If you’re using a Google search campaign as your paid media to attract new client prospects, you know the right message at the right time is critical.
The average cost-per-click for a B2B Google search campaign has been slowly increasing over the years as more companies turn to Adwords to attract new business.
So how can you retain your competitive edge without spending more money?
Customer Match
I regularly ask my clients if they have a customer list we can use in Google, sometimes annoyingly so. You may be familiar with using a list in Facebook ads to reach your target audience. Google started giving access to this feature in select accounts roughly mid-2022, and it’s now available to most campaigns.
With Google Customer Match, you can use your offline and online data to reach and re-engage with your existing client base. Cookies will eventually be a thing of the past; that isn’t new news. Customer match will keep your message in front of those warm leads you worked hard to collect and remind past clients what an excellent service you’ve provided. The cost-per-click on a Customer Match list is often much lower, helping you stretch your marketing dollar further.
Google Customer Match has some asset requirements, so review the restrictions and rules before haphazardly uploading a list on your own.
Use call-tracking features
Believing that contact form completions or talent request forms are the only way to measure leads from your PPC campaign is a fool’s assumption. With call-extensions, we can measure how many users tapped “click-to-call” directly from your ad on their mobile device.
Giving the user the option to click-to-call directly from your ad saves them the hassle of visiting your site, finding your number, and dialing it up. It shortens your prospects’ path to conversion and gets your phones ringing. The average CPC on a call-extension is also lower than clicks on the Headline, helping you stretch your dollar a little further.
Call-extensions are one of many ways to get your phones ringing. Google has several related options for capturing phone leads, including Call Ads, Local Ads, and Call Forwarding scripts. The “best” option will depend on your goals, budget, and overall strategy.
Evaluate your Impression Share
Google Adwords gives each campaign an Impression Share (IS) number. How Google determines this number has many factors, but for simplicity’s sake, we can consider this number your market share. How frequently your ad shows to a user when they search for the keywords you are bidding on.
Spend smarter – not harder; evaluate your overall campaign IS and your keyword level IS. You can improve your IS and show your ads more often by revising your geo-targeting – do you need to cast a wide net? Can you reduce your geo-targeting at all?
You can also improve your IS by refining your keyword lists – bidding on every version of a keyword you can think of is an outdated strategy. You can also revise your ads to improve your ad relevance score, which is one of the complicated factors that impact your overall ad rank – and IS.
More ad spend only sometimes is the answer, but if your market is competitive and you’re not willing to sacrifice targeting, it might be the only way to show your message more often after exhausting other optimization strategies.
Work with the staffing industry specialists!
Google Adwords is a complex and ever-changing channel, and keeping up with PPC best practices and new strategies is time-consuming. The PPC team at Haley Marketing is an enthusiastic group of data geeks, and we’d love the opportunity to manage your Google campaign. Contact us today to discuss your digital marketing needs.
