[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In this week’s Surge Session, we discuss how to optimize Google paid search and Facebook PPC advertising campaigns to improve your conversions, click-through-rates, and profitability. We also explore how to create effective pay-per-click campaigns that generate a positive ROI using the strategies and metrics we cover in this session. Our CEO, Duran Inci, is joined by our Director of Marketing, Joseph Hassun. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Challenges of Paid Search, Facebook Advertising, and Google PPC Campaigns” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGbjhQUGlYNmUtdEUlMjIlMjB0aXRsZSUzRCUyMllvdVR1YmUlMjB2aWRlbyUyMHBsYXllciUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMGFsbG93JTNEJTIyYWNjZWxlcm9tZXRlciUzQiUyMGF1dG9wbGF5JTNCJTIwY2xpcGJvYXJkLXdyaXRlJTNCJTIwZW5jcnlwdGVkLW1lZGlhJTNCJTIwZ3lyb3Njb3BlJTNCJTIwcGljdHVyZS1pbi1waWN0dXJlJTIyJTIwYWxsb3dmdWxsc2NyZWVuJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNF[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]This week we will talk about making money from paid searches. We get this question all the time.
Say I am a business owner. I want to spend money on AdWords, Facebook, Instagram or remarketing. Will simple paid searches make me money?
Unfortunately, no. Paid searches do not work this way anymore. Times have changed.
Big companies have wrecked the game for smaller businesses. You have companies who spend up to $100 million. Larger companies also have a larger pool of keywords as well as a higher quality score. The quality score has to do with click-through rates.
Let’s say you’re a realtor and you want to bid on homes for sale in Miami, Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com. They’re already bidding 30, 40, or 50 dollars per keyword for those terms, and they are bidding on homes for sale.
It doesn’t matter if you bid on “homes for sale in Miami” or “homes for sale in Coral Gables”. You will never outrank the giants because they’re spending more money and have better quality scores.
If you say, “I’m going to put $1,000 into Paid Search and I will see if I make money or not,” you’re definitely not going to make money. This rule applies especially if you are in a semi-competitive industry. We will discuss alternative strategies where you could actually make money and get a return on your investment from paid advertising.
What Are Some Of The Most Common Paid Advertising Platforms That We Use Today?
There is Google, which they have Google Ads and also Google Shopping and then Facebook and Instagram. I would say those are the two most popular.
Why Are Google Adwords And Google Shopping More Expensive Than Facebook Right Now?
It’s competitiveness. As you said, you have large companies bidding on specific keywords and they’re pretty much driving that average cost per click up to an amount that some small businesses just can’t afford.
This is where there’s a big differentiation in terms of if you should do AdWords if you should do Google Shopping, or if you should do Instagram or Facebook because it really has to do with your services, your products, what you are offering, what your value proposition is and your sales cycle.
Let’s give this as an example. If you are selling CBD oil, you have to be in AdWords. If you have a good profit margin, you have to be on AdWords and you have to be on Google Shopping because people are searching for how can I get CBD oil.
If you are selling something more social, however, like a pet product, the game changes. Google AdWords or regular Google can make a direct search much harder. You are probably going to need more advanced demographics.
We could go on Google and bid on internet marketing services, SEO companies or software companies. Instead, we compete with giant companies who are doing $100-150 million annually. It’s better for us at Optimum7 to find our exact demographic on Facebook or Instagram, and target those people.
Who Are Those People?
Business owners that are doing more than $1 million, less than $250 million annually. Directors of marketing, CTOs, CMOs, and possibly CFOs. It’s a better targeting option that you have where you can dig deeper rather than just bid on keywords. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Steps to Running Profitable Facebook and Instagram PPC Campaigns” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGNUtteDJ2dmJOaHMlMjIlMjB0aXRsZSUzRCUyMllvdVR1YmUlMjB2aWRlbyUyMHBsYXllciUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMGFsbG93JTNEJTIyYWNjZWxlcm9tZXRlciUzQiUyMGF1dG9wbGF5JTNCJTIwY2xpcGJvYXJkLXdyaXRlJTNCJTIwZW5jcnlwdGVkLW1lZGlhJTNCJTIwZ3lyb3Njb3BlJTNCJTIwcGljdHVyZS1pbi1waWN0dXJlJTIyJTIwYWxsb3dmdWxsc2NyZWVuJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNF[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]First off, you’re going to need to make sure that you have tracking pixels. Facebook provides you with a Facebook pixel that you can implement into the backend of your site and that way you can actually track these users and monitor their performance on Facebook and utilize that within your campaigns.
Once you have the tracking set up and installed, now you need to pinpoint your target demo. Facebook has a beautiful tool in its Ad Manager that allows you to really break down your target demographic if you’re trying to reach a new one.
You could create a retargeting campaign to everybody who landed on a specific page of your site. That way you can deliver a really specific and relevant ad. And here is the key where you need to represent your brand as effectively as possible.
I’ll give two examples. If you are selling on AdWords and selling a mattress, you could say, “Well, okay, I’m selling a mattress,” and you would bid on the mattress keywords. Right?
But on Facebook, you’re not really selling a mattress. You’re selling on good night’s sleep, and you have to communicate that to the audience possibly with a video or with an ad. You need a very attractive image to grab their attention.
Facebook and Instagram have audiences that look for the right images. You need to harness that power. Just to give you a few creative ideas, we sell chocolate to women between the ages of 21 and 35 who got out of a relationship in the past 45 days. We sell flowers and engagement rings to men who have been in relationships for over five years, but they are not married yet.
These strategies allow us to pinpoint consumers. Facebook allows you to do deep targeting like this to get the conversions. Now, this is true of course for eCommerce products.
What If I’m Running A Consulting Business. I’m Doing Lead Generation And My Sales Cycle Is Six Months From The First Time They Contact Me To When They’re Going To Become A Client? What Should I Do To Make Sure That Those Leads Are Worth Something To Me?
You need to make sure that you have your sales funnel set up and it’s in place. Make sure that you have your CRM set up.
Why Do You Need a Client Relationship Management (CRM) Software ?
Salesforce is a CRM. When you have a high price point product or service and you’re marketing on it. I mean it could be on Google Ads as well, but let’s say you’re advertising on Facebook, you have a high price point item, product or service, you know that there’s going to be very minimal first touch attributions that are going to lead to a sale.
You’re going to need to be able to monitor that from the point that they first saw your ad and landed on your site to three months down the road when they finally decided to pull the trigger on your product or service. You need to nurture them. You have to have a nurture funnel.
What Is A Nurture Funnel?
Most of the time people, when they advertise, they’re looking for people to which they can tell their products with catchy visuals or slogans.
It doesn’t work that way. People are smarter now. They have five seconds of an attention span.
Today’s advertisement tries to grab information from consumers with consent. This can include an email or phone number. When you receive that email, you have to give something back to them.
A lot of people miss this. They say, “Okay, here’s my service, contact me.” That doesn’t work anymore.
What Works for PPC?
Providing value in exchange for information. It could be a facet as detailed as an eBook or as simple as a free consultation.
Excite the user and also inflict some pain. For example, if you contact a manager at a bank and talk about compliance, he’s going to listen. If you have a compliance software, then you have an angle into inflicting that pain.
Ad copy can inflict that pain and providing value for consumers. You have to have a good value proposition. You grab their email, you say, “Okay; to get this, please provide your email.”
They will provide their email. It’s easy to get leads this way. Then, you put them into a funnel. We call it a nurture funnel or a nurture drip. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”How to Set up a Drip Marketing Campaign with Email Followup” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGRzBGMTNGX1BmRGslMjIlMjB0aXRsZSUzRCUyMllvdVR1YmUlMjB2aWRlbyUyMHBsYXllciUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMGFsbG93JTNEJTIyYWNjZWxlcm9tZXRlciUzQiUyMGF1dG9wbGF5JTNCJTIwY2xpcGJvYXJkLXdyaXRlJTNCJTIwZW5jcnlwdGVkLW1lZGlhJTNCJTIwZ3lyb3Njb3BlJTNCJTIwcGljdHVyZS1pbi1waWN0dXJlJTIyJTIwYWxsb3dmdWxsc2NyZWVuJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNF[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]It all depends on how extensive your drip is. I would say for people starting off, don’t worry about making it as extensive as possible right off the bat, but just get something up and running immediately and then little by little start to add to that drip campaign.
I would suggest maybe one email a week to two most. You don’t want to spam these individuals. You need to make sure that each and every one of these drips provides value.
You have to stay in front of your audience and not only via email. When these people submit the form or they give you their email, you can then go back to Facebook through the pixel and re-target everybody that actually landed onto your landing page and never completed the form.
You could show them a different angle. The most powerful thing about Facebook, Instagram, Google AdWords, and other tools is grabbing that information and then nurturing your audiences. Know what they need to do to become a sale. At Optimum7, we have a touch point: which is the first email.
Once they submit their email, we might put them into a different funnel. If you’re an eCommerce client, you go somewhere else that is different from the marketing or ADA compliance client. We create new drips. Then every two emails or every three emails, which is approximately every seven to eight days, we will push them a call to action: “Contact us,” “Speak to an expert,” or, “This is important.”
Now if we want to inflict pain, we will actually attach a copy of a lawsuit that we have seen or worked with recently for ADA compliance. Now, attaching that lawsuit inflicts a lot of pain in that it forces them to hit the contact us button.
Another thing you could do to basically inflict pain in them is mention competitors, mention the money they’re leaving on the table, mention other things in your industry that might work for your audience because we’re doing marketing and technology on software.
You might be doing something else. But in every business, there are these necessary pain points.
Why do Paid Search Campaigns need Drip Marketing Followup?
You’re losing a lot of potential revenue because again you’re not giving your business the opportunity to land this individual later on in the future. They saw your ad, clicked, and didn’t like it. You lost them forever. But, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Regardless of you selling a product or service, how much does each lead or each product sale cost you? If you are selling a $100 product and your profit margin is 50%, you’re making $50 for every order. How much does it cost you to get that order?
Now, if you’re trying to get it on the first touch, which is you see my ad, you purchase my product, your CPA, your customer acquisition is going to be high. But imagine you collecting a thousand emails a month across the board. At the end of 10 months, you’re going to have 10,000 emails that you’re continuously dripping to and the first time they did touch with your brand, maybe they weren’t ready to buy. Maybe they were just price shopping or researching.
Many larger brands do this work. By having a drip like this, you’re decreasing your first cost-per-requisition. It costs a lot less to grab an email address than to grab the name, phone number, email address, phone number, company name.
Maybe I would say one 10th so if you’re getting a lead, a real lead for $10 you could get an email address for $1. Then over time, what you were able to do is you’re able to decrease that cost per acquisition over time, thus increasing ROI return on your investment. This is what’s so powerful about paid advertising and the fact that the average eCommerce site or average lead generation site has a three to 5% conversion rate.
Now, most of you out there are Prime members. Go to your inbox and see how many emails Amazon is sending to you: “Hey, look at our specials!” “You still have this item in your cart!”
Go right now. I guarantee you have at least 50 followup emails from Amazon. That’s the power of drip. When you have these drip strategies, it will work and you will decrease your cost per acquisition. [/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”How Much Should You Spend on Google and Facebook Paid Search Advertising Campaigns?” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_raw_html]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjI1NjAlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjIzMTUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGSkhyT092Z3pHSTglMjIlMjB0aXRsZSUzRCUyMllvdVR1YmUlMjB2aWRlbyUyMHBsYXllciUyMiUyMGZyYW1lYm9yZGVyJTNEJTIyMCUyMiUyMGFsbG93JTNEJTIyYWNjZWxlcm9tZXRlciUzQiUyMGF1dG9wbGF5JTNCJTIwY2xpcGJvYXJkLXdyaXRlJTNCJTIwZW5jcnlwdGVkLW1lZGlhJTNCJTIwZ3lyb3Njb3BlJTNCJTIwcGljdHVyZS1pbi1waWN0dXJlJTIyJTIwYWxsb3dmdWxsc2NyZWVuJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNF[/vc_raw_html][vc_column_text]Now, how much should you spend on paid search? It really depends on your audience, how much money you’re going to make and how long you can invest. If you’re a local business, you might be able to spend $1,000 a month and be done with it and that might be a good budget for you because you spend 1,000, you get back 10,000 but if you’re a nationwide business, you cannot spend $1,000 anymore.
We usually work at a minimum budget of $6,000 a month. The ad spend can go up all the way to $100,000 a month. A lot of people get scared when we mentioned these numbers, the rate of return will justify the investment.
Have the right kind of setup to nurture these leads. Again, as a business owner, you cannot afford to be scared of investing in your business. It’s spending money on your business and will make sense.
We talk to people, asking, “How much do you want to invest?”
“$12,000”
“What’s the goal?”
“I want to make half a million dollars more in six months.”
“You’re willing to invest $12,000 to make half a million dollars. That does not add up.”
Your return on your investment, you should be happy if you are five marking your return on your investment.
At 10x, you should be incredibly happy if you are able to spend $1,000 and get back $10,000 of revenue, considering that maybe you have 50% margins on whatever you’re selling. By just doing that, what is your return on your investment? 500%? That’s the kind of number that you need to work with for success.
Remember, a lot of people say that they make this return. If you go to Google or Upwork, there are a ton of people who charge anywhere from $10 an hour to $1,000 an hour. You have to apply scrutiny.
Find one guy that makes sense with the strategies from a sales standpoint and work with that guy. It could be a company, it could be an individual, but it’s got to make sense and you have to put in a budget that makes sense. You have to commit to a budget for at least a period of four to six months to be able to see results. You are not going to spend $1,000 and make $5,000 in the first month.
That rarely happens. Again, this is branding. This is marketing. This doesn’t happen with individual tasks. Strategy, execution, and structure will get you the returns that you need.
Many factors can disrupt those returns. If your salespeople suck, if you don’t have your sales funnel properly, if your website sucks, if you don’t have the retargeting pixel, like Joe said, if you have no idea how many leads you got and how many sales you made, you’re not ready to do paid search.
Select the right individual. If this individual does not ask how your sales funnel is set up, and if you have a nurturing funnel set up, that is not the right individual to go with because that individual does not care about your business. He’s just looking to get paid.
Whoever is going to work on this needs to ask you the right kind of questions to actually understand your business. This is not about bidding on keywords and slapping an ad somewhere on Facebook anymore. It is an integration of technology, business, and marketing.
Do you need help increasing conversions? Want to learn more about strategies and tools we discussed in this Surge Session?
Contact us. We’re here to help.
SPEAK TO AN eCommerce EXPERT[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
