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Do you hear sleigh bells jingling? That's the sound of the holidays approaching fast – are your PPC campaigns ready for it?
It's not too late to make some adjustments that could make a big difference in your holiday sales numbers! In this webinar, 8 Ways to Boost Your Holiday Sales and One Up the Competition (presented by WordStream and Hanapin Marketing), you'll learn tips and tricks to get your AdWords account ready for the holiday rush, including how to:
- Build a campaign based on holiday-themed searches
- Leverage Product Listing Ads for e-commerce
- Use promotions and coupon codes in your holiday ads
- Optimize landing pages for holiday promotions
Plus many more ways to use extensions, calls to action, remarketing and more to beat out your competitors this holiday season.
2. Join the conversation
Include the hashtag #thinkppc in your Twitter tweets.
Or use the webinar question box to send us questions.
#thinkppc
3. Meet The Experts!
Cassie Oumedian
Account Manager, Hanapin Marketing
5+ years of online marketing experience
Worked with a variety of B2B and B2C verticals in ecommerce
and lead generation.
Managed AdWords, Bing and Facebook accounts with monthly
budgets from $30,000 to well into six figures
Jeff Stevens
Customer Success Specialist, WordStream
3+ years of digital marketing experience w/ focus on inbound
and paid search strategies.
Worked closely with HubSpot as a Certified Gold Partner selling,
planning, and executing full-blown inbound marketing campaigns.
Recently transitioned to paid search as a general strategist and
client educator.
#thinkppc
4. Today’s Agenda
PPC Holiday Planning Strategies
Holiday Campaign Best Practices
Getting PLA Holiday Ready
Remarketing for Search
Optimizing Holiday Text Ads
Optimizing Landing Pages for holiday promotions
Dynamic Remarketing Ads
Enabling Ad Extensions
Q&A
#thinkppc
5. Live Poll Question #1
How long have you been in PPC?
#thinkppc
A.
B.
C.
D.
Less than 1 year
1-3 years
3-5 years
5+ years
#thinkppc
6. Live Poll Question #2
How do you manage your account(s)?
#thinkppc
a)
b)
c)
d)
I manage it myself.
I’m part of a team that manages it.
I outsource my account management.
I’m rethinking how my account is managed.
#thinkppc
7. 1. PPC Holiday Planning Strategies
Key Online Shopping Days
Review Last Year’s Holiday Performance
What Promotions Are Running and When
What’s Your Budget?
Put it on the Calendar
#thinkppc
10. 2. Holiday Campaign Best Practices
Holiday Themes & Hot Buttons
Breakout by Performance/Promo
Content Caveats – Timing!
Mobile Adjustments
Day parting Adjustments
Campaign Start End Dates
#thinkppc
11. 2. Holiday Campaign Best Practices
Mobile Adjustments
“85 percent of users look at the top two positions, and
only 9 percent look at positions three through six”
#thinkppc
12. 3. Getting PLA Holiday Ready
Create a New Campaign
Update the Feed
Shipping – Adjust for Free Shipping
Upload New Promotional Ads ASAP
Mobile PLA – Opt in and Adjust
PLA Geo Expansions
#thinkppc
13. 3. Getting PLA Holiday Ready
Mobile PLA – Opt in and Adjust
“One online
clothing retailer saw
a 537% increase in
conversions and
77% increase in
ROAS.”
#thinkppc
15. 4. Remarketing for Search Holiday Strategy
Modify your ads, bids, and keywords based on your
visitors' past activity on your website
“Online tire retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate
increase with RFS, leading to a 22% overall sales
increase.”
#thinkppc
16. 4. Remarketing for Search Holiday Strategy
Don’t be Scared… Go Broad!
Bid on Competitive Holiday Terms Confidently
Encourage Shopping Cart Abandoners – Hurry! Sale Ending
Offer Promos To Existing or New Customers - Free Shipping
Create Highly Targeted Audience Lists
#thinkppc
17. 5. Optimizing Holiday Text Ads
Three Key Areas of Focus for Ad Text
1. Holiday Messaging and Language
2. Implementing Seasonal Promotions and Special Offers
3. Optimizing for Clicks
#thinkppc
18. 5. Optimizing Holiday Text Ads – Messaging & Language
Create new text ads that incorporate language and
messaging geared toward holiday shoppers/searchers.
eCommerce: emphasize the giving spirit of the
season, ability to avoid going to crowded stores,
guaranteed in-stock, etc.
Consumer Services: emphasize holiday
specials/unique holiday-specific services or temporary
seasonal changes to your offering.
Business-to-Business (B2B): emphasize time
sensitivity, year-end deals/availability, etc.
#thinkppc
19. 5. Some Examples of Holiday Messaging…
Query: “fleece jackets”
Creative Ad Text Get’s Noticed!
Query: “winter candles”
+ Always Stay Positive +
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
19
20. 5. Implementing Seasonal Promotions and Special Offers
Create new text ads that emphasize special seasonal
offers, time-sensitivity, unique bonus offers just for the
holidays, etc.
eCommerce: include coupon codes in ad text, %-off offers, free
shipping, free gift box included, guaranteed delivery date, preprepared gift sets, etc.
Consumer Services: emphasize last-minute offers for forgetful
shoppers, year-end deals, extended offers.
Business-to-Business (B2B): year-end deals, new fiscal year, extended
promotions.
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
20
21. 5. Some Examples of Seasonal Promotions…
Query: “designer scarves”
Coupon Code in Ad Text.
Query: “holiday lights”
General Offer,
Targeted Text.
Query: “winter travel deals”
Sense of Urgency!
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
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22. 5. The Ultimate Holiday Text Ad…
Relevant Keyword/DKI
Holiday Messaging
Social Media
Location Extensions Enabled
Sitelinks Enabled w/ Targeted
Destination URLs
Call Extension Enabled
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
22
23. 6. Optimizing Holiday Landing Pages for Conversions
Two Key Areas of Focus for Landing Pages
1) Alignment With Ad Text and Search Context
2) Driving for Conversions
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
23
24. 6. Alignment With Ad Text and Search Context…
Prominently Display Promotions and Specials that are
also Communicated in Your Ad Text
Banners, Bolded Text, Top-of-the-Fold
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24
25. 6. Alignment With Ad Text and Search Context…
Use Seasonal Color Themes and Images
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25
26. 6. Driving for Conversions…
Create Mobile Optimized Landing Pages
Image Source: www.signalhq.com
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26
27. 6. Driving for Conversions…
Enable Social Sharing and Customize Default
Sharing Messages
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
27
28. 7. Experiment with Dynamic Remarketing
Create customized ads and show them to shoppers
who have visited your product pages in the past.
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
28
29. 7. Dynamic Remarketing Ads
Test ads with
various:
– Ad layouts
– Button
colors
– CTAs
– Value
propositions
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
29
30. 8. Enable Ad Extensions
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
30
31. 8. Sitelink Extensions
Adjust sitelinks to match the holiday season
Experiment with day parting
Create mobile specific links
Enable Enhanced sitelinks
CONFIDENTIAL – DO NOT DISTRIBUTE
31
34. Need Help?
Would you like…
a) WordStream: FREE demo of our PPC Management
Platform
b) Hanapin: FREE 1-on-1 Solutions Blueprint ($20k+
spend/Mo.)
#thinkppc
35. Thank you for attending WordStream & Hanapin Marketing’s Webinar!
Don’t forget to sign up for a Free Trial of WordStream:
http://www.wordstream.com/ppc-free-trial
Sign up for a Free Solutions Blueprint from Hanapin Marketing
http://www.hanapinmarketing.com/solutions-blueprint-sign-up
1-812-330-3134
"After multiple negative agency experiences,
the team at Hanapin stepped up to the plate
and delivered the level of service and
attention we had been looking for!"
1-855-967-3787
“GASP! My AdWords click through rate is up
486% on the same period last year – mainly
because I’m using @WordStream!”
-George Cole
- Stephen Ebbett
#thinkppc
Editor's Notes
Kayla
CassieKey Online Shopping Days -Review Last Year’s Holiday Performance - You’ll want to start your plan by first reviewing 2012 performance and apply your learnings to your 2013 plan. During your analysis you’ll want to review: Day parting, Key Days Traffic and Spend, Ad Copy Test Review, Promotions, Ad Extension performance. What Promotions Are Running and When – Now that you’ve reviewed last year’s performance you should have an idea of what worked well and what was well, meh. Work with your company or client to create a promotional calendar for the season and make sure you know what promotions are running, when they start and for how long they will run.In timing your holiday ad copy, ensure a window for ad approval. There’s nothing more face-palm inducing than uploading a set of beautifully constructed holiday ads and watch them sit, “Under Review,” as you await approval. Uploading any time-sensitive material at least 3 days in advance is strongly recommended. For image ads, this goes double. What’s Your Budget? A budget might be provided to you for the holiday season or you could use your findings from last year to help determine a budget for the upcoming year. Keep in mind the holiday season is a marathon and not a sprint. Be sure to have extra funds set aside for days that are the most profitable and use day parting to pull back on the days and hour of the days that are less profitable to help balance the budget. Put it on the Calendar – You’ve done your research, Know Your Key Dates, Have Your Promo Schedule Set and Determined your budget now – PUT IT IN WRITING! Or at least on your calendar, shared file or project management program. Using a filing sharing systems like Google Docs and Outlook ect. that can help keep one place for everyone to review and set reminders for key days is key. Meet with your team and make sure everyone involved knows their part in the big show and when things are due.
CassieAllow for extra budget around these days. Even if you need to pull back at different times of the days to allow for more budget during these key dates. Run a Day-parting Analysis from last year to get an idea of when you could adjust your budget. Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint! Be ready and be prepared.
CassieHere is a screen shot of 2012 Q4 performance. As you can see the extreme peaks and valleys around the key days. This year more and more retailers are starting earlier and earlier so be preparedIf this is your first holiday season don’t fret! You can use tools like Google Trends to search for specific keywords in Geo’s during Q4 for last year to see search trends
CassieWhat To Include in Holiday Campaigns – During the holiday season the customer’s purchase intent moves from purchasing for oneself, to gift giving. It’s important to recognize this mind shift in the purchase cycle and build keywords and campaigns around key trigger items for the gift giver. The gift giver is going to be more conscious on purchasing exactly what is on a list, so be specific and descriptive in your ad copy. Holiday shoppers are also easily swayed a good deal. Including FREE SHIPPING and coupon codes in your ad copy have proven to be very successful during the holidays so be sure to use these in Ad Copy when you can. Below are also a few best practices to keep in mind while building out your Holiday Campaigns. Best Practices:Timing Upload Campaigns ASAP – Ad Approvals can take up to 3 business days or longer depending on industry. Also, the more history your campaigns have typically the better the Quality Score, which can lower your CpCs in a very competitive space. Breakout by performance/Promotion – Segment by either Campaign or Adgroup for high performing promotions such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, ect. The benefit for campaign segmentation allows you to set up start and end dates for specific campaigns and specific budgets.Content Caveats: In preparing for a promotional deal, it may be successful strategy to release your ads 2-3 days before the sale begins. Give them something to salivate over while they wait for the promotion to officially start. A quick warning to those ready to set live the scores of “preview” ads for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Free Shipping Day: if your website is not prepared with this content, you need to wait. The policy that a promotion must be within 3 clicks of a landing page applies at all times, including the holiday season. If it’s not on the site, linking to the site will not get your anywhere. Uploading your ads before your release date is an expected best practice, however. If you have the URL for the appropriate landing page, such as the page that will go live on Cyber Weekend, you can certainly take advantage of this proactive strategy. Once the page is live, unpause those babies and let them rake in the traffic. Mobile Adjustments – Adjust mobile bid modifiers to prepare for increased competition in Google and Bing. Google States that 84% of holiday shoppers will be shopping on their phones while in a store so make sure you are ready to compete in the space. While we can’t adjust tablet bid modifiers in AdWords, we can in Bing so be sure to analyze this data and adjust bids accordingly. Day parting Adjustments – Holiday shoppers tend to shop at all hours of the night so make sure you that you are accounting for this. Regularly review and analyze day parting performance and adjust your bid modifiers if you are using them. Campaign Start End Dates – Using campaign start and end dates is a great way to manage the turning on and turning off ads for timely promotions such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday and keeps you from being up at all hours of the night (even though you probably will still be up anyways reviewing your accounts!).
CassieRecent research conducted with Nielsen shows that “48% of mobile consumers start their purchase journey with paid and organic search results”With smartphones, there’s a big difference between the top two and lower positions. Google’s eye-tracking test found that 85 percent of users look at the top two positions, and only 9 percent look at positions three through six. Make sure you have a unique bidding strategy for mobile separate from your desktop. Users interact differently with each device.** You can also track click to call conversions now in Conversion Column *as long as using Google Forwarding number* which allows you to use Free Automated Tools such as CPA bidding on Call Conversions nowMake sure to have adsWhile you cannot segment out for Tablet in Google, you can in Bing so Mobile Adjustments – Adjust mobile bid modifiers to prepare for increased competition in Google and Bing. Google States that 84% of holiday shoppers will be shopping on their phones while in a store so make sure you are ready to compete in the space. While we can’t adjust tablet bid modifiers in AdWords, we can in Bing so be sure to analyze this data and adjust bids accordingly.
Product Listing Ads show photos of your products, along with prices and product names, right on the search results page when people search for items like yours on Google. In 2012, Black Friday online sales increased 26% and Product Listing Ads are a crucial piece of online sales for eCommerce accounts during this time, so we want to help make sure your accounts are ready.Google has made several recent updates to Product Listing Ads over the last few months – especially with mobile – so it’s important to make sure your campaigns are up to date and optimized. Whether you are a veteran PLA advertiser or new to the game, below are 6 tips to help prepare your PLA campaigns for the holiday push.Create a New Campaign - With all the changes you will be making to your PLA campaign during the holidays, it’s probably a good idea to create a new Holiday PLA campaign. This way your non-holiday campaign is left in tact and ready to come January. Update the Feed - Review your feed and make sure you are including all the key information that would help the user find exactly what they are looking for. The more data the better (every PPCs account managers favorite saying)! If you are able to show the user you have exactly what they are looking for, it will help build trust and confidence in your product, which can help sway users that have never purchased your product before to buy. Holiday shoppers shop differently than they do the rest of the year because they are giving gifts. People make their lists and the giver wants to get exactly what is on the list so this is one reason it’s crucial to make sure you have all the information about the product included in the feed. Google gives an example below. Shipping – Adjust for Free Shipping optionsThe number one phrase that will sway an online holiday shopper during the holiday season is – FREE SHIPPING. When free shipping is involved, brand loyalty goes out the window. If you are offering free shipping make sure you update your shipping settings in merchant center to reflect this. Also, make sure that any items that offer free shipping are properly updated in your data feed as well. For a txt based feed, the setting for Free Shipping should look something like this – US:::0.00. Here is a link that walks you through how to update your shipping settings. Upload New Promotional Ads ASAP - I’m sure most online marketers using PLA are already on top of this but just another friendly reminder to make sure your ads are updated and promoting the latest and greatest promotions. It’s best to get these updated at least a week before you are ready to launch them so they can go through editorial review – which can take anywhere from 1-3 business days. You can just leave them paused and then activate when you need them so there is no delay. To update the promotions in AdWords, go to the Ads Tab > New Ad > Promotion. Mobile PLA – Opt in and Adjust - According to Google, 84% of shoppers will be using their smart phones to compare, research and purchase items while shopping in a physical store. There is no denying the impact Mobile has eCommerce. If your campaign is not opted into mobile, it’s time to opt in and make sure you adjust your bid modifiers accordingly. Google Shopping recently updated the look of PLA ads on Google.com so users can easily swipe to view more items without having to leave the search results page. One online clothing retailer saw a 537% increase in conversions and 77% increase in ROAS. These updates should help increase PLA performance significantly over the holiday shopping season. PLA Geo Expansions – Google shopping recently expanded the availability of Product Listing Ads to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey. If these are countries that you are able to service, be sure that you expand your campaigns to include these new countries and increase you availability in this highly profitable channel.
Product Listing Ads show photos of your products, along with prices and product names, right on the search results page when people search for items like yours on Google. In 2012, Black Friday online sales increased 26% and Product Listing Ads are a crucial piece of online sales for eCommerce accounts during this time, so we want to help make sure your accounts are ready.Google has made several recent updates to Product Listing Ads over the last few months – especially with mobile – so it’s important to make sure your campaigns are up to date and optimized. Whether you are a veteran PLA advertiser or new to the game, below are 6 tips to help prepare your PLA campaigns for the holiday push.Create a New Campaign - With all the changes you will be making to your PLA campaign during the holidays, it’s probably a good idea to create a new Holiday PLA campaign. This way your non-holiday campaign is left in tact and ready to come January. Update the Feed - Review your feed and make sure you are including all the key information that would help the user find exactly what they are looking for. The more data the better (every PPCs account managers favorite saying)! If you are able to show the user you have exactly what they are looking for, it will help build trust and confidence in your product, which can help sway users that have never purchased your product before to buy. Holiday shoppers shop differently than they do the rest of the year because they are giving gifts. People make their lists and the giver wants to get exactly what is on the list so this is one reason it’s crucial to make sure you have all the information about the product included in the feed. Google gives an example below. Shipping – Adjust for Free Shipping optionsThe number one phrase that will sway an online holiday shopper during the holiday season is – FREE SHIPPING. When free shipping is involved, brand loyalty goes out the window. If you are offering free shipping make sure you update your shipping settings in merchant center to reflect this. Also, make sure that any items that offer free shipping are properly updated in your data feed as well. For a txt based feed, the setting for Free Shipping should look something like this – US:::0.00. Here is a link that walks you through how to update your shipping settings. Upload New Promotional Ads ASAP - I’m sure most online marketers using PLA are already on top of this but just another friendly reminder to make sure your ads are updated and promoting the latest and greatest promotions. It’s best to get these updated at least a week before you are ready to launch them so they can go through editorial review – which can take anywhere from 1-3 business days. You can just leave them paused and then activate when you need them so there is no delay. To update the promotions in AdWords, go to the Ads Tab > New Ad > Promotion. Mobile PLA – Opt in and Adjust - According to Google, 84% of shoppers will be using their smart phones to compare, research and purchase items while shopping in a physical store. There is no denying the impact Mobile has eCommerce. If your campaign is not opted into mobile, it’s time to opt in and make sure you adjust your bid modifiers accordingly. Google Shopping recently updated the look of PLA ads on Google.com so users can easily swipe to view more items without having to leave the search results page. One online clothing retailer saw a 537% increase in conversions and 77% increase in ROAS. These updates should help increase PLA performance significantly over the holiday shopping season. PLA Geo Expansions – Google shopping recently expanded the availability of Product Listing Ads to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey. If these are countries that you are able to service, be sure that you expand your campaigns to include these new countries and increase you availability in this highly profitable channel.
PLA Geo Expansions – Google shopping recently expanded the availability of Product Listing Ads to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey. If these are countries that you are able to service, be sure that you expand your campaigns to include these new countries and increase you availability in this highly profitable channel.
What is Remarketing for Search? Remarketing for Search allows you to target people who have already been to your site and visited a specific page, but also searched a specific key term. People who have already been to your site and are familiar with your product are in many cases more likely to convert. Combining that with the fact that they’re searching a relevant keyword (which implies that they are actively seeking something relevant) makes this a very useful method of targeting. Many people do their holiday shopping online, so if you haven’t implemented RLSA in your accounts yet, now might be a good time to start!How it Works RLSA is simple to set up, especially if you have already created audience lists for display remarketing campaigns. You can either set up a new campaign or add the audience list to an existing search campaign. Next, for each Ad Group you can adjust to setting to be either “bid only” or “target and bid” = meets all targets in ven diagram. In the “bid only” = bids on everything. setting, the Max CPC will be increased for people on your audience list, but ads will still show to people who are not on your list. In the “target and bid” setting, your ads will only appear to those who have been to your site and received a cookie. It’s that simple! There are many different ways to set up a remarketing for search campaign. You can change the duration of time that users are on your list, so that you can be sure to serve ads to people when they’re most likely to convert. Custom combinations are also available so you can exclude people who have already converted (or target people who have, for example, placed an item in the shopping cart but abandoned it).Tirendo, a European online tire retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate increase with RLSA, leading to a 22% overall sales increase. And the incremental conversions were efficient, with a 43% lower average cost per order than previous campaigns. Read more.
What is Remarketing for Search?For example, let’s say you sell computers. Someone may come to your site looking to buy a computer as a gift, but is at an early point in the buying cycle and is just looking at prices. Since they visited your page but didn’t convert, they now have a cookie and are part of your audience list. Every time they search for anything related to your product like “computer cables” or “computer accessories”, your ad will be displayed, thus reminding him of your product. This is a great opportunity to advertise special holiday promotions, such as a coupon code or free shipping. This further entices users that have already taken a peek at your products to come back and make a purchase. Remarketing for Search allows you to target people who have already been to your site and visited a specific page, but also searched a specific key term. People who have already been to your site and are familiar with your product are in many cases more likely to convert. Combining that with the fact that they’re searching a relevant keyword (which implies that they are actively seeking something relevant) makes this a very useful method of targeting. Many people do their holiday shopping online, so if you haven’t implemented RLSA in your accounts yet, now might be a good time to start!How it Works RLSA is simple to set up, especially if you have already created audience lists for display remarketing campaigns. You can either set up a new campaign or add the audience list to an existing search campaign. Next, for each Ad Group you can adjust to setting to be either “bid only” or “target and bid” = meets all targets in ven diagram. In the “bid only” = bids on everything. setting, the Max CPC will be increased for people on your audience list, but ads will still show to people who are not on your list. In the “target and bid” setting, your ads will only appear to those who have been to your site and received a cookie. It’s that simple! There are many different ways to set up a remarketing for search campaign. You can change the duration of time that users are on your list, so that you can be sure to serve ads to people when they’re most likely to convert. Custom combinations are also available so you can exclude people who have already converted (or target people who have, for example, placed an item in the shopping cart but abandoned it).Tirendo, a European online tire retailer, saw a 161% conversion rate increase with RLSA, leading to a 22% overall sales increase. And the incremental conversions were efficient, with a 43% lower average cost per order than previous campaigns. Read more.
For example, let’s say you sell computers. Someone may come to your site looking to buy a computer as a gift, but is at an early point in the buying cycle and is just looking at prices. Since they visited your page but didn’t convert, they now have a cookie and are part of your audience list. Every time they search for anything related to your product like “computer cables” or “computer accessories”, your ad will be displayed, thus reminding him of your product. This is a great opportunity to advertise special holiday promotions, such as a coupon code or free shipping. This further entices users that have already taken a peek at your products to come back and make a purchase.
For example, let’s say you sell computers. Someone may come to your site looking to buy a computer as a gift, but is at an early point in the buying cycle and is just looking at prices. Since they visited your page but didn’t convert, they now have a cookie and are part of your audience list. Every time they search for anything related to your product like “computer cables” or “computer accessories”, your ad will be displayed, thus reminding him of your product. This is a great opportunity to advertise special holiday promotions, such as a coupon code or free shipping. This further entices users that have already taken a peek at your products to come back and make a purchase.