Category: Advertising

The Secret To Get To The TOP Of Google’s Results

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Marketing

In this blog, we will teach you how to get to the top of Google’s results using paid search advertising, which can help your business gain more exposure, more leads, and more conversions.

SEM stands for search engine marketing, which is where you purchase ads from search engines such as Google to gain more website traffic. The most popular paid search advertising method is Google AdWords, which allows you to bid on certain keywords so your ads will show up at the top of certain searches. Google AdWords is effective because it allows you to target your ads, control your costs, measure your success, and manage your campaigns.

Your ads can show on two of Google’s networks, the Search Network or the Display Network. The search network means your ads will show up on the search page, while the display network allows your ads to show on Google’s partner websites. You can put your ads on the Search Network only, the Display Network only, or a combination of both.

With Search Network marketing, your ads will be given a quality score and ad rank. The quality score estimates how effective your ads will be based on the expected clickthrough rate (CTR), ad relevance, and landing page experience. Ad rank determines the order in which your ad shows up on the page.

Because Google AdWords is paid search advertising, you will obviously have to pay for your ads. You have three options for payment on Google AdWords, cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA). Cost-per-click (CPC) focuses on clicks on your ads and drive traffic to your website. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) focuses on impressions — the number of times your ad shows — and increases awareness of your brand. This is used on Display Network campaigns only. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) focuses on conversions — which is when people take a specific action on your website after clicking one of your ads.

Choosing the appropriate keywords is a big part of creating your Google AdWords campaign. When choosing your keywords, it is important to think like a customer, align your keywords with your goals, and reviewing which search terms work best. Exhaustive keyword research and bid optimization designed for high click-through rates at a lower cost-per-inquiry is necessary for a successful Google AdWords campaign.

Once you have created your AdWords campaign, you can measure your success with several tools. Segments allow you to split your data into rows based on the information that matters to you most, such as periods of time, click type, or device. The list below shows you a few of your options if you want to measure your ad’s success based on segments.

    • Click type: See which clicks resulted in visits to your website
    • Device: Compare performance across devices
    • Top vs. Other: Find out where your ad appeared on Google’s search results pages and search partners’ pages
    • Time: Isolate changes in your performance using the time segment options

You can also measure the success of your campaign by utilizing the top movers report, which lets you see which campaigns have the biggest changes (increases or decreases) in clicks, costs, and conversions, and shows you some possible causes for those changes. The paid and organic report lets you can see how often pages from your website are showing in Google search results, and which queries triggered those results to show on the search results page. Another report, auction insights, compares your performance with other advertisers who are participating in the same auctions that you are.

Overall, paid search advertising can help your business get more exposure and generate more leads. If you need additional help, please let us become part of your team and we’ll use our proven approach to provide you with success.

How To Decipher Your Google Analytics Reports

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog

When you first see a Google Analytics report, you may be a little overwhelmed. What do all of these charts, numbers, and graphs mean? Google Analytics requires a bit more in-depth analysis than using Facebook or Twitter ads, for example.

Google analytics tracks and reports website traffic. It seems easy enough, but with so many customizable options and various reports it can be confusing. In this blog post, we will break down Google Analytics into an easy to follow how-to guide. We will start by defining digital analytics. Digital analytics is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your business and competition to drive continual improvement of the online experience for visitors to your website.

The analytics can measure macro conversions and micro conversions. Macro conversions are very important to your business and drive the revenue. For example, if your business goal is to sell a product, a macro conversion would be if someone purchased the product from your website. Micro conversions are also important, but not the driving forces of your business. These help customers move towards macro conversions. If a customer signed up to receive email coupons for your product, this would be considered a micro conversion.

A few other important terms Google Analytics uses are segmentation and context. Segmentation allows you to isolate and analyze subsets of your data. Some subsets Google Analytics offer include traffic sources, date and time, device, marketing channel, geography, and customer characteristics. This helps you isolate certain factors to see who is coming to your website and how they are getting there. Another term is context, which simply means what standard of comparison are you using. You can compare your Google Analytics reports externally to the industry standard or compare them internally to your site’s history.

Google Analytics recommends five steps of measurement planning.

1. Document your business objectives

2. Identify strategies and tactics

3. KPI’s (key performance indicators)

4. Choose segments

5. Choose targets

Google Analytics allows you to set certain goals for your website, including destination, duration, pages per visit, and event. We will go over what each of these means in more detail.

  • Destination: This means you want your visitors to reach a certain page. If your goal is to sell a product, that page would be an order confirmation page. If your goal is to get visitors to sign up for an e-newsletter, that page would be the “Thank You” page they are taken to after entering their email address.
  • Duration: This allows you to set a time goal that you want visitors to remain on your page. If you have an informative website where you want visitors to read your page in detail, this may be the appropriate goal for you.
  • Pages Per Visit: This means you can set a goal of how many pages you want each visitor to view while on your website.
  • Event: This means visitors did something on your website. For example, an event goal would be getting visitors to play a video or click on a link.

There are three main types of reports offered on Google Analytics – audience reports, acquisition reports, and behavior reports.

  • Audience Report: reveals characteristics about users
    • Helps you better understand user behavior
    • Gives you access to geographic data
    • Allows you to view mobile data to your site
  • Acquisition Report: compares the marketing channels
    • Lets you understand the different traffic sources to your site
    • Helps you find and analyze your marketing campaigns
  • Behavior Report: reveals how users interact with your website
    • Helps identify popular content on your site
    • Analyzes how visitors move through your site
    • Analyzes site search data

In conclusion, using analytics will allow you to understand and connect with your current clients. This will help you to identify the best marketing strategies to reach new customers and retain existing ones. By knowing where your audience comes from and what they like, you can create content personalized for your target audience. The continual use of analytics provides constant improvement of the online experience and acquisition of new clients.

10 Things Every Marketing Plan Should Have

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Marketing

The first step in developing any marketing strategy is to start with a plan. Developing a plan for your marketing strategy may seem overwhelming. Plans can range from super simple to extremely advanced and complex. However, all marketing plans, big or small, have a few things in common. We will go over ten necessary elements that all marketing plans must contain in order to be successful.

1. The Product

Possibly the most important aspect of your marketing plan is the product. What makes your product superior to others in your industry? Why would someone choose you over someone else? Find what makes your product unique and go with it. Emphasize what you can offer that others can’t.

2. The Research

Okay, so now you know why your product is the best, but whose going to buy it? You need to conduct market research to analyze buying trends in your industry. Collect, organize, and analyze data regarding the demographics of customers, your competition, current sales in your industry, suppliers, and market patterns. This valuable knowledge can help you successfully market to the right people in the right ways.

3. Define

Once you understand the market, you need to define the target audience. Instead of trying to please everybody, zone in on a specific group of people who will be more likely to purchase your product. Describe you ideal customer in detail. Be sure to get more specific than women in their 30s-60s. Really dig deep to decide who your ideal customer will be.

4. Goals

Don’t just keep your goals in your head. Writing them down can help you more clearly define them and set realistic, but ambitious goals. Write full sentences that state what you want to accomplish in your business overall and through your marketing strategy specifically. You can break up your goals into specific mission statements, and it may be helpful to make them quantifiable. For example, a mission statement could be to gain two new clients a month.

5. The Medium

Where is you marketing strategy going to take place? Will your company benefit most from social media or a more traditional approach? Think about which mediums appeal to your target audience and how your product will best be displayed.

6. The Promotion

Putting your product on social media or on television is not enough; you must also promote it. Promotion could be consistent branding on social media, events, giveaways, etc. There is no right or wrong way to promote your product. You just need to make sure you are consistent with your brand and reaching the right audience.

7. The Positioning

Where your product will be positioned in the market? You must decide if you are going to be top-of-the-line or if you want to seem more casual and appeal to the masses. Decide a position for your product and make all of your advertisements surround it.

8. The Schedule

Once you have all of your ideas mapped out, you need to place them on a schedule. Keep the schedule brief and organized, as it will likely need to be changed frequently. Having a schedule can help you keep yourself on track and better monitor how your strategies are doing.

9. The Budget

Of course, in running any business budget is important. See what strategies you can afford and which may be better saved for a later date.

10. The Analytics

How are you going to monitor your results? You need to ensure you can test and analyze to identify the strategies that are working. You can use tools such as surveys, database management tools, and number of engagements to measure your success.

Now you are ready to begin your marketing plan! Be sure to consistently compare your actual marketing strategy to your plan and make sure you are reaching your goals.

How To Optimize Your Facebook Ads

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Social Media

Advertising on Facebook may seem simple. But are you optimizing your Facebook ads or blindly posting them? In this blog we will help you optimize your ads by teaching you how to define your objective, create an action plan, properly execute that plan, and track your results.

1. Defining your objective

The first step in optimizing your Facebook ads is to define your objective. Your business goals will drive your marketing objectives. Some examples of goals include generating sales, brand awareness, or more engagement. More specifically, if you are looking to get new clients, your goal may be to increase the number of visitors to your website. If your goal is to strengthen brand loyalty, your may want to boost the interactions on your page.

2. Create an action plan

Now that you know what your goal is, you can make a plan. You need to decide how many posts you will do each week, what your message will be, who is your target audience, etc. Unfortunately, there is no cookie-cutter answer to what your plan should be. Each company will have a different action plan depending on your brand and goals. You need to evaluate what your audience will like, if you’re advertising on desktop or mobile, and what mood you want your ad to be.

3. Execute your plan

Once you have your idea developed, you can start creating the ads. However, be weary of Facebook rules when creating your ads. Because images with minimal text are more engaging, Facebook recommends limiting your graphic content to 20% text (including logos). You can check to see if your image meets these requirements using the grid tool. We recommend creating several versions of an ad using various images and layouts. You can test these ads to see which performs best. A great app for ad testing is AdEspresso.

4. Track your results

Facebook will show you how many people your ad reaches. You can also use Facbook Ads Manager to see in more detail how your ads are performing.

Although we can’t write one blanket plan that works for all businesses, we hope these tips help you create a successful ad campaign. Always remember to define your objective, create an action plan, properly execute that plan, and then track your results. If you need help optimizing your Facebook posts, contact us today!

The History of Advertising

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog

We all hate history lessons, but it’s important to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going.

It’s hard to say when advertising actually started, because people have been trying to sell and trade things since the beginning of time. To sell something, at least some form of persuasion must be used. It is subjective whether this is advertising or not, so we will just start with organized American advertising. Take a look at our timeline to see where it all began! Where do you think advertising will be in the future?

How Do I Come Up With More Marketing Ideas?

by adventureadagency, posted in Advertising, Blog, Marketing

Have you ever experienced writer’s block? You’re sitting there staring at a blank screen about to pull your hair out because the ideas are just not flowing. The same can be true when trying to come up with creative ideas for content marketing. How are you supposed to keep the ideas fresh and creative? After all, there are only so many ideas out there (and a lot of the good ones have been taken by Oreo and Doritos)! So how do brands like Oreo and Doritos keep coming up with one good idea after another? We’ve put together a few tips to give you a hint at what you can do to have a continuous flow of marketing ideas.

1. Creativity

There is no such thing as “wrong” creativity. Let your ideas flow no matter how ridiculous they may seem in your head. Sometimes we can be too hard on ourselves and shut down an idea before we even get it fully developed. Allow your mind to go places you may normally be critical of. Brainstorm any and every idea you have. This will give you a long list to choose from, and you just may have written down the needle in the haystack.

2. Teamwork

Of course you want to be the person to come up with an idea, but we can’t all be on our A game 100% of the time. Allow others to add their input, even if they aren’t on the marketing team! If your business is designating only a handful of people to add creative content to the marketing department, then you may be missing out on tons of creative ideas! Allow anyone to pitch an idea to you at any time. Just because your accountants sit behind a desk crunching numbers all day doesn’t mean they don’t have creative juices too! Collaborating allows you to bounce ideas off of one another and can often produce the best ideas. You know what they say – two heads are better than one!

3. Current

Be current and stay on top of trends. Get your brand involved in the trends early. You have to do it before everyone else can. Take the ALS ice bucket challenge, for example. If your brand does it, it shows that you support a great cause and have a fun company environment. However, timing is everything. Be one of the first to do it and you get tons of attention and publicity. Be one of the last and you are just another piece of the puzzle.

4. Steal

Okay, we don’t mean you can literally steal. But you can steal ideas, sort of. Read book, watch T.V., look at magazines, anything to get your creative juices flowing. You never know what may trigger an idea. Once you find an idea, you can incorporate your own product and use your own voice to make it original. Of course, you can’t copy the idea exactly, but seeing one thing may trigger you to think of another.

We would love to hear any other tips and tricks you have for being creative and how they worked for you!