So how profitable is your online advertising spend? Finding answers to this question is not as hard as many business owners may think. In this short note I’ll take you through a fictitious dialog with a prospect to show you the steps we follow to reveal if their existing online marketing is forging a path towards future business profitability or short term loss.
I remember the first time I was introduced to this concept of “creating a path to profitability”. I was employed by a dot com company that was full of promise, investor’s funds and unbridled enthusiasm. We had lavish offices, fancy art on the walls and only the best advertising agencies to work with.
Just to give you a guide on how much money was involved back then. We were part of a larger company that between us shared two floors of a recently built office block overlooking Auckland harbour. So it was decided that rather than use the stairs to move between us we would arrange for a building firm to cut a massive hole in the middle of the top floor and build a marble staircase to link the two. I was OK with using the lift.
Anyway, the company was fortunate enough to hit the market at the right time with the right type of product. Low and behold after three months of trading the financial results were in and we had made a profit. Yippee! I was asked to come into the CEO’s office immediately when the figures were released and was told to sit down as he shut the door behind me.
Yes the result was good. I had apparently shown them a “path to profitability”. Now my job was to widen the trail, hire more staff and open more offices to grab as much of the market as we could. We never achieved the same profit figures again. Fortunately this company had deep wallets and a plan to keep moving while the funds were leaking out of the company.
Anyway, back to applying this to online marketing. Frequently people start a conversation with us when they think they are in situations like this, spending too much to achieve very little.
Within a few minutes of us talking we can generally see where the focus needs to be applied and have outlined a very simple path to profitability to follow. Here’s how the conversation usually goes. To make this work I’ve included a fictitious business owner Mike who runs a service business in Auckland. Mike is struggling to make his online marketing pay its way. He spends around $750 per month with Google AdWords and is not sure if this is too much or too little. He is convinced it’s the former.
CONVERSATION STARTS
Ring ring…. we join the conversation after Mike has told me a bit about what he does and how long things have been going.
Chris: OK, so let’s start with the ideal end result – you making sales. When this occurs, what would be its average amount?
Mike: Well it depends on what they buy. But on average I would say $450.
Chris: Now of this amount how much would you be prepared to spend on marketing?
Mike: As little as possible J
Chris: Thank you. I know that every business owner would want the same so let me put it another way, what would be the most you would pay before the cost of creating the sale exceeds the profits it would produce?
Mike: OK, so I know I was a bit glib with the first answer so let’s go with $50. If it costs me $50 for each sale then things still work. I can pay for all my materials, pay the staff a wage and have a bit left over for a rainy day.
Chris: Great, now just so I’m sure – how many of your clients would you expect to buy from you more than once?
Mike: While our industry should have repeat business I must admit that we are not that good at generating it. However, if we were I would expect 20% of clients to repeat within two years BUT I didn’t allow for it when coming up with my very rough $50. I expect my current leads to be paid for by the money we create from their first sale, not those they may produce in the future.
Chris: OK so working back from the sale being made. How many prospects do you need to talk to before you make a sale?
Mike: Again this all depends on the type of work people are looking for. The quality of our leads really fluctuates – especially from the website. But to break it down into averages I would pick that half of those we talk to will become a client.
Chris: So for every two prospect leads you create – one will become a client.
Mike: Yep that’s true, but quite often we cannot get hold of the leads that are generated through the website. I would say that allowing for this we would need five leads to create one sale.
Chris: OK so the $50 needs to be split between these five, leaving $10 as the most you should pay for a lead. Anything more than this and your marketing costs are looking too high. At the start you mentioned spending $750 per month with Google – which should represent about 75 leads at the average cost of $10. How many leads are you getting?
Mike: Not that many. Probably on a good month we would get around 30. I’m not exactly sure – I’ll have to go back and check my email to count them up but it’s nowhere near 75. Sounds like I might have to put a stop to all that Google advertising… I thought it was costing too much!
Chris: Hold on… Before you jump ahead, instead of checking your email can your website analytics tool provide that lead count?
Mike: What analytics? We don’t have any for the site. I do get a raft of reports from the people who manage my Google advertising. Clicks, and impressions – is that what you are referring too?
Chris: Nope. What about visitor counts and page views? The details giving you insights on how your website is performing with the traffic it is currently receiving?
Mike: Sorry – I don’t have anything like that.
Chris: OK. So let’s not jump into cancelling anything with Google just yet. First off let’s set up some analytics on your site and let it run for a couple of weeks to collect some data. Then we should see which keywords you are buying clicks for that are actually delivering the right types of people to your site who then go on to fill in your quote request form. There could be some that do this for $5 and likewise others that do it for $100 and of course some which arrive and don’t convert at all.
Mike: So I presume we would dump those that don’t convert or convert at too high an amount and focus our spend on those that fit below our target $10 per conversion rate?
Chris: You are on the right track but not exactly there. Yes to focusing on the low cost conversions but no to automatically dumping those that don’t convert at all or do for too high an amount. For instance we may find keyword phrases that are responsible for traffic which doesn’t currently convert but between us we feel should. It may not be a problem with the wrong sort of visitor – it may be that the site is not set up to convert them yet. The same goes for those costly converting keywords. Let’s not dump these as again we could have a content issue. And not wanting to layer too much complexity on it too soon, but there could be leads that cost a lot to convert but represent the best types of customers for you.
Mike: You had me all the way through until that last part. Let’s get some tracking going and then we can dig into what spend is creating what.
Chris: I know there’s a bit of complexity in here but just remember that the path to profitable online advertising starts with your ideal cost per lead and works backwards. We know this so with some analytics running between us we can find out the rest.
CONVERSATION END
Yes, I know it’s a very simplistic view and the numbers were made to be nice and neat. However this short dialog should provide some insight on the steps ahead. Give us a call today if you would like to move forward like Mike did.
“We are not keeping up. There’s too much change occurring within online marketing and I’m concerned that we are not moving fast enough to apply all we learn.”
This remark came from a Senior Marketing Manager who has been a Permission client for a number of years. We had just finished briefing him and his team on the changes recently released from Google that were relevant for their situation. It was not a small list.
Feeling overwhelmed with the pace of change is a sentiment I think that many business owners would share. Google especially seems to be on a fast track of product development this year. Whether it’s from their advertising system – Google AdWords – or their comprehensive Website Analytics offering, it all seems to be in a constant state of updates.
Thankfully there’s a handy piece of management theory that can be applied to help those struggling. When applied correctly it provides insight to isolate which areas of change can be selectively ignored and which require focused attention.
The Theory of Constraints is an area I have talked about before on our blog. However with the pace heating up and with the growing overwhelming feeling I thought it was time to visit the theory again.
(Here’s the link to the Wikipedia article on it to pick up on its history.)
In its simplest form the theory states that there are very few constraints that are responsible for holding back a system from performing at its optimum level. And by very few I mean – one. So while the complete system may be made up of many intertwined parts – such as you find in a manufacturing system (where the theory has its roots), or say an online marketing system – there will usually be just one part of this that will be holding everything back.
Just knowing that one item is holding back the lot can be enough to make most sit back and breathe a big sigh of relief. That’s it – just one – not four, six or thirteen. Everyone can focus their energy on one area at a time. Trying to achieve the same for the remaining six is the issue.
Knowing this, the task moves to locating the troublesome area and then fixing it. And once this is sorted – guess what – another part of the process steps forward to claim the prize of holding the rest back.
Here’s an example of how this theory works in practice. This month we had a client come through who had taken up our initial review process. This is where we pull apart their Analytics, Paid Advertising and overall Website Conversion work and score them out of ten for each. Then we take them through what they need to do to achieve 10/10 scores for each area.
They came to us with an e-commerce store in trouble. It was loaded with thousands of products being marketed to a wide range of consumers across multiple regions. They had been reasonably active in the online marketing space so there was a lot to review. Thirty five slides later we were all ready for a strong coffee.
Their Analytics was in good shape, as was their search engine rankings. Paid advertising needed some help but nothing too dramatic here either. So overall traffic looked good – the right types of people were arriving, but that is where it seemed to come to a halt. Their real problem area was conversions – or lack of them.
So hunting for that illusive single constraint we dug into the conversion space to find what was at fault. We dismissed the shopping cart process itself. A high proportion of those who started the check out process went on to complete it. The problem was further back from there – people just weren’t putting enough products into carts to start with. This was the real constraint of the site. Lots of people browsing but very few wanting to even start the buying process.
Knowing this the client could ignore any tactic that didn’t affect a change here. So off the list comes – Search Engine Optimisation, Mobile Marketing, Paid Advertising, super smart Display Based Re-marketing and even my old faithful Email Marketing. Discount these areas and you naturally remove a good 85% of the noise of change that comes across a desk.
This left items such as product selection, product merchandising, product descriptions and images, and general site navigation. Any research or insight in these areas needed to be poured over in detail to solve this current constraint.
This is not going to be an easy task to solve. And when starting out with a client we usually face big chunky issues like these. However, as these are solved they are thankfully replaced with problems that are less strategic and more granular. For instance going from no one adding any products to a cart to now lots of carts being filled, but a troubling amount not being completed due to the confusing design of the form on the last page of the shopping cart.
The Theory of Constraints works when you have the luxury of looking at the whole process from start to finish. Fortunately our approach to online marketing fits with this well. So when we go hunting for the constraint we look at all facets that make up the complete online marketing system. It’s a different approach from those whose attention may focus on finding the problems just within the area they specialise in – say search engine optimisation. These could be valid problems but changes applied here may not affect the result of the whole system. In comparison we are not really that fussed where the constraint is located we just need to find it quickly and then get to work fixing it.
Call us today if you would like to kick this process off.
Like you, I also receive those emails that start with the guarantee of ensuring a top ranking inside Google. The use and style of English prompts leads you to believe they were sent from a far away land. How nice. Someone from far away who his concerned about your experience with Google. And all this for a fraction of what you would expect to pay. How could you resist?
A year ago picking a vendor this way may have had a very slight chance of working. These strategies were especially enticing as they required little involvement from you, the business owner. Vendors like these just did “stuff” on websites other than yours which would magically have an effect on your rankings.
This was a time of creating enough links to your website in whatever way they could. Let’s not worry too much about the quality of the sites those links came from – just get them and move on. I remember meeting the owner of a supposedly reputable SEO company telling me that they purchased all their links. So once their customers stopped paying their fees these links were retired and the rankings with them.
Anyway, surprise, surprise the positive effect that all this type of work used to deliver has finally come to an end. In late May Google went through quite a large update which included a change that specifically negated any positive effect strategies like these had produced.
So with this change, what’s left for Google to interpret when deciding which web page should be at the top of the results and which should sit at the bottom? Well to tell you the truth nobody exactly knows. If they say they do then beware. But all is not lost. Google widely distributes details on the over aching principles that when applied help it to find and successful rank your website. Follow this link to read one of the many documents they have published on the subject area. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en
One key principle they mention highlights the need of producing a steady stream of good onsite content. Links to this work will follow as people naturally find what has been produced and link to it. The last part of letting the links to your site grow naturally conflicts exactly with the previous strategy of manufacturing these links in a very unnatural manner.
Now there are still some ethical things you can do to help push along this natural link building process, but let’s talk about the first task at hand – producing great content.
Remembering that this content needs to be read by everyone – humans and those tenacious Google spiders – the task ahead can seem quite daunting. Especially when the style and quality of this work will more than likely have an effect on it converting “readers” into “sales leads”.
All of this makes the offer of effective Search Engine Optimisation from those in far away land seem even more interesting. Who would you like to produce your content? Someone who can barely produce an email describing what they offer? Or a business that can take the time to learn the business you are in and then work with you to help create a stream of quality content that your audience will want to read?
Now I understand that the road ahead looks a tad more difficult for those struggling with poor rankings. For instance a year ago a business owner could just pay someone to “do something” and their only involvement going forward was settling their account. All this has been replaced by a ongoing time commitment of them to work with a third party to not only produce content that makes sense but also place it on their website in a way that ensures it is read and has the desired effect of improving conversions.
I’m convinced that those with a half hearted level of commitment to the online space will find this all too daunting and will give up. Leaving the control of the organic results in their industry to others who can see the real payoff for their effort.
I liken this change to altering the type of work Search Engine Optimisation is for the business owner. Consider it moving from an “expense driven purchase” – where you bought it each month from someone who did “stuff” you never really understood – into one of creating “search assets”. They take time to create, and probably cost more in the process. Nevertheless, just as assets should, all this investment is rewarded with a positive return over an extended period as they sit solidly within the Google search rankings providing clicks to your website at zero marginal cost.
Last week a client summed all this up with a statement that in their opinion that if was hard to do, and still ethically fitted with what Google wanted to occur, then it was probably a good SEO strategy to embark upon. And conversely if it seemed too easy, and had question marks over the ethics – then there’s a very strong chance that Google will penalise them for using it, if not now then eventually in the near future.
Let me know if you would like to know more about how we can lighten some of the load.
In May this year, Google updated the Maps desktop version to make it easier to use. It also allows you to solve new problems like – which cafes are near my client’s office for a quick catch up? Or which of my friends has reviewed a Japanese restaurant in Auckland that will make my decision to pick one so much easier?
This is all good news for the “directionally challenged” like me. As I’m possibly one of the world’s worst navigators, Google Maps has been one of my all-time favourite applications.
The desktop addition of Google Maps was the precursor of all things mobile. It launched a whopping eight years ago, which is an eternity in Internet time when you realise that Facebook started the year prior. The “Street View” option found here is a particular favourite. Knowing what the outside of an office looks like can save precious time when struggling with Auckland’s cryptic street numbering system.
The mobile version is also a winner. I used to find it within the native mapping app on my iPhone until Apple replaced it with its own. Remember the disaster that was? (I just checked again and still Apple Maps tells me that Bondi Beach is just on the edge of Cornwall Park in Auckland.) Needless to say it was a quick rush back to Google when they launched their own iPhone app.
Changes to the desktop version
The core desktop part of Google Maps received a complete refresh in May. Thankfully what remained of the old version was the super-simple way to find where you want to go. However, Google tells us this is now achieved by using a mapping environment that’s more personalised than ever before. As you click, apparently Google learns.
As I write this, access to the new Google Maps is by invitation only. By the time this is published I expect everyone should be allowed in. Once you have access, the first obvious difference is the way in which it looks on the screen. Here’s a snapshot to follow:
Notice how the search box sits in the top left of the screen. It’s a place that works well. Just type away and see the map move before your eyes as it hones in on the location you are looking for.
Or, if you don’t know where you want to go BUT do know what you want, then you can use the map to help as it suggests a range of options nearby. For instance, type in “cafes near Jervois Road, Auckland” and ba-boom – cafes and their location are shown directly on the map.
All of this relies on businesses having previously registered their location with Google. This is not an obvious process to follow for most business owners – which is probably why I only see four cafes suggested for the full length of the latte-rich area of Ponsonby’s Jervois Road.
Anyway, once you find the place you want to visit it’s a piece of cake to learn how best to get there. Just pick where you are leaving from, “home” or “work” (both are configured settings) and Google will plot the best route for your pick of transport options – walking, driving or taking public transport.
The opportunity for business
The new opportunity for business owners is to advertise to a new set of potential customers – i.e. those who know what they want, but not where to find it. In this new version you now have two options available to achieve this task. The first involves placing your paid advertisement below the search box AND on the location of your business directly on the map – as bold as brass. Below is a snapshot of a business doing both.
The second option is a relatively plain alternative where your ad sits just below the search result. However, it isn’t that much more complex to do the first, so that’s our suggestion for those of you wanting to give it a try.
I’m picking that the “search within the map” interface is one that will catch on with many. It just seems to work well. This will drive traffic, which drives clicks, which should drive conversions.
The only thing that could spoil all this fun is the content that people see when they find the location they want and click to read more about it. Think of this as a mini Google website that you populate describing your business. Google calls it your Google Plus Local page. Born of Google’s social media tool, Google Plus, this naturally includes a space for people to place reviews. You cannot disable this feature, so it pays to regularly monitor what people are saying.
Other benefits for personal use
If you are a Google Plus user with a bunch of Google Plus friends, then these reviews become even more relevant. Now you can filter the results you see on the map by those reviewed by people in your “circles”. Or you can pick a rather nebulous category, “Top Reviewers”. See the screenshot below which shows how I can filter my options when searching for a Japanese Restaurant in Auckland.
Tips for getting started
If you’d like help with any of this, then give us a call at the office and one of our team will help you move forward. Happy Mapping!
Last month I met a marketer who works for a New Zealand company that spent $10 million on Google AdWords in 2012. What made this even more fascinating for me was that I had never heard of the company name and I would pretty much guarantee for 99% of you the same would apply.
She told me all of the industries that they operated within and all were legitimate business categories that were quite boring. No exotic borderline operation here. Just a worldwide network of normal businesses that run on the strength of their ability to optimise their spend with Google.
At first I was just shell-shocked by the amount they were spending. I mean just thinking through the actual mechanics of managing something like this was hard to comprehend. For instance, just getting the money to Google each month would be on a whole different level from charging a Visa card. I half jokingly suggested that the Google people must be waiting outside their office ready to collect the next suitcase of cash. Apparently the truth is very boring – automatic bank transfers on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, they must be on a Google Advertising short dial with this spend? Yes they have dedicated account management but only see people who come across from Sydney once or twice a year. (Don’t expect a sales call for your $50k per annum spend.)
Fortunately we were able to chat for a while before the next session of the conference we were both attending began its next session. So what did I learn that I can share with those with a fraction of this spend? Well from what I learnt, here are a few principles that I can share as working well for those keen to squeeze more value from their Google clicks.
Firstly – It all starts with a sound understanding of your “AdWords Numbers”
Now when you are spending over $800,000 on clicks each month you would assume there was some wastage factored in when it came to analysing the effect that the clicks caused. Not in this case. Each and every click was accounted for in precise detail.
So while this company operated a number of websites – think more than 100 – each and everyone used a well tuned Google Analytics account to reveal exactly how much each sale cost in clicks. This was compared to the acceptable marketing spend for the margin they spent. If the sums made sense then they just kept on buying those clicks.
It’s a simple math problem really that was asked every minute of every day. Were they “buying” the sale from Google for the right amount to enable them and Google to remain in business?
Secondly – Once the math is solved then the world is your playground.
This company is based in Auckland but has offices in Australia, the UK and North America. But it all started from solving a very simple problem in Auckland. Could they make the math work selling one service to one set of buyers? Then, once the this was completed they looked for the same buyers in Australia, from there North America and finally the UK.
We have a Google Adwords optimisation client who has done something very similar, all be it on a much smaller scale. Like our $10 million friends they started in Auckland, then moved to Wellington and wrapped up their New Zealand journey with Christchurch before crossing the ditch into Australia via Adelaide to Melbourne and finally Sydney. The core principles we applied together to make Auckland work and have so far successfully been translated as we move around the globe together.
And finally – to wrap up our learning’s from this conversation, don’t think that just because you spent $100,000 with Google last year that you deserve any special treatment. I asked them what they received for Christmas from the search giant (expecting something nice for such a relationship). It was nothing special.
In fact, if you were a customer who came along to our office warming party last year then you left with a gift that cost more. And rest assured we don’t have any online marketing clients spending $10 million per annum with Permission.
Not yet anyway 🙂
Check out Permission Website Marketing’s June Newsletter Update.
For more website marketing information, take a look at our online marketing services, or give us a call on 0800 893 477.
Living in a household with teenage girls, as I do, means that my Sunday and Monday evenings have been recently hijacked into becoming an X Factor viewing experience. Yes it can be cringe worthy TV, but there are a few nuggets in there. You just have to look for them.
We have seen the auditions, the judge’s retreat and now the top 12 – or whatever number we are up to now. Annabel has her favourite, as does Maddy and it seems Fletcher, the most audibly challenged of them all, is there just for one thing… His looks. How shallow those teenage girls are.
Not wanting to be left out I have snuck a space on the sofa and been annoyingly critical as all fathers should be at times like these. There’s some talent in here that I hope manages to go on to good things once the razzmatazz has died down. And as hard as it may seem – when I look back on what will make the winner stand out from the rest, there are some lessons in here for you and your online marketing.
Here’s four that immediately come to mind:
First up – for the contestants left, having a good voice is not going to be enough to succeed. There are a lot of good singers in the last dozen. But what the judges have mentioned again and again is the “marketability” of the person and the way they sing.
Your “voice” online is the content you present and the messages you impart. There are plenty of websites that do both of these well but still fail convert their visitors into leads. It’s not how they say their message that’s lacking, it’s the message itself.
So for instance, there are dozens of websites for electricians in Auckland that all say the same thing – great service, reliable technicians and a desire to clean up after they have done the job. Think of them all “singing” the same way and achieving average results online due to it.
However, the sites that stand out are the ones that say different things that appeal to those looking for their service. And it’s that last point that is the hardest to achieve. Knowing what to say that sets you apart from the crowd AND has appeal to your customers – it’s another way of providing what the judges refer to as “marketability”.
Part of the X Factor experience is the ability for the viewers to get involved after each Sunday nights performance by voting for their favourite singer. The two with the lowest public votes then perform and the judges then decide who should leave.
Things are a bit harsher online. Instead of once a week, everyday your visitors “vote” on the effectiveness of your website with the attention they give it. Statistics like your website’s bounce rate reveal how well you fare. A site’s bounce rate is represented as a percentage and relates to the proportion of visits that look at just one page and then leave the site. The lower this number the better.
This month we conducted a number of online marketing reviews for prospects and over half of them had problems in this space. Their bounce rates were way too high – I’m talking 60% and above. This was news to them.
Other stats like “time on site” and “pages per visit” are similar pointers of visitor engagement. Track and measure all three and you will see the public “voting” on your website each and every day they arrive.
It’s quite interesting to see the change in contestants as the show progresses. In the audition they come across as mild, meek mannered but obviously gifted souls who are overawed by the whole TV experience. Then as the weeks pass their confidence starts to grow and with it their voice and stage presence.
As viewers we see snippets of this on the Sunday recap when contestants are shown practicing their moves and flexing their vocal muscles. I suppose they all work hard – but it’s the ones that work on the right things who end up making the most change.
When it comes to online marketing there’s a lot to practice every week. Of the three areas we focus on – Analytics, Growing Traffic and Growing Conversions – each one includes a dozen or so points that could be worked on. The magic comes by focusing on those that will provide the greatest return on the time invested.
The online marketing review stage we take people through partly solves this problem. One outcome of this is a list of points that need fixing and a relative priority for each. After completing dozens of these reviews there is always one area that is high up on the list of priority fixes – website analytics. It is always either wrong or failing to work as well as it should.
Harking back to the last lesson – think of it as being blindly unaware of a poor voting result each and every day the results come through
Fortunately the contestants are not left on their own to navigate their way through the final stages of the live shows. Each judge is allocated a group to mentor to help them along.
So during the re-cap part on the Sunday program you see the mentoring from the week prior with the pair training towards the live performance. I imagine that some of these relationships work better than others. Nevertheless, each of the judges has previously achieved success and they are ready and able to pass on any advice they can to enable their candidate to win.
The same theory transfers nicely to online marketing. As a business owner you can try to transform your website into the selling machine all by yourself – or you could engage a mentor to speed up the process.
We obviously work in this space. But if I was helping others choose a company to help in this regard I would offer one tip – advice is predominately autobiographical. People will tell you to do what they have done / experienced before themselves.
So ideally you need to match your problems with mentors who have solved similar issues before. It sounds very basic but it’s easy to get wrong. This is especially the case when a prospective mentor of dubious ethics can do a very good job of convincing you that your most processing “problem” just happens to be the one that they have strong experience in solving. For instance SEO services being sold when the core problem is not the traffic a website is receiving but its inability to convert it into leads or sales.
The sofa beckons for this Sunday’s session. I have no idea who will win this year’s competition, but I do know that these four points will somehow be part of their success. This month why not take my translation into their relevance for online marketing and see if they can ensure your website produces a winning performance?
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. This is a video of the introduction of May’s conference call 2013.
This month we talk about decoding not provided traffic that appears in Google Analytics, new hyper localised Google Maps, the new local business listing rating system and a great new resource to check out from Google!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95RRRvggq24
Check out Permission Website Marketing’s May Newsletter Update.
For more website marketing information, take a look at our online marketing services, or give us a call on 0800 893 477.
Online marketing is frequently referred to as a strategy of speed. It could be creating an email newsletter in a mere matter of minutes from simply loading the content to “send” button pressing.
Or perhaps the quick and simple Google AdWords experience. Just pick a keyword, settle on the right region and write your ad. Then what’s left is to just load up a credit card, pick a daily budget and within minutes you are advertising on the inter web.
Some would argue that fast paced tactics like these are not the most thought out. And they could well be right. But still – even with some planning before, during and perhaps a review of results after – we are still talking days, not weeks, from idea to action.
So is this speed symptomatic of every tactic available to you as an online marketer? Well thankfully, in the interests of variety, it’s not. I see two very basic groups of tactic delivery “speed” – those like the two mentioned before that can be done at speed – and those that meander along at a more pedestrian pace.
Both have the ability to produce great results once used correctly. But it’s the smart online marketer who realises that by mixing both “speeds” into their tactical plans that they will achieve the best results. So let’s look at the two groups in a bit more detail. First up the tactics ideal for those in a hurry.
Fast Tactic #1 – Google AdWords Paid Advertising. As I mentioned before, there are probably less than a dozen or so decisions you need to make before setting up your first Google AdWords campaign. For those driving the tool themselves, Google reduces this list down even further to make it easier still.
This allows the germ of the paid advertising idea to start early Monday AM and by midday people could be clicking on your ad. Note, that slight rushing sound you can hear in the background is Google’s finance department sucking sips of money from your credit card each time people click your ads.
Fast Tactic #2 – Campaign Based Email Marketing. This tactic is a natural fit for those who already own a permission based opt in list (I know building this takes time but for simplicities sake I’m leaving this tactic in here with the assumption that you have this already).
Done properly this tactic can be the fastest of the fast. Subscribers are usually more likely to be engaged with what you are offering than those arriving to your website for the first time. Just create the right offer, present it in a form ideal for email screens and then correctly send it so that a) there’s a good chance it will arrive and b) when it does you will be able to track what occurs next.
Fast Tactic #3 – Search Engine Optimisation. This is a tactic that lives in both the Fast and Slow lanes. It’s speedy part is the alteration of the site’s Meta Title and Meta Description content. These small pieces of text content can have a disproportionately large affect on a site’s ability to rank.
For me these three are the trifecta of speed. You have probably heard of them all, and may have even delivered a few for your website. Immediate gratification is such a driving need that many online marketers focus on just these, thinking that’s all there is.
This is of course a shame for them, but good news for you as it lets you work through the “slow” list of tactics that reveal the true opportunity online. Let’s now work through a few of these.
Slow Tactic #1 – Website Analytics. This can be the king of slow. First you need place a piece of scary techno code on every page of your site and then wait for your data to build into something sizeable to derive insight from. Work a bit than wait. It’s a common theme for the other slow tactics ahead.
But don’t let this put you off. Sometimes great things do take time. After a few weeks of the code living on a reasonably busy website you will be able to see information where there was once previously blank screens and you be able to answer questions like these:
What type of job does my website do at converting the traffic it receives? How much traffic does Google send to my website? How much do I make for every $1 I spend with Google advertising?
These are not small – nice to know – questions. Answered accurately, they can help you curtail any loss making advertising and reveal gaps in your Search Engine Optimisation efforts.
Slow Tactic #2 – Search Engine Optimisation. OK so here’s one of the many dirty little secrets of this tactic. Good work here = ongoing content creation. I have talked before of how 18 months ago this may not have been the case. Nevertheless for now, and based on what Google suggests the future will provide, you can expect to be creating content for your site, each month ahead for a very long time. If not forever.
This is slow, laborious and hard work. I know. And this will be exactly what your competitors will be thinking too. Some will shirk away and scuttle off to the appeal of paid advertising, forever happy to pay their “Google Tax” for traffic.
Whereas others, not afraid of some hard work, will dive into the task with vigour and stick with it. These marketers will be rewarded with good rankings. Forget about achieving organic rankings for free. Creating good content costs but the payoff is there if you see it as an investment that returns organic visits that arrive on your site with no incremental costs.
Slow Tactic #3 – Website Optimisation through Split Testing. If Analytics is the king of slow then this must be the queen. So say that during your “report peering” time you see that your converts at 1.5% when the industry standard is 4%.
You also find a page on the typical pathway of the conversion process that is responsible for part of the problem. The next step is to create some alternative content and then run a simple A/B split test to see how it performs compared to the original.
Again, it’s time to do the work and then sit and wait. Depending on the amount of traffic your test page “sees” this could be a week, a month or even a quarter. Anyway, once there’s enough data to draw a statistically valid conclusion then you can pick the winner and move on. Slowly, slowly you will push the conversion rate upwards as each winner, wins a bit better than the last. Brick by brick you will be creating a high converting website. Something that once achieved, could dramatically change your future online.
I’m running out of space here so I’ll have to pass on two other slow but effective strategies – one in paid advertising, the other in email marketing. Like the others, they are winners too that can create long lasting positive effects.
It would be very simplistic to think that “fast” tactics bring immediate results while the “slow” produce lasting insight. Nevertheless, the allure of speed is such that the majority spend more time implementing “fast” than they do “slow”.
If this is you, then why not decide this month to head over to the “slow” lane and apply one of the tactics that I have covered here. Contact the team today to learn how we can help.
It would seem that fishing has now gone all hi-tech. The other day, while wandering along a stretch of Coromandel beach with my ageing and mad Spaniel, I noticed a couple on their quad bike carrying what look like to be a orange torpedo down to the water’s edge. Mello, my Spaniel, was as interested as I and did her best to get in the way as they bent down and fussed away to get the thing started.
Within a few minutes a power of froth was coming from the propeller. While he slowly guided it into the surf she walked back holding a line that joined it to their bike. In a few moments the orange flash was tunnelling out through the surf towing a fishing line of 25 baited hooks behind it. Minutes later all you could see was the golden flash of the light as it buzzed through the surf far, far off in the distance.
I sauntered up to learn more. Apparently the “thing” would cover 1Km in 10 minutes and only needed to be out there for 45 minutes at the right time of day. So all you needed to do was invest an hour each day (and the $2750 for the torpedo thingy”) and there was a good chance you would be hauling your fancy gear back with some additional weight of fresh fish. Great for those short on both time and something for tea.
Not such a good plan if you like to fish the way I do.
Needless to say, the fish are safe when I turn up on the beach. My surfcaster is ageing, the reel is even older and you can smell my tackle box before you see it. The ideal evening fishing for me involves lots of casting, lots of still, and very little chance of taking anything back home. A perfect way to spend 3 hours alone on the beach.
I don’t think I’m too dissimilar to others I see lined up next to me. For us it’s more about the time of peace and quiet with the occasional flurry of excitement thrown in occasionally. The appeal of pulling out 25 snapper in 45 minutes is mildly appealing, that is until I think through the logistics of gutting all that flesh and then finding something else to do instead of heading back too early.
The world of online marketing is a space filled with a mass of technology and services all claiming to do more things in less time, just like our friendly orange torpedo example. Very rarely does it all turn out exactly as sold. (Just as an aside while we were at the beach I spotted a notice in the local store posted by someone who was looking for help as their fishing torpedo had come off its line and hopefully was going to wash up on the beach rather than reach landfall in Argentina.)
This month our newsletter talks to the point of mixing up your online marketing tactics to make good use of those delivered in both a “slow” and “fast” way. The theory being that the best long term competitive advantage comes from applying tactics that take the most time to deliver.
The same can apply when influencing the speed at which people purchase online. A small proportion of your purchasers will dive into their wallets immediately on arriving on your site. Others will need time to ruminate about their decision. Most online marketers spend time influencing those that buy quickly when there’s a larger group who need time to make a decision.
Email marketing comes to mind as a key strategy to achieve success here. By now everyone should be familiar with its use, but rarely is its effectiveness measured in the right way. While most track who opened the message and what links were clicked within it, very few look back and see if by receiving these messages customers were more or less likely to buy again or for the first time. These are the real outcomes which the tactic needs to be measured against.
Paid advertising can be a star here too. Here you can set up campaigns to re-market to those that bought from your website before to entice them back as they trawl the Internet. Likewise, if they came but didn’t purchase then your re-marketing could convince them to come back and make that first purchase.
Direct mail, and dare I say telemarketing, are other strategies that can be deployed successfully here too. Just because you created the lead online doesn’t mean you have to always use the same channel to market to them in the same way. Mix up any of these tactics with to help you achieve the most influence where you can.
And that’s the true illusion here. Whilst technology can present the appeal of achieving more in less time, when it comes to making buying decisions the majority still need time to think things through. That will never change.
So this month think about those who have contacted you and are still thinking about the services or products you offer. What can you send to these who have expressed an interest but haven’t purchased yet? And how about those that have bought before but haven’t for a while? What can you do to entice them back?
Life would be so much easier if everyone who visited your website did exactly what you wanted. But of course they don’t. And if you own an e-commerce store then the proportions can look quite scary. For instance think 3% do what you are aiming to achieve leaving the remaining 97% to slip through your pages, leaving only a trace of session history in your Google Analytics accounts before they are off.
Nevertheless the positive part in all of this is that those 97% did at least arrive. Just by completing this action they are naturally one step closer to buying when compared to those that stayed away.
Remarketing helps you market to those who took that single step as they trawl around the Internet looking at other “stuff”. For instance you can remarket to these visitors while they are browsing videos on YouTube, reading a message within their Gmail account or just visiting one of the millions of websites that allows Google’s advertising to display.
Sound all a bit “Big Brothery” to you?
Well it is.
That’s why Google ensures you follow their simple guidelines to ensure you don’t step over the mark and push your potential customers away rather than enticing them back.
Once you have updated the Google Analytics tracking code on your site, Google also tells you to that you need to update your Privacy Statement (you do already have one don’t you?). This change is to include easy to understand commentary on what you have done, how people can opt out and a link to the browser supported add- on Google has to make the opt out process a breeze.
And there’s more. Google also stops you from using re-marketing when you may use sensitive information about your visitors to build your remarketing audience. For instance say you run a medical supplies website then you couldn’t re-market to those who visit certain product pages based on the assumptions that they have the ailments solved by the products they have seen.
Once the web “paperwork” is done and the strategy fits within Google’s guidelines then you are off. First up you need to design the audience that you want to remarket to. Perhaps it’s everyone with a pulse who visited your site. For them remarketing could include creative links to special promotions that run through the year.
Or how about those that came and purchased. Here you could have special customer offers that are too good to open up to a wider audience. Perhaps those that came to you via Facebook so you can present your remarketing in a way that fits with their use of social media. As you can see there’s a number of ways to go about creating an audience and then picking the right strategy and design to match (contact us for more details on which options may best suit your needs).
Once all the design and strategy work is done then the Google magic can begin. You add the single line of code to your Google Analytics tracking code, build the audiences you want to market to and then “push” the data through to your linked Google AdWords account. Currently we are told that you need more than 100 unique cookies (visitors) for the audience to be marketed to.
Next up you need to produce your ad content. Google gives you a range of banner image sizes you can apply as well as the vanilla search text ads. Some of the image ads are more effective than others. So it pays to take time to figure out which ones have the greatest likelihood of converting and to design around them.
So you have your audience and your ads – all you need to do now is to get the two to meet by presenting your advertising on the right websites. This can be the greatest challenge of re-marketing. Up to this point it’s been relatively straight forward. Consumer product / service people may find this easier than their business to business cousins. For example YouTube could be an option, remembering your ads will only be shown to previous web site visitors means you can pick some high volume sites just like this with safety.
Nevertheless, stalking your visitor for ever as they move around the Internet is not a good option. Google helps you to avoid this by limiting the amount of time your ads can run for – say 60 days after the visitor became part of your remarketing audience. Plus they also allow you to cap the frequency the remarketing ads are shown so your ads are only shown 10 times per week. “Ad fatigue” is a problem here so ad creative is best re-worked on a frequent basis to ensure this doesn’t occur.
And the results?
We’ve seen clients achieve a cost per click that is a fraction of their search campaign alternatives and to then produce a significantly reduced cost per conversion. Of course your results may vary but the logic makes sense to try to bring back those that came before in conjunction with plans of creating that first visit. Contact us today to learn how this strategy could work for your business.
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. This is a video of the introduction of February’s conference call.
This month we talk about AdWords Enhanced Campaigns, Google AdWords Script and important reports to improve marketing efforts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK7IFoqKkeo
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. Below is a video of the introduction of Novembers conference call. This months new and nothworthy information relates to Google Analytics – Universal Analytics and Online and Offline Tracking, Google Webmaster Tools – Disavow Links, Google Adwords – Location Targeting, Google Tag Manager and sending email campaigns at appropriate times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8wbowtFrCg
You can find the latest website marketing update here.
Every month we hold a customer conference call that all of our customers are invited to join. At the beginning of these conference calls we have a section on what is new in the online marketing world that we believe is worthy of your attention. Below is a video of the introduction of Octobers conference call. You can access research here on the best time to post on Facebook and the mobile marketing strategy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZuN1Zz5-k