“Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis.” – Niccolò Machiavelli
This crisis presents us with an opportunity to pool our collective knowledge and kick-start innovation in our digital marketing and analytics strategy. As we are all working from home, what a fantastic opportunity to fine-tune your strategies. Here are five tips that may help raise your Google Ads ranking and increase your brand awareness.
1. Maintain (or Increase) Marketing Spending
According to a recent article from Forbes contributor Brad Agate, in times of crisis or during a recession, most businesses would proceed to cut back in various areas, including their advertising spend. However, there have been many studies done over the last century to maintain or even increase your ad budgets during a weaker economy. Those that have maintained their advertising, increased sales and market share during the recession and continued to do so afterwards.
2. Refine Your Messaging with A/B Tests
With a tool like Google Optimize, you can test what types of content, messaging, and even offers may resonate with your potential customers. There isn’t a way to make people change their spending habits, but by testing and adjusting your content, you can bring them further along the buyer journey. Check out our on-demand webinar and learn about “Creating a Winning A/B Testing Strategy with Google Optimize.”
3. Optimize Your Site’s Branding
Focusing on your own website and brand can be time consuming but now is the perfect opportunity. Review existing blogs, newsletters, on page content to ensure your branding is consistent and contains relevant keywords. Tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics on-site search tracking can help organizations understand what terms users are searching to find their brand. Generating content can take time but content and relevant keywords impact both organic and paid marketing campaigns.
4. Understand Your Customers’ Concerns via Surveys
Regardless of your industry, the biggest asset your brand has is your existing customer base. Getting your customers to respond to a survey might seem like a mission, but with the right targeting and questions, they’ll be more than willing to provide you with the insights that’ll take your business to the next level. Learn more in our recent post for the travel and hospitality industries, specifically.
5. Change Reporting to Focus on Key Areas
During a recession, knowing exactly what return each marketing investment is providing and why will be your key to not just survival, but growth. Check your Google Analytics implementation. Are you tracking your marketing campaigns, revenue and advertising accurately? Consider reading our recent article for metrics we suggest considering to review or start tracking.
Develop reports that allow the marketing team to understand their campaigns return on investment or return on ad spend (ROAS). Google Ads integration with Google Analytics allows ROAS calculations in multiple custom reports. Utilizing this information can help quickly evaluate campaigns spend and keyword targeting. Companies importing spend data to Google Analytics from other paid platforms can also use ROAS to evaluate the effectiveness of each paid marketing channel.
Now is the perfect time to review the analytics most important to your brand and ensure your advertising is targeting the right users. Following these steps will ensure your advertising dollars are spent wisely.
