Our annual E-Commerical conference kicked off with Anicca Digital’s MD Ann Stanley’s talk on using Paid Channels as part of a multi-channel strategy.
Filled with actionable advice, the talk was a tour of how Google AdWords can act as the essential glue between SEO, PR, Content Marketing and Social Media campaigns.
Traditional integration of paid search with other channels
The talk started with a look at how Google AdWords has traditionally been used in conjunction with SEO to provide valuable insights into your audience.
Information on Google AdWords can help existing organic SEO campaigns by finding keyphrases that convert, which should also be applied to SEO and content creation efforts.
Display advertising has also improved considerably, with new retargeting options, more demographic data available to advertisers and a possibility to combine a series of demographics in one advertising campaign.
New audience insights can also be provided by combining both AdWords and analytics data – a remarketing list can now be created within analytics.
This data can also give you new insights into your own product – discovering new uses and targets you never considered. For example, using data of the age and gender of converters, we worked out that our campaign promoting sports gear was popular among those who were planning holidays.
PPC remarketing techniques can be the ‘glue’ between multi-channel strategies.
Using the ‘Honeypot’ Strategy
Ann’s talk also covered the key honeypot technique, proven to increase conversions and improve targeting. These are used to attract converters back to a website with the aim of converting.
The methodology is simple. You set a ‘honeypot’ through high quality, story-led, clickable content (or a high-quality competition) which your target audience will be interested in. You then push this content out through funding cheap social traffic using wide demographics (usually just age/gender/location, depending on your needs).
Using the clickthrough data, you then create remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA). Send out sales-focused and shopping ads to these lists and watch your conversions shoot up.
Remarketing lists need at least 1,000 recorded cookies to be effective, so initial budget is needed for the first push and collecting the data. The initial traffic is cheap and plentiful, but needs to be considered within your budget.
Other honeypot techniques can use paid display advertising, affiliate traffic, SEO, PR and even offline marketing.
Using your own data for effective strategies
You may be sitting on a goldmine of existing data to help your multi-channel strategy. E-mail lists and CRM data can be used in both AdWords and Facebook. These can be used to create both custom audiences and lookalike audiences.
Managing multi-channel strategies can be tough, and Ann’s tips for keeping these methodologies on track includes breaking down any ‘siloes’ in your team – making sure PPC, social and content specialists use their skills together, headed up by an experienced account manager or project manager.
When using your own data, you also need to keep GDPR in mind. These new laws on data and privacy come into effect in May 2018, and you will need express consent from your customers to collect and use their data.
Main takeaways
· For the best results, combine numbers with creativity
· Reconsider paid display advertising if you have not found success in the past
· Test Honeypot strategies to see a boost to your conversion rate
· Use your existing customer data to best effect
· Don’t forget to set KPIs for your campaigns
