Personalization-focused marketing trends like voice search augmented reality (AR), and direct to consumer (D2C) sales from social media are becoming more prevalent in a post-Covid-19 world. While part one of this article discussed these trends, part two will focus on how you can remarket your products and services using untapped channels like TV and billboards. As technology makes marketing a more even playing field, it will also be more important to automate your paid search efforts to save time and money for your business.
Remarketing To Untapped Channels
Research shows that 58.6% of US shoppers abandoned a cart over the last 3 months because they were just browsing online. This statistic indicates that your prospective customers are not always ready to make a purchase when they first come across your product. Remarketing allows you to persuade these potential customers to purchase later. This process will enable you to market your brand using ads to the same potential customer on other channels they visit. But rather than only focusing on advertising through computer and mobile apps, your remarketing efforts should focus on all channels and therefore be omnichannel.
Remarket to a prospective customer through social media ads by choosing a commonly viewed web page or app page of a product. Then, decide how often you want this ad to appear in a potential customer’s feed.
For example, HubSpot uses relevant images and copy to remarket to business owners who want to save time with selling. This Facebook ad copy puts a customer’s fears to rest by showing them the value of this product that takes less time to install but will save them more time in the future.
You could also use email for remarketing products to customers through abandoned cart emails. For instance, Adidas uses previous customer reviews of the product you looked at to persuade you to buy. It’s headline of ‘Is Your Wi-Fi OK?’ also persuades you to read on as it blames your internet connection rather than you for missing out on the product.
Also, consider offline channels like billboards for remarketing purposes like Battersea Dogs and Cats. As part of its #LookingForYou campaign to encourage more individuals to rehome dogs, this brand used outdoor billboards which were activated by a tag in flyers handed out to those walking around in Westfield shopping Centre in London. Barley, an interactive dog, greeted individuals who took and kept the flyers and walked past the billboards.
Furthermore, Lucozade Sport released a TV ad that rewrote the unofficial song of the World Cup ‘Three Lions’ to encourage support for the England Women’s football team for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This new version was called the ‘Three Lionesses’ and aimed to inspire emotional support for England women’s football and get more women interested in football.
This remixed anthem expresses the trials of women who overcome prejudices when playing football and worked in conjunction with England female footballers like Jordan Nobbs and Toni Duggan who revealed the lyrics from their Twitter accounts. This facet made the ad more powerful as the focus was kept on these footballers rather than the brand itself.
Automation For PPC Campaigns
Automation is the future of paid search as PPC automation can help your business be more efficient as it saves you time on tasks such as ad creation anomaly detection which can result in better ad spend. It can also assist in better bid monitoring so you can improve your campaign decisions in line with the specific business goals of your brand.
Automated Bid Management
Google Ads has three main automated smart bidding strategies for businesses to use in PPC campaigns. Your business could set bids to try getting as many conversions as possible while still maintaining your target cost per acquisition (CPA). Alternatively, you could choose to target conversion value or revenue, which focuses on a target return-on-ad spend (ROAS). However, if you don’t want to set bids based on CPA or ROAS automatically, you can use an enhanced cost-per-click (ECPC) strategy that keeps your average cost per conversion (CPC) below the maximum CPC you set so that you get as many conversions as possible within your required budget.
Automated Anomaly Checks
It’s not easy for humans to stay on top of any errors before they affect ad performance; that’s where Google’s Account Anomaly Detector comes in. This PPC automation script can automatically scan your ad account every hour to check for any errors. If it finds any metrics that do not match expectations, it will send you an email.
Automated Ad Copy
Google’s Dynamic Search Ads feature automatically generates ads for a search based on content from your website. This feature allows you to get better exposure to your existing products without making any changes to your current keyword campaigns. However, to use Google’s Dynamic Search Ads function, you need to have strong content on your website that is supported by accurate product descriptions, is up to date, and has a clear call to action.
Suppose Dynamic Search Ads is not an option for you for automated ad copy? In that case, you can leverage Google’s Dynamic Ad features. There are three main dynamic ad features which can be created by typing a curly bracket (“{“) into the ad creation screen. These ad features are:
Keyword Insertion
This function allows you to automatically update your ads with keywords in your ad group in line with what your customer searches for. For example, imagine that you own a cake shop. When choosing this keyword insertion function to automate keywords in your ad group, you might choose ‘gluten-free cakes’ ‘chocolate cakes’ and ‘cupcakes’ as this covers what you sell.
If a customer searches for ‘cupcakes’, Google will automatically change your ad headline to ‘Buy cupcakes’. If another customer then searches for ‘gluten-free cakes’, Google can change your ad headline to ‘Buy gluten-free cakes’ so that it matches what the customer has searched for.
However, if a user searches for ‘artisan chocolate cake’ which is not a keyword in your ad group, the ad headline will remain ‘Buy cakes’. However, in the future, you might choose to add the keyword ‘artisan chocolate cake’ to your ad group if you want your headline to match a customer’s search. However, as you cannot always account for every keyword your customer searches for, it is best to use a mixture of Dynamic Ad tools to automate your PPC campaigns.
Countdown
Want to create a sense of urgency with your ad? Try the countdown ad feature which will let you automatically count down for every day, hour or minute until your offer expires. However, as these types of ads expire after the countdown, make sure that you also use ads with no expiry date.
IF Function
An IF Dynamic ad function allows you to market your product or service to various types of customers depending on the stage they are at in the customer journey.
For instance, if a user is viewing an ad from their mobile, you can feed a relevant text that only they would see. If not, they would see the text that all customers see.
You can also use this function if an audience has watched your YouTube video or viewed a landing page on your site.
Key Points
As technology continues to grow, consumer interests and behavior will become harder to predict. Brands can no longer ignore these new technological marketing trends in 2020 that continue to put customers first to gain an edge over their competitors. Your business can garner customer loyalty and an improved ROI through automated advertising, keeping remarketing efforts omnichannel, being personalized with D2C and AR efforts, and optimizing their website for voice search.