A Guide to Paid Advertising for eCommerce
To succeed in the competitive world of eCommerce, your digital marketing strategy is key. While it’s important to instill SEO best practices at every level so that you rank highly in organic search, you can’t forget paid advertising, especially if you want to immediately increase brand visibility and sales.
Today, this guide will cover the fundamental elements of eCommerce PPC.
Why Paid Ad?
Search engine optimization (SEO) takes time to work. Most SEO campaigns won’t bear tangible fruit for months. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, on the other hand, allows you to drive eCommerce traffic instantly.
How does it work?
PPC lets you bid on keywords on Google, social media, or even Amazon. A successful bid will artificially boost your ad copy to the very top of the search results—which is the ultimate goal of SEO. When a user clicks on the ad, you pay the bid amount. So, you only pay for direct actions (i.e., pay-per-click).
Although paid ad may not dramatically increase conversions with existing customers, it does enable you to:
- Build awareness with new customers
- Drive targeted traffic to your eCommerce site
- Produce immediate ROI
- Support your existing SEO campaign
- Test, measure, and optimize each PPC campaign
- Retarget consumers
Paid Ad eCommerce Strategies
How do you get the most out of paid advertising? Start with these three strategies:
Focus on long-tail keywords
The keywords that tend to provide the best ROI are high volume low competition keywords known as long-tail keywords. These keywords account for 91.8% of all search queries.
Since PPC pricing functions on a supply and demand basis, the more competition a keyword has, the more it will cost. As such, long-tail keywords are cheaper (and more likely to convert).
To understand why, consider these two keywords:
- Sneakers (short-tail keyword)
- High Nike Dunk Air Jordan sneakers (long-tail keyword)
General keywords broadly target consumers in the awareness stage of the sales funnel. In this case, the consumer knows they want shoes but that could be one of a thousand types. With the long-tail keyword, you target a consumer with clear purchase intent by listing the shoe’s brand, style, and height.
Use Facebook Ads
When it comes to demographic targeting, Facebook may be the best channel available.
As Stefano Mongardi notes in Forbes, Facebook provides an array of targeting customization: “Within the business manager (Facebook ads platform) you are able to not only create campaigns for a specific buyer persona, but also target based on interests and behavior.”
The ability to hyper-target on Facebook according to specific attributes or behaviors affords you the freedom to allocate your PPC spend to the people who are most likely to respond to your product.
Be Careful About When, Where, and Who You Show Ads To
Successful inbound marketing for eCommerce involves pushing your ads to the right people at the ideal time. Therefore, it’s important you understand your customer and build out detailed buyer personas. Doing so will allow you to:
- Know your demand curve for keywords according to temporal behavior
- Target customers when they’re most active
- Set an ad schedule that’s tailored to your audience
Over time, you can use Google Analytics and other reporting tools to optimize and adjust your paid ad strategy.
Semgeeks—PPC Marketing NJ
The world of eCommerce is fiercely competitive. It requires a steady stream of new leads. And for that, an SEO strategy is not enough, particularly if you want to see results tomorrow.
This is where PPC can elevate your marketing and retargeting efforts. By focusing on long-tail keywords, utilizing Facebook Ads, and tailoring each paid ad campaign to your audience, you can begin to see immediate ROI.
Do you need a PPC guide?
At Semgeeks, our team of digital marketing experts can help your eCommerce business build a paid strategy that converts immediately.
Sources:
Search Engine Journal. Long-Tail Keyword Strategy: Why & How to Target Intent for SEO. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-long-tail-keywords/204482/#close
Forbes. Three Ways To Boost Your E-Commerce Sales In 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/07/28/three-ways-to-boost-your-e-commerce-sales-in-2020/?sh=31f6230830ec
