How To Launch Your Marketing Campaign (Plus 3 Tips For Google Ads)
Launching a new marketing campaign can be incredibly exciting. It’s a major move for your eCommerce business. You’ve created a product people love, and you’ve put attention, care and energy into your new website. You’re just looking to generate a little more traffic, and boost your conversion rate. We can help!
Just like launching any other part of your business, it’s important to build a strategy. Here are our fool-proof steps to help you launch the most successful advertising campaign you possibly can.
Steps To Set Up A Successful Marketing Campaign
Consider Your Goal
Before you put even a dime into a marketing campaign, like Google Ads, it’s always first priority to determine your goal. What is the ideal outcome for your new marketing campaign? We’ve all heard the old acronym for setting goals: Be SMART. Set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Setting goals by these “smart” standards will allow you and your team to know exactly what you’re working towards. The worst thing you can do is set a poorly defined goal or marketing strategy. Check out this list of poorly-defined goals versus well-defined goals from Impact. An important part of building an advertising campaign strategy is to determine not only what your goal is, but how you’re going to get there.
Know Your Audience & Customer Demand
Before you do anything else, consider your customer. When coming up with an advertising campaign that will interest your target audience, you need to make sure you’re featuring content that will appeal to them. Reference some of your current customer feedback. Think about their style, their language, the kind of aesthetic that may appeal to that audience. Who are your competitors, and what kind of marketing strategy have they taken? Does it appear to be successful? These are all helpful questions to ask yourself before you invest any money into an advertising campaign. Have your ideal customer, your vision, design, goal, and budget all mapped out before you do anything else.
Have A Powerful USP (or Unique Selling Position)
This section could also be titled “Know Your Competition.” When you’re marketing a product, especially when you’re using a popular advertising platform like Google AdWords, it’s important to know who you’re in competition with, AND how you stand out from those people. What is your trademark, what do you excel at above all other companies that offer a similar product or service? What makes you unique? In short, why should your customers choose you over everyone else? There are a lot of reasons why identifying your USP will be beneficial to your marketing campaign. Perhaps the most important thing that a strong USP does is eliminate price comparison shopping. If you can effectively give your prospective client a reason they should do business with you instead of your competition, you have more control over your price point. If your USP is strong enough, you can demand a higher price without having to worry about it hurting your sales.
Create A Dynamic Landing Page
When starting out a new online advertising campaign, a lot of people think it’s common sense to link back to your website home page. But the beauty of an ad campaign is that it is created for a very specific product for a targeted audience. Chances are you have lots of other information on your website homepage that isn’t necessarily relevant to your buyer. You don’t want your potential customers to waste time clicking around your entire site, when they were looking for a specific product. That’s a great way to miss out on a sale. You need to create a targeted landing page that directly answers the query that your ideal customer typed into Google. A perfect landing page will have a singular purpose: there is only one conversion goal, and a clear path for your customer to get from your ad to the checkout. Check out this video on landing page and their performance in Google.
Choose Your Channel
How To Advertise On Google
So you want to advertise on Google. But you need help getting started. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We love this broad perspective infographic from Wordstream that lay out the basic steps of getting started advertising on Google.
What Are Google Ads (or Google AdWords)
First of all, let’s talk a little bit about the history and effectiveness of Google AdWords. According to Single Grain, “AdWords is excellent for highly targeted, measurable and rapid results that lend well to lead and sales generation. On the other hand, AdWords requires a significant and ongoing investment, and every impression or click is paid for. It is typically not a cost-effective tool for brand awareness.” So, when devising a Google AdWords campaign, be sure to keep your goal in mind. If you’re just hoping to promote your brand and generate awareness, you probably want to be investing in a different platform. Not only is Google AdWords not an effective way to gain brand exposure, it’s also nearly impossible to measure your success because there not monetary value to analyze.
Do Google Ads (or Google AdWords) Work?
Google Ads (aka Google AdWords) can also be an extremely effective tool if you’ve done your research. Google Ads are mostly based on keywords and keyword research. If you’re advertising for keywords that have a low search count, your ads won’t perform well. But if you’ve done your research on what your ideal customer is searching for, and the competitive rate of your keywords, you can have a great amount of success using Google Ads. If you’re not sure how to get started with keyword research, we found this video to be a helpful tool getting started.
How Much Do Google Ads Cost?
Google Ads are based on a CPC, or cost-per-click policy. This means you’re only billed when a potential customer actually clicks on your ad. The alternative is “cost-per-thousand” marketing (or CPM), which is a fee based on number of viewers, in thousands, regardless of whether each viewer clicks on the advertisement or not. The great thing about the CPC model, is that if you don’t have results with your Google AdWords campaign, it doesn’t cost you anything. No clicks, no charge! Of course, you want to be generating clicks, so hopefully your keyword research and ad writing are paying off. But the good news is, if you need to retool you don’t have to pay for the ads you posted that weren’t doing you any good. As Neil Patel, one of the leaders of SEO in the industry, says, “Be warned though: Google AdWords is straightforward, but not easy. It takes time to master and most companies lose money on it, because they’re not patient enough to get results from pay-per-click advertising.” Be aware that mastering the art of managing a successful Google Ads campaign can take time, but is always worth it when you’ve mastered it.
How Do You Set Up A Google Ads Campaign?
Here’s our simplified step by step for setting up your first Google Ad campaign:
1. Go to Google AdWords and hit “Start Now”
2. Choose Your Campaign Name And Type
3. Choose Your Target Location
4. Choose Your Bid Strategy And Daily Budget (for a little extra help on choosing your bid strategy, check out this video)
5. Create Your First Ad
6. Fill In Your Keywords
7. Review Your Ad
8. Enter Payment Information
9. Start Making Money!
For a comprehensive guide with more information, check out this step-by-step from Medium.
If you don’t have time to read through the step-by-step process, here’s a great video from Google to get you started setting up a Google Ads campaign.
Verify A Positive ROI
Now that you’ve defined your goals, researched your customer and ideal keywords, created great landing pages for your target audience, chosen your desired platform, and set up your new marketing campaign, it’s time to measure your ROI, or return on investment. You’ve invested so much time and energy into your advertising campaign, you need to make sure that it’s working for you. Make sure your landing pages are functioning the way you want by using tools like Google Analytics and A/B testing. A plugin you might find helpful is this AdWords Performance Grader In business, especially eCommerce, never be afraid to test, retest, analyze, and test again.
If you follow these steps, you will be well on your way to owning and managing a successful marketing campaign that is going to increase your conversion rate and get you the traffic you want and deserve.
Don’t forget we’re always here to help! Need helping devising a marketing strategy? Click here. Don’t know how to get started doing keyword research? Don’t panic! Want input on a realistic marketing budget? Ask us. With great marketing know-how comes great responsibility, and we can’t wait to help you and your business reach newer and greater heights!