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Paid Search Marketing: The Strategy Behind Online Success

perfectpoint — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:07:01 +0000

For business owners who are ready to build their online presence, paid search marketing stands out as a must-have strategy. Paid advertising is by far the fastest way to drive relevant traffic to a website, find new customers, and get conversions. Platforms like Google Ads and other similar marketing platforms allow advertisers to leverage paid search ads and stand out (and above) the competition. Reaching the top of the search results ensures that potential customers, who are actively searching products or services, find what they are looking for.

Google’s search engine results pages reach over 90% of internet users worldwide, making it a very powerful platform. Though it might seem like a simple flip of a switch to get ads performing well, there is quite a bit of strategy that goes into paid search advertising management to reach the right audience at the right time.

Paid Search Marketing – In Real-Life Terms

Paid search marketing is also known as pay-per-click advertising, or PPC as advertisers usually call it. From the Google Ads platform, advertisers bid on keywords relevant to the products or services offered by a business and relevant to the target audience searching online. When users search on the Google search engine, ad’s for those products or services will appear prominently in the search engine results. Online users will see ads displayed as “sponsored” in the results. Every time a user clicks on an ad, advertisers will pay a pre-determined amount based on the bidding strategy used within the Google Ads dashboard.

Pay-Per-Click!

Why Does Paid Search Advertising Work?

There are several different reasons why paid ads work as well as they do.

Prompt Visibility – Unlike some other marketing strategies like organic search, paid ads will show immediately after they are turned on. They can also show at the top of the search results quickly. Organic efforts (SEO) typically take time to build rank over competitors. PPC works a lot faster to get ads in front of an audience.
Specific Targeting – There are a vast amount of options within the paid search campaign dashboard that allow advertisers to modify who sees the ads and when. Specifying demographics, locations, days/time of the day, devices and more can help get ads in front of the audience that has a higher intent to purchase a product or service.
Measurability – None of these would be quite as useful if the Google Ads dashboard didn’t also allow advertisers to measure the performance of the ads. Once ads start, the dashboard collects enough data to help advertisers make educated and data-backed decisions to optimize the campaigns and improve performance.

Paid Search And Successful Strategies

The probability of the success of paid search campaigns starts way before the ads are created. There are specific strategies used by advertisers to make a campaign effective, starting with the landing pages that ads drive traffic to.

Landing pages – Optimized landing pages for paid search ads is a crucial component of paid marketing. Without the right type of landing pages, ads can be limited and hinder the performance of a campaign. It’s important that each landing page is aligned with the ads messaging and offer top-notch user experience. Clear images, easy-to-read, and effective calls-to-action can make or break a campaign. Mobile devices drive a substantial portion of paid search clicks, with Google reporting that more than half of searches come from mobile devices. So providing landing pages that offer a seamless user experience on mobile devices is a must.
Keyword Research – If the right keywords are being used, success is going to come. Keywords and keyword phrases are fundamental. Taking the time to identify the keywords with a decent search volume will help get ads in front of the right audience.
Ad Copy – Ad copy doesn’t just tell your potential customers what a business is offering and why that particular business is the best. It is designed to generate clicks, yes, but underneath that intent is ad copy that is relevant and on-point – which helps improve paid marketing efforts.
Bid Management – Keywords must be monitored for opportunity to adjust bids and control costs. While bids are being monitored, other metrics and leading indicators are analyzed to help improve overall performance. There are several different types of bid strategies within the Google Ads dashboard and some are effective for some types of services and products while others are not. It’s important to choose effective bid strategies to ensure the best outcome.

Working With Professionals

It’s a cornerstone of search engine marketing. There isn’t another option that compares to the capabilities and reach that paid search marketing does. With the right strategies, business owners can build brand awareness, grow their companies, profit, and maintain a competitive online presence. Get Found First has an extensive knowledge of Google Ads for different types of businesses which means that our team knows which search engine strategies will work the best for you. Call us today to get more information about paid search marketing and how it can help you reach your business goals.

Landing pages – Optimized landing pages for paid search ads is a crucial component of paid marketing. Without the right type of landing pages, ads can be limited and hinder the performance of a campaign. It’s important that each landing page is aligned with the ads messaging and offer top-notch user experience. Clear images, easy-to-read, and effective calls-to-action can make or break a campaign. Mobile devices drive a substantial portion of paid search clicks, with Google reporting that more than half of searches come from mobile devices. So providing landing pages that offer a seamless user experience on mobile devices is a must.
Keyword Research – If the right keywords are being used, success is going to come. Keywords and keyword phrases are fundamental. Taking the time to identify the keywords with a decent search volume will help get ads in front of the right audience.
Ad Copy – Ad copy doesn’t just tell your potential customers what a business is offering and why that particular business is the best. It is designed to generate clicks, yes, but underneath that intent is ad copy that is relevant and on-point – which helps improve paid marketing efforts.
Bid Management – Keywords must be monitored for opportunity to adjust bids and control costs. While bids are being monitored, other metrics and leading indicators are analyzed to help improve overall performance. There are several different types of bid strategies within the Google Ads dashboard and some are effective for some types of services and products while others are not. It’s important to choose effective bid strategies to ensure the best outcome.

It’s a cornerstone of digital marketing. There isn’t another option that compares to the capabilities and reach that paid search marketing does. With the right strategies, business owners can build brand awareness, grow their companies, profit and maintain a competitive online presence. Get Found First has an extensive knowledge of Google Ads for different types of businesses which means that our team knows which strategies will work the best for your business. Call us today to get more information about paid search marketing and how it can help you reach your business goals.

The post Paid Search Marketing: The Strategy Behind Online Success first appeared on Get Found First.

The Importance of Knowing Your Customer Lifetime Value

perfectpoint — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 22:26:38 +0000

Hey guys, my name is Michael Tominaga. I’m the VP of Digital here Get Found First, and today I’m going to talk to you a little bit about customer lifetime value. Now you may be asking yourself, what is customer lifetime value. Now, this is the total amount of revenue generated from a single client during their engagement with your business.

The reason why this is important is because it dictates a lot of what you can do with your business. For example, if you know what they’re worth, you will also know how much you can spend to acquire them. We all know that it’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to go acquire new ones. But if we know our customer lifetime value, we can then go in and set some guidelines to how much we can actually spend to acquire a new customer.

So in an example, maybe for easy math, we use a customer is worth $1,000. Now in this, we know that maybe we can only spend about 10% of that lifetime value to acquire a new customer. Because maybe our cost of goods or our cost of service for that client might be worth 30%, or 40%. So if we tack on an extra 10%, there, that leaves us with a fairly healthy margin.

So some of these things, when we look at, you know, these metrics, they’re really important with how we strategize, and how we learn to operate our company. Go through this process of figuring out, you know, how much does my client generate for me? And do I have an initial service? Do I have a reoccurring model that provides monthly income? Or do I have potentially a handful of different transactions that happen there? So once you figure out or calculate what they’re worth, then you can start to work backwards to figure out what can I pay to acquire a new customer?

Some of the things that might be important to consider as you go through your book of business or your strategy planning is thinking, how can I provide a better experience to keep these companies longer? How can I also maybe look for ways to upsell services or products? If we’re to increase our efficiency on both sides of those, could we increase our lifetime value and how much they’re worth for business?

Another thing that we talk about when we talk about customer lifetime value is churn. Churn impacts this metric because the longer we keep a client, the higher that value is. And so one thing you will want to evaluate with your book is what is your churn rate? How long do you keep clients on average or customers? Then, by measuring churn, you will be able to figure out a more predictable pipeline for your business, as well as be able to forecast what your sales revenue might look like, over the next year, or foreseeable future. These are all great things to consider when looking at your marketing strategy. If you guys have questions, or you want to learn a little bit more about this, give us a call. Come in and see us we’d love to learn more about your business and help you find a way to increase your customer lifetime value. So thanks for joining and we’ll talk to you guys soon.

The post The Importance of Knowing Your Customer Lifetime Value first appeared on Get Found First.

Building Successful Performance Max Campaigns

perfectpoint — Thu, 18 May 2023 22:35:00 +0000

Over the last few years Google has continued to leverage its automatic campaign features. One of the most recent changes has been the evolution of the performance max campaign type.

What is performance max?

The performance max or pMAX campaign strategy uses Google’s machine learning to drive performance based on specific goals, delivering more conversions and value by optimizing performance in real-time and across channels using Smart Bidding. Using automatic bids, budget optimization, audience targeting, creatives and more, Google uses this goal-based strategy to complement the keyword-based search campaigns to help find more customers across other Google channels.

What makes it different from other campaign types?

Traditional campaigns function independently of each other. But with performance max your ads can run on Google Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discovery, and Maps. This opens the door for more people to find your business and engage with your products and services.

Performance Max Pros and Cons

More Accessible

Pro – Gives advertisers more exposure across Google’s channels. Greater accessibility means that anyone can run ads on multiple platforms with little budget or time to optimize various campaign types.

Con – Just because it’s more accessible, doesn’t make it the one-size fits all campaign type. pMAX should first be used to supplement pre-existing advertising efforts. Because this is a goal-based strategy, you want to make sure you have the conversion data that will help the account optimize for your ideal customer.

Easy to Manage

Pro – It doesn’t take a long time to setup. When you opt to run this campaign type, the system walks you through the steps. So there isn’t a huge learning curve. When building out creative, you supply the headlines, descriptions, and visuals, then Google can generate many variations and use different ad types to test your messaging.

Con – You have less control. Because the placements are automated, you have less control over how often your ads show up on specific platforms, the particular searches triggering your ads and the targeting of your ads.

Audience Targeting

Pro – When you use existing customer lists and proven audience segments that have worked for you before, these lists can help set the stage for your campaign. But the caveat here is that they need to be setup correctly. Then Google’s AI can rely on your existing customer engagement data to find new audience signals to optimize against.

Con – Not every audience will be relevant. Relying too much on machine learning with minimal effort at adjusting any of your targeting and creative can be a mistake. You can find that your budget gets used inefficiently or the quality of leads isn’t as good if the campaign is optimizing against irrelevant targets.

These 4 tips can help your performance max campaigns work effectively:

Identify the goals that matter most for your business, then optimize your campaign to achieve them. Goals can include increasing website traffic, generating leads, or acquiring more sales.
Use the right bidding strategy. Maximize conversion and maximize conversion value.
- Maximize conversion – get as many conversions as possible.
- Maximize conversion value – drive as much conversation value as possible within your budget.
Upload a variety of creative assets. You can use text, image, and video. Add a variation of calls to actions, unique value propositions, image sizes, and messages to test what people will engage with. You can view asset reports to see what variations and combinations Google uses and make decisions to revise new copy for poor performance assets.
Add Audience signals – Use your first-party provided data. This includes customer match, website visitor lists, and custom segments.

Interested in learning more about performance max campaigns? Contact us! Our digital account specialists can help answer your questions and find the right strategy for your digital marketing needs.

The post Building Successful Performance Max Campaigns first appeared on Get Found First.

3 Best Practices for Your Website

perfectpoint — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:50:22 +0000

Your website is an essential part of converting leads and maintaining credibility in your business.

That being said, website trends and features are continually evolving as time goes on. Lexy Taylor, a GFF Development Specialist, shares best practices that you want to make sure are included in your website.

First, you want to maintain consistency throughout your website. This can include many things such as a balanced layout and consistent tone of voice, but one of the most important things is branding. This includes fonts and colors.

Fonts and colors are one of the main factors that users look at when getting on a website.
Keep all fonts consistent throughout your site to maintain a professional look.
Use colors on your site that align with the colors used in your logo.

Second, have clear call to actions throughout your whole website. What is it that you want your users to accomplish when they get on your site?

Make sure that what you are offering is clear to the user. Some strong calls to action that you can use include Call Now, Shop Now, Request a Quote, and Sign Up.
An essential place to include a call to action is high up on the page, you want this to be one of the first things that catches your user’s eye. The top right corner is a great place to include a call to action button.
You also should keep multiple calls to action throughout the website. This reminds users what action you want them to take.

Third, your site NEEDS to be easy to navigate. It should not be difficult for users on your site to find what they need. We call this burning calories. To allow easy navigation keep these things in mind.

Keep a clean simple menu that gives your users the tools they need to receive the information they came to you for. Your menu titles should be clear, simple, and easy to recognize.
When people land on your website, they should immediately know what products or services you provide, along with how they can purchase from you. In doing so you can create a clear path for them to convert. If your user doesn’t find what they need in the first 10-20 seconds, they are most likely to click off.

Implement these best practices on your website and watch your business level up.

The post 3 Best Practices for Your Website first appeared on Get Found First.

6 Tips to Improve Your Image Ads

perfectpoint — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 17:09:16 +0000

So you’re running ad campaigns for your business. But how do you get more clicks on the ads you’re putting out there? More clicks means more visitors to your website, which really means more potential customers seeing your work. In order to get the right people clicking on your ads and increase your ROI, we need to make sure they look good.

Digital advertising can be your biggest asset or your worst nightmare. It allows for you to be really creative in the ways you want to reach your audience. Join Sierra as she dives into 6 tips to help you design ads that will get clicks

1. Simple sells

You have less than 5 seconds to capture the attention of viewers. Because of that short time frame, it’s so important to be concise, compelling and clear. Tell your viewers exactly what is important and what they need to be doing about it.

2. Know which formats are right to use

Flexible ad sizing is important – there are so many different screen sizes that people use to view ads.

3. Keep on brand

- Match the feel and look of your brand and website.
- Match the tone of your brand, be consistent in the ad messaging that viewers see and the landing page they will go to.
- This creates not only brand awareness, but also gains the trust of viewers as they see consistency across your company.

4. Use appealing visuals

- Static vs. animated visuals or illustration vs. stock images, use the appropriate images for what is relevant and what makes sense. Whichever you wind up using, make sure it is high quality.
- Choose colors carefully.
- Use attractive images, people see hundreds of ads in a day. An image needs to pique someone’s interest and catch their attention.

5. Ad copy

- Don’t use too much text, it takes away from your images.
- Use keywords.
- Catch the attention of viewers by being persuasive and captivating.
- Use calls to action that connect to the offer. A good call to action can determine whether or not someone converts. This is how we persuade people to take a specific action.

6. Stir up emotion

- Include people in the ad designs, it creates a sense of empathy.
- Everyone is going to have problems. Your job is to solve them. Address the desires or issues of your audience and offer them a solution.
- When you make people feel an emotion, you capture their attention. People will connect to emotions in your ads, and then connect those emotions to your product. This can influence or guide them in their purchases whether they know it or not.

We are living in a visual era. Life is so busy for each of us, that we look for the easiest way to consume content. It only takes 13 seconds to absorb an image, and a lot longer than that to read a blog post. Which is part of why it is so important to make sure that the visual content we are putting out is compelling to consumers. If we can’t make someone stop scrolling, we can’t capture their attention. When you realize how to optimize the visual design in your image ads, you’ll start creating content worth consuming. And that’s when you can really “level up.”

If you need assistance in creating captivating image ads, call Get Found First. Our expert design team can help!

The post 6 Tips to Improve Your Image Ads first appeared on Get Found First.

4 Tips to Elevate Your Business with Social Media

perfectpoint — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 14:26:14 +0000

Social media is a powerful tool and luckily enough, it’s right at our fingertips. A frequently asked question is, “does my business really need social media?” The answer is YES. It’s evident that most consumers discover brands for the first time on social media platforms. To put it into perspective, there are more than 4.2 billion active social media users worldwide & this is forever evolving. Say goodbye to traditional marketing – your potential customers are online waiting to find the reason why a product or service would benefit them.

Depending on your business as a whole (what services or products you offer) and what outcome you’re looking for with social media, determines which platform will be the most successful. The key to seeing results is consistency. It also takes some time to find your target audience, build high-quality content/ads, & allow whichever platform (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) to learn your business.

Social media is essential. Stop letting your competition get ahead! It’s time to step up your social marketing strategies & elevate your business.

Benefits to social media:

- • Cost-effective marketing
- • Helps with brand awareness
- • Vast targeting & retargeting
- • Tools to track leads & results

Here are 4 tips to elevate your business by using social media:

• Make sure your pages are business pages – A business page is different from a regular profile page because it’s actually a source of information for the user. Someone might be looking for store hours, an address to your office building, or they may even want to see reviews. Making sure the user’s experience is delightful is the first step to gaining trust. A business page also allows you to run targeted ads.\

• Connect with your customers & stay top of mind – Customers love when they can engage with a business. It makes them feel like they are talking to a real person & not a chat bot. Posting engaging/informative content – and regularly – on your pages increases visibility and builds loyalty.

• Learn more about your audience – It’s okay if you don’t actually know who your customers are. Social media platforms provide tools that measure these specific metrics. Even if you have an idea of who your customers are, you might be surprised.

• Increase website traffic – Not getting enough traffic on your site? Ads on social media can take users to specific website landing pages to make a purchase. Another great opportunity is to link blogs from your website to your social media pages.

If you don’t have time to work on a social media strategy for your business but want to get started, we have a team of social media experts that are ready to help take your business to new heights!

The post 4 Tips to Elevate Your Business with Social Media first appeared on Get Found First.

3 Ways You Can Prepare Your Business for the Holiday Season

perfectpoint — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 18:14:11 +0000

Join Santiago Barriga, a member of our Paid Marketing Specialists, as he discusses methods to help businesses assess, evaluate and set goals for the upcoming holiday season and new year.

Businesses are already deciding how their companies are going to forge ahead into the new year. While a few strategies may have changed, some things still remain the same.

A business should always seek to improve itself. The final goal of being “the best” at something is a step by step process and requires lots of small changes over the years to achieve. Here are some recommended methods to follow as you plan for the holidays and upcoming year.

First, Be realistic when planning for the new year

Consider doing a SWOT analysis. This analysis will help your business build strength, minimize weaknesses, seize opportunities, and counteract threats. A SWOT analysis will help you identify areas of your business that need improvement and attention.

Second, Assess and Pivot (look inward)

It’s important as business leaders to ensure that your team members understand the struggles and successes the organization has had. Pose a question to your team: “Where do we go from here and what’s the work that needs to be done?”

Assess your business and pivot towards goals with granular objectives that map out a specific framework to build long term goals. For example, SMART goals use a structure that includes strategic, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound deadlines. These types of goals will help develop your business to prepare for the new year.

Third, What is your action plan?

Look at your SWOT analysis and SMART goals to create a growth and action plan for your business. You can take advantage of new possibilities, expand your products or services, attract more customers, increase sales, and employ more staff.

Be realistic when planning for the future. Assess your business, set SMART goals and pivot toward new beginnings. If you need help preparing for the holiday season or the new year, we are here to help. Always strive for the attainable to level up your business.

The post 3 Ways You Can Prepare Your Business for the Holiday Season first appeared on Get Found First.

Top 3 Tips for Optimal Website Performance

perfectpoint — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 14:50:00 +0000

So you have a website, but now how do you ensure users have a good experience on your website?

According to Marissa, our Website Project Manager at Get Found First, the following are 3 of the top optimizations to help users have a good experience on your website:

Fast site speed
Monitoring 404 errors
Hyperlinking any links on your site

When you visit a website, you want it to load fast. Websites that load slower are less likely to have high conversion rates since users will leave your website and go to a competitor’s website instead to get what they were looking for. To help your website load faster, optimize image sizes to not have large files on your website. If you have videos on your website, don’t upload the whole video file, but embed it through YouTube or Vimeo. And get rid of any unused plugins on your website.

Getting a 404 error when you are trying to go to a specific page on a website is annoying to a user. They are expecting to be directed to that page and then get interrupted with not knowing where to go after getting a 404. Make sure that all links on your website are valid and direct to an actual working page.

If you have a phone number anywhere on your website, it should be a click to call phone number. Meaning that when you click on it, it directly goes to “make a phone call.” Do the same thing with email addresses, social media links, and physical addresses. When you link these features, it creates a more seamless user experience, so they don’t have to try to remember or write down the information.

Along with those few adjustments to implement on your website, there are two effective tools to track customer experience: Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

Google Analytics is used to monitor site traffic, including the number of users on your site, what source traffic is coming from, users’ conversion paths, which pages they visited on your site, and much more.
Google Search Console is used to index your website to tell search engines where to rank content, so your website shows up in the search results. It’s also used to monitor organic traffic on your website.

With proper implementation of these tools and best practices, it is the perfect combination so you can get found first online and level up your business.

If you have questions about how to successfully build out or optimize your website for peak performance, give us a call today.

The post Top 3 Tips for Optimal Website Performance first appeared on Get Found First.

What’s the Big Deal about Hiring a Google Premier Partner?

perfectpoint — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 19:48:00 +0000

Running a business is more than a full-time job. It is a labor of love that takes a lot of your time, attention, and energy. You are more than capable of figuring out how to manage your own pay-per-click advertising, but realistically you don’t have the time or know how to do it properly. When it comes to paid digital marketing, hiring a Google premier partner is one of the best investments you can make for your business.

What is a Google Premier Partner?

Google’s partners program is a service that agencies can opt into, while meeting the requirements set forth by Google. There are three tiers of participation: member, partner, and premier partner. To be a premier partner, agencies have to fulfill competency in the following criteria:

Performance – Have a proven track record of building, managing, and optimizing paid ad accounts. Agencies need to show Google that they can retain new accounts while keeping and growing existing accounts.
Spend – As an agency, your client portfolio has to meet the spend requirement over a 90-day period. Being able to efficiently manage advertising dollars is an essential piece of keeping clients happy and building trust with your agency.
Certification – Account managers are certified in managing Google Ad campaign types; Search, Display, Shopping, Video (YouTube), and Apps. Specifically, at least half of the employees are certified in Google Ads.

Benefits of Working with a Premier Partner

The Premier Partner tier is reserved for the top 3% of participating companies each calendar year – making it the most exclusive tier of the program. Premier partner members have:

Access to additional trainings and consumer insight reports.
Early access to beta services. Having access to new beta features will keep your business ahead of your competition.
Advanced technical support and access to a dedicated Google agency rep to have expedited support and insights for our clients.
Google Premier Partners badge so you can share your partner status on your website and marketing materials. This let’s your customers and prospective customers know they’re working with the best of the best.

At Get Found First we pride ourselves on transparency and accuracy and we’re proud to be one of the few in the premier partner tier year after year. We want what’s best for our employees and clients. So that means giving our employees access to trainings and resources so they can perform at the highest level. We want our account managers to be confident in their skills and abilities. When you work with Get Found First you become a member of the GFF family. Your account managers are accessible and responsive when you have questions. Too many times have we talked to clients that mentioned they just didn’t know what their previous agency was doing. That’s not how we operate. We partner together to make sure your account is thriving. Instead of being reactionary, our practice is to be productive and help you scale your business. By striving each year to meet the premier partner status we know we are giving our clients the best customer experience possible. See how Get Found First can help you digital marketing today!

The post What’s the Big Deal about Hiring a Google Premier Partner? first appeared on Get Found First.