AT ALBION, WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY…

Most product sales businesses are well aware of the strong competition they face online. That is, the large number of vendors and suppliers who offer similar products are fighting hard to maintain their positions in the natural and the paid search results. However, what many in the retail product sales sector are unaware of is the clever tools that allow savvy marketers to uncover exactly which keywords and targeting options their competitors are taking advantage of.

In fact, most digital marketing agencies are unaware of exactly how to use Pay Per Click advertising tools that list the keywords and strategies competitors are exploiting to take the lion’s share of the market. From gaining insights into how much competitors bid in Google Search Ads auctions, which devices they are targeting and even what times of the day are most profitable to advertise their wares – this valuable competitor data can make all the difference in a competitive market.

As an e-commerce store owner or a business owner that sells products on the web, specialist knowledge into how online customers behave is essential. Not only do those who hire PPC agencies with specialist insight into product sales generate more sales, but they also enjoy the benefits that can be key to ongoing growth – information.

Because Google is pushing the natural search results further down the results pages, Pay Per Click advertising is becoming more and more important for those businesses that need to increase sales and maintain growth. And the options are always increasing, from search advertising via bidding on product name keywords to Google Shopping Ads that display your inventory of products, to display advertising that ensures image ads are doing their job of keeping your product in the eyes of your potential customers.

But with these increased opportunities comes a whole new set of ways to waste your advertising budget. With years of proven history in the discipline of creating and optimising product advertising campaigns, Albion are well aware of how less savvy marketing agencies waste a large share of their client’s advertising budget on clicks that will never convert into sales.

Often, this is because campaigns have not been adequately optimised to deter clicks from those who are not likely to buy your product – and are only interested in seeing what is available on the market. Indeed generalist PPC advertising agencies with little experience of retail products and consumer goods sales often make the same mistakes time and time again, these include:

• Failing to review search queries and continually add relevant negative keywords
  Say your target offering is a wireless mouse for laptops and you bid on a keyword phrase like “computer mouse”, you would benefit greatly by adding a number of keywords that would ensure your ads DON’T show to people that included the following words in their search query: “matt”, “worst”, “rubbish”, “reviews”, “videos”, even words like “wired”, “cat”, “toy” and many others.
• Failing to track and optimise for sales conversions that cost the least to achieve
  Your landing page should include an order form that redirects to a “thank you”, or “purchase completed” page that is tracked as a goal conversion in Google Analytics, and by importing this goal into Google Ads you will be able to see which search queries and targeting options generated sales, rather than just website traffic. With this information, you can send most of your advertising budget to the ad groups and keywords that generate the most revenue, Without it, you are just throwing money at Google for traffic that may not be turning into sales.
• Failing to adjust bids for profitable and locations
  In the above example, you wouldn’t want to receive clicks from people in locations you don’t ship your product too. Indeed those in the same country are most likely to buy, so it is usually best to invest your advertising budget locally and only once you know the methods that generate profitable sales do you want to expand to advertising in other countries.
• Failing to adjust bids for the most profitable devices
  Often, people use one device to do research and another to actually make the purchase. Indeed if your website isn’t best designed for mobile traffic then you may find that sending more of your budget to campaigns that show ads on desktop and laptop computers is a sure fire way of generating more sales for your budget. And if your PPC consultant can’t tell you which types of device your ads are most profitable on, then it’s time to reconsider if they know your market sufficiently.
• Failing to adjust bids for profitable times of the day or days of the week
  Again, many people do their online buying while at work, others wait until they get home and others shop for products online on the weekend. By adjusting your bids in a way that sends more of your budget to the schedules that are most profitable, you’ll be sure not to waste as much investment on clicks that are less likely to convert.

Constantly monitoring your click and conversion data in your Google Ads account is the most important thing your PPC agency can do for your product sales, and retaining that business information that keeps you ahead of the competition is how most savvy Google Ads experts ensure their clients enjoy more product sales for their clients.

One thing that many product sales businesses and their digital marketing agencies don’t realise is that Google’s Display Network (GDN) allows advertisers to use image ads to “pinch” high-value potential clients directly from competitors. Sure, you can bid on the names of products you both sell via search network advertising but an option that can be highly beneficial is to follow visitors to your competitor’s product page around the web with display ads

That’s right because image ads on Google Ads Display Network can cost around a sixth the cost of a search ad click, and because you can show the benefits of your product over theirs in an image, display advertising can be a real money spinner. Imagine your images of say, a computer mouse appeared on many of the sites visited by those people who had just visited an Amazon page listing computer mice. Your product before their eyes, just as they are researching which one to buy. 

It doesn’t end there either, by creating custom audiences in Google Ads you can make sure your product images are always visible to your target markets whenever they visit specific websites, whenever they watch related videos on YouTube or whenever they are using an app on their mobile devices. The options for savvy targeting are always increasing – only many PPC agencies for product sales are not proactive enough or experienced enough to take advantage of these strategies for their clients. 

At Albion, we already know the most profitable new targeting options that work best for online product sales. We understand how best to set up your shopping ad campaigns, how to identify what is working best for your competitors and how to spot the areas where a share of your advertising budget is being wasted, month in month out.  

So if you are unsure if your existing product marketing agency or in-house staff are generating maximum sales for the least cost and want to know how we ensure ongoing growth for our clients, be sure to drop us a line and ask a question or request a free Google Ads account audit and recommendations. It may be the most important thing you do for your product sales figures all year.