The competition within the E-Commerce space keeps heating up. Each year, the digital market is flooded with more brands and small businesses eager to sell their products online.
But the market isn’t expanding fast enough to compensate for the number of sellers entering it. It’s oversaturated. And for many budding businesses, this represents the most significant obstacle standing in the way of a company’s growth.
Here’s the good news. If you’re a hungry brand that wants to stand out from the sea of sellers, paid search can be your golden ticket to the top—the tool that helps drive views, clicks, and sales.
This paid search tips guide will show you why and how.
Why Paid Search?
The conventional method brands use to build online brand awareness is via search engine optimization (SEO). But SEO has an intrinsic flaw—it takes time to make its impact felt. As a result, some campaigns may go for several months before a brand’s search rankings improve.
But with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, also known as paid search, you can drive E-Commerce sales growth seemingly overnight. It’s more agile and focused on fostering short-term results.
With PPC, you bid on keywords on Amazon, Google, or social media platforms. If you “win” the auction, your ad copy will be automatically boosted to the top of search results. Any time a user clicks the ad, you pay the bid amount regardless of how long they dwell on a site or whether they make any purchases. So with that business model, its caveat emptor—buyer beware.
If users are clicking, they must also convert into sales.
That said, PPC can be one of the more effective marketing tools available to E-Commerce brands. According to Google, on average, PPC provides a $2 return for every dollar spent. In addition to increased sales, this form of marketing can create several tangible benefits, including:
- Increased visibility and brand awareness
- Precise targeting
- Helps build trust between the brand and consumers
- Allows you to measure results and fine-tune the campaign
- Immediate and consistent traffic
Paid Search Tips
If you want to create the best paid search strategy possible, follow these tips:
#1 Know Your Paid Search Metrics
How do you know if a PPC campaign is working? Or, once a campaign ends, how can you determine whether it’s worth reinvesting in?
You need to know and study your metrics for these answers.
With the help of Google and Amazon Analytics, you can analyze paid search KPIs to better understand where a campaign succeeded and where it fell short. From there, you can make the necessary adjustments to optimize the campaign.
Generally speaking, there are three primary categories of metrics you should study frequently:
- Traffic metrics – When it comes to E-Commerce campaigns, traffic is one of the most essential metrics you know. The most important KPIs to consider include:
- Clicks
- Click-through rate
- Cost per click
- Impressions
- Average position
- Total unique visitors
- Bounce rates
- Conversion metrics – This data tells you how much of an impact a paid search campaign made and how much it cost you. Metrics include:
- Revenue
- Revenue per click
- Conversion rate
- Leads
- Efficiency metrics – This data let you see how effective a paid search campaign is at reaching and converting sales. Metrics include:
- Ad costs to sales
- Return on ad spend
- Cost per lead/order
#2 Focus on Long-Tail Keywords
If you want more bang for your buck, long-tail keywords are the way to go. They are high volume, low competition, account for more than 70% of all search queries, and—best of all for E-Commerce brands—long-tail keywords have high search intent.
Put simply, long-tail keywords cost less to bid and are more likely to convert.
#3 Identify Keyword Ideas for All Stages of the Buyer’s Funnel
In terms of keyword bidding, don’t limit yourself to a single stage of the buyer’s journey. Many E-Commerce brands make the mistake of primarily targeting buyers at the decision stage.
But this is a narrow approach too focused on making a sale. It causes you to miss out on opportunities to nurture individuals unfamiliar with your brand down the buyer’s funnel.
You need to nurture the lead, guide them to the sale, and keep the conversation going afterward. Therefore you must develop a list of keywords that target would-be customers through all stages of the sales journey, including:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
- Retention
- Advocacy
#4 Purge Underperforming Keywords
Like a high-quality Formula 1 car, the best-paid search campaign involves continuous fine-tuning and optimization. Even minor tweaks can make major differences in campaign performance.
So, over time, leverage search engine analytics to see what works and what doesn’t.
Focus on keywords that may be part of an ad grouping but consistently underperform. Keywords or phrases that don’t get clicks or those that receive clicks but don’t garner conversions should be tweaked or entirely removed from your ad copy.
Semgeeks—A PPC Marketing Agency
The E-Commerce space doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. But with increasingly more participants entering the market, your brand must get in front of would-be customers in order to build a stream of new leads.
For that, PPC is the answer—the tool you can use to find a new audience, drive traffic and sales, and retarget existing customers.
If you’re looking for an expert to craft, manage, and optimize your paid search campaigns, Semgeeks is here for you. As a PPC management company in NJ, our team of digital marketing professionals can help you build a paid search strategy that increases sales.
Want to see an immediate difference in your online sales metrics? Let’s talk PPC.
Sources:
Google. Economic Impact. https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/
Search Engine Land. Back to basics: What does ‘long-tail’ keyword really mean? https://searchengineland.com/back-to-basics-what-does-long-tail-keyword-really-mean-311910
