Over the last couple of years, Google has made a point of making it a lot harder for third-party organisations to promote their clients through the medium of link building and outreach SEO. On the whole, it’s becoming a ‘pay to play’ environment, with PPC the only way forward. Tanesha Stafford, founder of Armchair Marketing, talked us through the glaringly obvious benefits of PPC that we aren’t paying attention to, and was kind enough to hand out a few tips to make better use of the channel.
Overview
- Speaker: Tanesha Stafford
- Job role and company: Founder of Armchair Marketing
- Website: https://armchairmarketing.co.uk/
- Twitter profile: @Tanesha_Marie
- LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/automotive-marketing
- Link to the slides:
What was the talk about?
Google is making it harder for companies not to pay them for advertising. Recent figures suggest that Google makes north of $100million a day on its adverts, with revenues equating to a cool $96 billion annually that they can, well, do whatever they like with — flying cars, anybody?
What is more concerning, especially if your career leads towards SEO and link building, is that 64.6% of the clickthroughs that take place on the world’s most popular search engine are now attributed to paid adverts: stark reading if you’re about to kick off an SEO agency. Either way, there is a massive land grab taking place across the digital plains of Google’s advertising space.
This is where Tanesha thinks that SKAGs (single keyword add groups) are beneficial. They allow you to dissect your campaigns in a more granular way, ensuring that the adverts served are as relevant as possible.
Great energy from @Tanesha_Marie presenting #ppc stuff this morning!
I’m also a (big) fan of SKAGs #brightonSEO pic.twitter.com/GxKJNOTcNg— Sheila Puertollano (@puertollanos) April 12, 2019
Another point that Tanesha touched on was the research element that comes into play when in-store customers are thinking about buying something. About 80% of consumers use their phones in store to double-check reviews and assess whether they are getting the best deals, etc. This is vital info when tailoring adverts, and almost certainly provides an opportunity to nick a few customers.
The last tip that Tanesha had was to start using more ‘naughty keywords’; for example, ‘cancel’ in the case of cancelling subscriptions from a competitor’s brand or the same with ‘discount code’. The thinking here is that if someone is cancelling a subscription for something, they may be interested in a similar product.
Fave quote
“Advertising is just advertising, unless it adds value to a user’s life.”
Potential impact on the industry
What the stats mentioned above tell us is that PPC managers the world over need to really be focusing on providing the most relevant and meaningful experiences to prospective customers. The big word there is RELEVANT. This means, as Tanesha put it during her talk, that if my search query is ‘strapless dresses’ then I want “strapless dresses”… simple!
Key takeaways:
- Google is dominating the advertising space: it’s time to get savvy with PPC.
Relevancy is key if you are looking to maximise your marketing dollars.
SKAGs are good when used to help target relevancy.
Don’t be afraid to use naughty keywords such as ‘cancel’ or ‘discount’.
