Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Get Your Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing & Bing Accounts ready for Black Friday & Cyber

Monday now. You have likely heard the terms Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but do you know how to use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to take full advantage of these events? 

Black Friday:  One thing is certain; mobs of people will wake up at the crack of dawn, trek down to the store of their choice, push through the crowds and fight for the deal of the century.  Are you prepared for that? Do you take part in that? Or do you simply stay home, watch the games and leave the chaos to others? However you choose to spend your day, you cannot ignore the fact that sales generated on Black Friday and Cyber Monday equal 25% of annual sales activity!

Is your business ready? Are your PPC advertising campaigns ready?

Cyber Monday, the kid brother of the Black Friday sales tradition, is only 4 years old and was brought to life by the National Retail Federation, in conjunction with www.shop.org.  E-commerce retailers noticed a spike in volume after the busy Thanksgiving holiday.  Is this simply a marketing tactic? Is it an illusion of massive online sales? Yes AND Yes – It is marketing and it is indeed somewhat of an illusion. Though these 2 days do typically account for 25% of annual sales, the busiest online shopping day is actually typically 2 weeks AFTER Cyber Monday.  So brace yourself and your business for increased sales not only on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but also for the weeks following as well. Also prepare for a new term to be invented for the day that does actually prove to generate the most annual online sales. While last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales results were a disappointment, economists have great hopes for a recovery this holiday season.

You need to be prepared to make some changes to keep yourself in front of your shoppers.  A professional PPC Management Company can help ensure that you maximize the results of your PPC Campaigns this holiday season. Below are a few details to follow to ensure that your PPC Campaigns are ready to capitalize on e-commerce opportunities for next week’s arrival of Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

1. Be sure your ad copy clearly states your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)    

     -Free Shipping
     -In Stock
     -50% off retail prices
     -Hard to find items
     -Gift Wrapped for you
     -The list goes on and on…

2. Reassure the searcher that you can get them the item in time for the holiday.
3. Clearly state your order deadline for promised delivery.
4. Increase your budgets to be sure you are not offline.
5. Check your ad delivery schedule.

Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing represent an amazing opportunity to reach your potential customers.  Make sure your PPC advertising campaigns are ready for BOTH Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

Google has made yet another change to their Google AdWords reports in the area of conversion tracking.

Conversion tracking is one of the most important aspects of any PPC advertising account and you need to be sure that you have this installed correctly. Conversion tracking allows your account to be managed to the most important criteria for your business – and that is – “What am I getting out of this?”.

What Google AdWords has changed is the name of “Conversions” to “Conversions (1-per-click)” and they have added a new metric called “Conversions (many-per-click)”. The Conversion (1-per-click) field can only be filled once per customer and the Conversions (many-per-click) is incremented whenever any conversion occurs within 30 days after a click.

This can mean a couple of things to you depending on what your conversion structure is.

First, if your conversion is strictly measuring sales, it can mean that you have customers that come back within the first 30 days after their first purchase to purchase again. This is especially common in stores that sell commodities or that cross-sell a customer with more accessories to compliment their first purchase. (By the way – that begs the question – what kind of follow-up do you have with a first time customer to be sure they have everything they need and are you measuring the success of that follow-up?)

Also, if you have setup several types of conversions to be tracked on your site – for example, mailing list sign-up, contact form and sale – the “many-per-click” field will give you information about customers that have performed several goals on your site. You may have customers that do all three and that will show up in the many-per-click field. There are additional fields regarding the type of conversion that will give you the information you need to micro-manage these conversion types as well.

And don’t forget, Google AdWords revenue tracking can be exceptionally powerful for tracking specific revenue achieved for each specific product sold. This is certainly not for everyone, but can be incredibly valuable when applicable and is usually very easy to implement. If you have questions or need help with this, contact a professional PPC Management Company for asssitance.

The bottom line is this – understand what these Google AdWords conversion tracking numbers mean to you and use this valuable information to enhance your sales-funnel on your website.

Our friends at Google recently shared with JumpFly an interesting technique for using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool when building a Google AdWords Content Campaign, and I thought it would be nice to pass it along. Of couse, this is not a foolproof method of building a Google AdWords Content Campaign and it does not guarantee success with Google Content based advertising, nor is it the only way to create a Content campaign, but it is a process certainly worth giving a try if you have never done it before.

Google AdWords Content Campaign Strategy

Step 1: Filter out the top performing keywords in your current Google AdWords Search campaign, putting the greatest emphasis on the keywords that are most relevant to the products you sell or most relevant to the services you provide.

Step 2: Individually type each term into a Google Search, using the standard Google search box you find at Google.com. For this example, we will use “golf shoes” as our keyword.

Step 3: Copy the Google URL that is generated in the address bar from the search. In this example, it would be –
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS259US259&q=golf+shoes&btnG=Search

Step 4: Using the Google Keyword Tool, make sure you have Website Content checked, then enter the URL above into the text box. Be sure to check the box labeled “Include other pages on my site linked from this URL.”

By following this process, Google analyzes the organic results, paid ads, and the sites being linked. You will then get a list of keywords that are grouped together by theme. You can then take these lists and create a Google AdWords Content campaign with a similar thematic structure.

Again, not the only way to create an AdWords Content campaign, but it is an interesting process to try and could generate some productive results for you to use as you see fit.

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