years to come
Evolve or be left behind – Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and everyone else are plowing ahead in paid search features, opportunities and technologies with or without you