Don’t stay stuck in the past by maintaining mediocre paid ads. There are several ways you can amp ads up for greater reach and results. 

Get Visual 

Long gone are the days of paid ads being solely text. Now, you can boost your business with supporting video, imagery, and even gallery-style ads—and you really should, considering ads with images perform better than those without and ads with video do even better than those with static imagery. 

48% of consumers want videos to reflect their interests 

92% of marketers say video is an important part of their marketing strategy

46% of internet users act after viewing a video ad

BUT, you can’t just throw any video or image from your brand in an ad and expect results. You must first set a goal for your ad: leads, web traffic, conversions, reach—goals like these. Then, figure out your target audience for these ads and learn their behaviors, needs, pain points, age, etc. Using these details will help you determine the best ad to run for the most impact with your budget. 

Following Google’s guide is a great resource to learn how to construct an effective video ad.  

Be Memorable 

Your brand is important. You know it. We know it. Now, you need the world to know it. To stand out among the hundreds of thousands of web pages out there and highlight your importance, you need to home in on what makes you different. Develop strong messaging that solidifies your strengths. Creat compelling calls to action, speak to your audience not at them. 

Once you have a brand voice that is uniquely yours and mix that with SEO keywords for optimal reach, your ads will become harder and harder for users to ignore, lest forget. 

Use Ad Extensions to Your Advantage 

If you feel you have a lot to say and not a lot of space in your paid ads, we understand your pain. Word and character restrictions make streamlining your messaging essential. However, with ad extensions, you can add more content to your ad without getting dinged on regulations. 

Ad extensions come in a variety of options, including text extensions, location extensions, sitelink extensions (you can link to your social channels or landing pages), price extensions, or app extensions, to name a few. These additions give you more space to promote your brand, product, or service, and the best part is they come at no extra cost. Check out Google’s brief outline on ad extensions and how they work. 

Know Your Target

Paid ads run for a duration of time, usually around 3 months for each set you create. This allows you to change up your messaging and your target audience depending on the results of each ad. But before you start changing the game, you need to understand who your audience is, what they care about and need, and why they should choose you. These identifiers will help you create an ad that connects with your target audience and compels them to take action with your brand. 

You can’t reach every single person of every age, geographic location, gender, or indsutry with one ad or even one brand. You need to focus your efforts inward, discover your three key audiences and have your ad introduce a solution for their needs. 

Paid ads allow you to specifically target your audience by age group, location, interests, and even behaviors, so before you craft an ad, make sure you’ve done the research to enable it to be as effective as possible. 

Remember, getting your ad right before running it makes the difference between money spent and money spent well. When done correctly, paid ads can generate $2 to every $1 spent and increase brand awareness by 80%. If you’re on the fence about paid ads or you’re not confident in creating them, let us know. We can help you get your paid ads running in the right direction.

The post How to Take Your Paid Ads From OK to Effective appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

Chimney Solutions 

There are more than 2.5 billion Facebook users, and on average, advertisers make $8 for every $1 spent on Google Ads. We find these two reach the largest and the right audience for our clients more often than the others. With Chimney Solutions, that is the exact formula they used to see major success in 2020.

 When faced with the trials of 2020, Chimney Solutions made the difficult decision to lessen some marketing efforts and put all of its focus into paid advertising. By upping their budget and advertising consistently, we saw a huge jump in all of their return. By huge, we mean they saw 4.44k conversions – up 91% from 2019 just in Google Ads. In addition, social engagements grew 429% coming in at 20,546. 

Not only does Chimney Solutions commit to their ad budget, but they have also committed to having a consistent brand voice throughout each platform. Since Kicks has been able to execute all of their ads and all of their social media, there has been complete consistency between every touchpoint a potential client has with Chimney Solutions on the web. Everything from ad copy to social media posts looks and feels the same anytime a consumer sees their content. With a digital world that prefers transparency, this has been a key in Chimney Solutions’ success. 

Williams Brothers Pharmacy

Williams Brothers Pharmacy came to use with very little and wanted to build it up to something big.  This is a client that had never really dabbled in marketing before despite being a very large business, so we’ve had an awesome time together building out what would work best for them. 

With Williams Brothers’ friendly brand voice and familial touch, feel-good and relatable content makes up their top-performing social posts and ads. So when it comes to paid ads, they boost a lot of content on Facebook to reach new people. Boosting posts that perform well organically is a great way to see what is more engaging to consumers and also works well as a test to see what would work well in a typical Facebook ad.

Williams Brothers’ top-performing boosted posts have been giveaways and contests. In one contest alone, Williams Brothers acquired a reach of 25,288 and 1,133 Facebook leads. Giveaways and contests keep current customers engaged by asking them to like, comment, and share, while simultaneously reaching new people through those engagements and boosting those posts. Williams Brothers’ clients are highly engaged with their staff in-store, so we try to mimic that experience as much as we can online as well.

G Michael Salon

G Michael Salon started with us a while back with branding and web design and turned into a marketing strategy post-launch. After a bit, we discovered Facebook video ads are their sweet spot. In 2020, G Michael Salon brought in 4.7k clicks with a smaller ad budget. G Michael has great visual assets to share in pictures of their top-notch salon and beautiful hair services. They capture a lot of content of their services with iPhone photos and share them with us to turn into ads. By capturing people’s attention with video, we have grown their Facebook engagement and their leads from Facebook quite a bit. 

Kicks Digital Marketing

Us! We utilize paid advertising as well. We utilize branded campaigns on Google ads to own our name on the web, and we boost posts and run ads on Facebook for brand awareness and to highlight content that we think is helpful for our audience or shows examples of our best work. 

Branded campaigns on Google are so important for a few reasons. First of all, if people are searching for you specifically, you want your name to pop up first. That means it needs to be an ad, and inversely, you don’t want to give that spot to a competitor. And second of all, branded campaigns are usually the cheapest type of campaign to run. Google usually offers your branded keywords to you at a cheaper price than what they would to competitors, helping you to own your own business name and services when people are looking for you. Google doesn’t want to mislead your potential customers.

For brand awareness on social media, we look to Facebook. We run video ads based on the services we offer, and we boost blog posts and relevant case studies to reach a bigger audience.  We typically boost posts that we think are helpful to our audience and Part of being a business on social media means you have to pay to play. Organic growth is a slow and steady process, but by boosting some posts and running ads (even with a small budget, say $150), you can reach many more people. Facebook will even let you know how many people they think you can reach with a boosted post. We find ours usually perform in the middle of the averages they predict, so you can trust what they are telling you based on what settings you want to use.

Just in the first couple of months of 2021, our Kicks Digital Marketing Facebook stats have jumped a bit. By boosting what we consider our high-value content and running one video ad, we’ve had 26.4k impressions, 7.2k reach, and 254 clicks come from ads. In comparison, our organic reach in those same months was 1.5k. For those not great with numbers, our paid reach is about 5 times our organic reach (that’s a lot of new eyeballs on our content).

Not all companies are created equal, and each company’s marketing plan shouldn’t be either. Whether these numbers were impressive to you or not, they are doing what matters—succeeding for the company they were designed for. We hope there are a few tips that you can take away from these examples, and as always, if you’d like to chat about paid ads or marketing strategy with us, we’re all ears!

The post In Real-Time: Paid Ads Client Examples appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

Optimization

Account optimization is key. Without constantly optimizing your account, you lose out on making small changes that ultimately make a big impact. Your work isn’t over once you’ve launched a campaign. After a set amount of time, you should review your ads—copy, bids, creative, audience, etc. Testing your ads, checking Google’s recommendations for your ads, and tweaking your settings until you find the sweet spot will help make sure you are getting the most out of your budget and moving the needle toward your goals. 

Call Tracking

If your call tracking isn’t linked up to your Google ads, oh no baby, what is you doin’? (If you catch that meme reference, we can be friends.) Having a call now button and your Google ads ready to track those calls is a great metric to have when understanding where your leads are coming from. This is especially important for industries that set up appointments or receive a lot of calls about their goods or services. 

Offer

This where you want to imagine stepping into your buyer’s shoes. Who is your target audience and what offer would appeal to them? We can step back even further and say, if my audience hasn’t heard of me before, what would make them trust me and be interested in what I have to offer? For example, let’s imagine we’re advertising for a local service-based industry and our goal is to increase revenue. Offering a certain dollar amount off or a free consultation would grab people’s attention more than just talking about your industry. This is something that will grab the attention of those who are ready to buy. If brand awareness is the goal, we may switch to emphasizing how long the business has been providing their local area with excellent services.

Landing Pages

A landing page is created with your ad specifically in mind. It creates a specific post-click experience with all the information a client needs to purchase, sign up, or do whatever it is that is the goal of your ad. Having a custom landing page for every ad you run creates these specific post-click experiences for each and every one. While this is great just for the audience’s experience, it’s also more effective for selling and tracking. Landing pages have a 9.7% conversion rate, according to Hubspot (and 10% is the benchmark for a good conversion rate). Landing pages also help track each and every lead that comes through your ad. With separate landing pages for each ad, you know the exact journey they are taking. This gives you a better idea of which ones need updating or which ads are crushing it. 

Refresh 

If your ads have a creative aspect to them, make sure you revisit that creative on a regular basis. After your potential clients have seen the same ad multiple times they are less likely to engage. Refreshing your creative and copy prevents ad fatigue and tends to bump click-through-rates and engagement. We recommend refreshing ad creative and copy monthly, but quarterly can work as well. If an ad is doing really well, making different variations of the same ad can be super effective. You don’t need to throw it all out and get new ads every month. 

Plan 

And last but not least, plan out where you want to go. Besides having a goal of increasing revenue by X% (or brand awareness, or whatever your goal is), planning can be as simple as keeping a list of your next ad ideas and target audiences ready. Make a prioritized list of ads you want to see go out in the next 6 months. Keeping an eye on your KPIs and analytics will help you stay on top of this so you know when to swap and move on to the next ad you’d like to run. By having your goals and plan in front of you, you will be able to make sure you are investing in the best possible ads for the greatest ROI in your marketing. 

No matter what type of paid ads you’re working with, paid digital ads are a critical part of your overall marketing plan. Things move fast in the digital world, but the good thing is that you have the tools to keep iterating and improving. With analytics tools, metrics are easily measurable that help inform where things need to change. Once you get a handle on it, there is great opportunity for ROI with paid digital ads. And of course, if you need help with your paid ads strategy, we are here to help.

The post How to Maximize Your Paid Ads Strategies With These 6 Tips appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

Thankfully, nope. Landing pages play a key role in tracking metrics, converting clicks and making Google like you. And they can make a huge difference in turning your marketing dollars into big bucks.

Let’s do a deep dive into the post-click experience and why it matters.

Converting those leads

The goal of any marketing effort is to get more leads — but leads don’t always convert. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it click the call-to-action button on your site. That’s where landing pages come in.

Think of a landing page as an extension of the ads you’re running on social media. You only have so much room to get your point across on a Facebook or Google ad, but tying the ad to a landing page allows you to continue the conversation on your own turf.

When a user follows an ad to your landing page, it’s part of a seamless experience. The copy, imagery and CTAs all reflect what they’ve already seen on your ad, with more breathing room to convince them about your product or service.

When your customer follows an ad to a landing page, they’re one step closer to converting. Landing pages see an average conversion rate of 9.7%, in line with what Hubspot considers a “good” rate (10%).

Simply adding a landing page can get your ad campaign to that “good” benchmark. With a little extra TLC, it could start exceeding expectations in no time flat.

Tracking metrics

Where are my website visitors coming from? How do I know my ad campaigns are working? We get these questions all the time. 

Google Analytics can be pretty hard to read for the untrained eye, but landing pages simplify it. If your landing page is tied to a certain ad campaign, you’ll know that every single visitor to that page is a direct result of that campaign. 

This helps you easily see the path your leads are taking, and you can gauge if your ads are really driving clicks to your site.

Google likes it

What the almighty Google commands, we marketers humbly do. And Google loves a landing page.

When deciding where to place your ad, Google comes up with a “quality score.” One factor that determines that score is that you know what you’re talking about. That one’s easy enough if you’ve got a landing page with some killer content, but the almighty Google demands further tribute: a good post-click experience.

Ever click on an ad for apples, and you get sent to a page about oranges? Weird browsing habits you’ve got there, but you’ve been the victim of a bad post-click experience. You’re likely to take your produce-based needs to another company who knows their kiwis from the kumquats. 

When you exit that first company’s page without finding what you’re looking for, the almighty Google will know. And it will smite them for giving you the runaround, making their ad slowly fall off the page. How do you like them apples?

The long and short of this point is that a good landing page with helpful content that’s relevant to your ad is a surefire way to please Google. A good user experience, quality info and good CTAs can make all the difference between getting 10% conversions and getting 2%. 

If you’re ready to start converting those clicks into meaningful leads, start with a click of your own — like right here, for instance. We’re ready to roll when you are.

The post Landing Pages: The Post-Click Experience appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

However, creating an effective PPC is more complex than simply writing a few lines about your business and waiting for the money to roll in. You have to deeply understand your market and target audience, invest in keyword research to improve your SEO, include valuable ad extensions (which doesn’t mean using every possible option), and bid wisely so your money is well spent. 

If this sounds overwhelming or a little bit like Latin, that’s okay, we’re here to break down what you need to know about PPCs—starting with Google’s shift from Adwords to Ads. 

Google Ads

Google’s platform for PPCs, Adwords, got a little rebrand in 2020. With a shorter name and more powerful optimization tools, Google Ads allows users to control campaigns, drive more quality leads with more effective ad extensions, gather insights, and bid smarter with the Smart Bidding feature, a tool that provides ad performance updates and helps you better target CPAs (cost per action) and ROAS (return on ad spend) so you can manage your budget in real-time. 

Basically, Google Ads dropped the “words” at the end of its name and made significant changes to the way users discover, manage, and apply data. 

How Do Google Ads Work? 

Here’s the simple part. Let’s say you’re looking to buy a kayak, specifically a 10 footer. When you get on Google and type in “10 foot kayaks,” you’re met with the most relevant search results based on that original search term. This is how organic search engine result pages (SERPs) work, but, Ads offer two distinct differences: 

1. Bidding 
2. Quality Score

These two factors work together to rank your ad. The higher it ranks, the more likely users will click. 

When you use Google Ads, you can determine the terms you want to rank for, how much you want to spend per click, and build complimentary ads for common search terms. Many brands also create supporting landing pages, which ads link to, so searchers can find what they’re looking for immediately. 

How Do Rank, Spend, and Quality Score Work?

It’s important to understand that the more money you spend on an ad will not always determine your rank. You can spend hundreds on an ad, but if its relevance, keywords, and user experience setup is low, your quality score goes down, and so too does your rank. 

Your ad relevance (strong keywords, URL) + user experience (landing page quality and relevance to keywords and search terms, relevance of your ad text, and even past Ads performance) = your ad quality score. So, a lot goes into calculating if your ad will or will not appear on the top SERPs. Why does this matter so much? By improving the quality of your ads and increasing your score, Google gives your ads higher rankings and lower costs, giving you a higher ROI. 

How? Because there is a major difference you are aiming for with your PPC: cost per click and cost per conversion. Clicks are how many people click on your ad, which is good, but it’s not the best end goal. Clicks help build brand awareness, but they don’t necessarily mean money for your business. Conversions do, and those are what you want to see. If your ad’s quality score is high, the cost per conversion will be lower. Google Ads rewards you for meeting your users’ needs and wants with high quality, relevant ads. 

How to Improve Your Quality Score and Rank

We know these are two very important areas for effective PPC, but what can you do to ensure your efforts are going to get you the rank and score you need? To start, you need to put your users first and understand their search intent, one of the foundations of good SEO. Think about your target audience’s needs, research their search habits, and build your ads based on these findings. This will position your ad to be relevant and in turn, help its score. 

When creating PPCs, keep the following in mind: 

• Group keywords in the proper ad group (this ensures the right words are going to the right ads)
• Use keywords in your ad copy (SEO works just as well in PPCs than in organic content) 
• Create at least two to three ads per each ad group to allow for different keywords and testing
• Make your landing page URL and its content relevant to the ad group and ad copy (you can get penalized for leading content if ads and landing pages don’t match) 

What Are Ad Extensions and How Do They Work? 

Ad extensions are Google’s way of giving you more space for information within your ad, which gives users more reasons to choose your business. Ad extensions are also a simple way to increase your click through rate because you can curate content for users. Instead of having just one link in your ad, you can include links to your contact page, additional text (like your specific services), location information, and call buttons. This gives users a direct connection to exactly what they need from you. 

To make sure your ad extensions are getting the most reach, use as many as possible—up to six extensions. When Google runs your ads, it will present the extensions to users based on their search, which means not everyone will see the same extensions. By using the maximum number of extensions for each ad, you are ensuring that Google has the most information about your business to give to users, giving you more visibility and value. 

The most commonly used ad extensions are:

• Sitelink Extensions
• Call Extensions
• Location Extensions
• Callout Extensions
• Price Extensions
• Structured Snippet Extensions

Call in the Professionals (Hey! That’s Us!)

Google Ads, or any pay-per-click advertising tools, are complicated systems that often require certification. It’s not that no one can learn them, it’s simply that you likely have a million other things to do to keep your business running. Hiring digital marketers, like Kicks, is the best way to ensure your hard earned money is going to good use. 

We often work with clients to help undo accidental damage done by mismanaging paid ads. By discovering where mistakes we made, we’re able to readjust ads, budget, content, and spend so clients get the most from their paid ads. 

Paid ads will extend your reach, boost your brand, strengthen your targeting, and maximize your content marketing, but they also are available at any budget. To learn more about PPC and how we can help you set up and manage your ads, give us a call or sign up for our newsletter below.

The post What You Need to Know About Google Ads appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

1. No, I don’t write copyright laws for people. I have no idea what that entails and the closest thing to legal knowledge I have regarding copyrights is that you don’t wanna mess with them. Ever. 

2. No, I don’t take notes in court, that’s a stenographer and a skill I absolutely do not have. 

3. Yes, I write, but no I’m not just a blogger. I write everything and anything from emails to websites to billboards to commercials to brochures to digital ads to social media posts. 

4. Yes, I am a marketer. Yes, I am aware people don’t always like marketers. No, I’m not trying to make you spend your hard earned money or give up your first born for useless products you don’t need. 

5. No, no, NO, it’s not like Mad Men. For the love of all things holy, I am not Peggy from Mad Men. 

6. Yes, I am a writer—in more ways than one. I’ve been writing stories and essays since I was a kid, went to school for journalism and creative writing, and still write creative nonfiction in my down time. This diversity of the craft has allowed me to improve my career as a copywriter and understand the importance of storytelling, no matter what I’m writing. 

But it wasn’t, and isn’t, always easy. Copywriting is transforming your voice into someone else’s, your identity into others’, and essentially trying to crawl into the brains of varying demographics and audiences to understand their needs, wants, and habits. To do this well, I’ve learned some powerful techniques to help me become a stronger, more insightful copywriter. 

Eat. Sleep. Read.  

Reading is essential to being a good writer. You have to consume an abundance of books, articles, essays, poems, and even haikus to become the writer you want to be. Why? Because as good as you think you are, and I’m sure you’re great, there are many writers better than you. Better than me. Better than Stephen King and Hemingway. 

Reading the work of those with a higher range of talent than ourselves helps us improve. We see different styles, voices, genres, literary devices, and can learn how to communicate better, connect with audiences more aggressively, and convey emotion more accurately. This helps whether you’re writing an essay about that time you glued your finger to your desk in fourth grade or whether you’re writing an email announcing a grand opening for a new store. Good is good,  but actively reading can make you considerably better. 

Write for More Than Your Work

After spending all day wracking your brain to write creative, customized content for clients, the last thing you may want to do is go back to the computer and write some more. Do it. Write a poem. Write a memory. Write a short fiction story. Write part of a memoir. Anything. Writing creatively allows you to explore new ways to share stories, and at the end of the day, that’s what good copywriters do—they share brands’ stories to build awareness and loyalty. 

But who wants to be loyal to a brand with no story? Or a bad story? Or one that’s confusing? No one. So the more you can learn about how to decipher,construct,and effectively tell stories, the stronger your work will get and the happier your clients will be. 

Watch Movies (Yes, I’m Serious) 

Are you going to make the next great film that will be discussed on fawned over for decades? I mean, maybe, but even if not, film still has value to influence and improve other types of creative work. Script, character development, plot, cinematography, music all work together to contribute to a film’s success. Watch how this is done. Pay attention to how the story is carried by the voices and tones of its characters. Find how music carries emotions throughout. Take note on how you feel when certain color schemes or phrases and dialogues are spoken. Get inspired. Then get to work. 

The way a film makes you feel can be inspiration to make your audience feel similarly when reading your copy. No, you’re not aiming for an Oscar, you’re trying to help a client gain more customers by writing a compelling home page—but that isn’t less noble, worthy, or important. When you can get customers to feel something when reading your copy—trust, curiosity, admiration, need—you can transform them from potentials to life-long loyalists. 

Take a Class

Before you take after me and think it’s too expensive, stop—the abundance of free online courses from poetry to creative writing to journalism to prose to marketing to content strategy (the list goes WAY on) are available to you any dang time you want. Feeling stumped? Take a class. Can’t get over writer’s block? Take a class. Not even sure you want to be a copywriter? Take a class. When you have nothing to lose, you can only gain the knowledge and boost you need to take the plunge into a new career as a writer or enhance the one you have. 

Breathe 

Contrary to popular belief, writing. Is. Hard. It’s not something that just flows through you at every moment. It’s not something you can turn on and off at a moment’s notice, which can make deadlines, timelines, and work tough sometimes. So often we see writing portrayed as a talent that is almost magic, but the truth is even amazing writers have written and will write garbage. It happens. It’s how we then go on to write a masterpiece, whether it’s a novel, an essay, or an ad. 

If I’ve learned anything in my time as a copywriter it’s that panicking when you can’t think of the perfect headline immediately doesn’t make the perfect headline come. What does? The points listed above, going on a short walk when you’re stuck, stretching, making a sandwich, and giving yourself some time to breathe and regroup. 

Being a good copywriter is a never ending process of learning, trying new things, and failing. Get used to failing, because it happens. It doesn’t make you a failure, it just makes you better. 

Want to chat about content? Give us a call. We can sit down and talk shop. Need a content writer? Hi. Let’s do it. 

The post How to Become a Better Copywriter appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

The answer to these queries lies in paid ads. But what kind? Who do you want to target? How do you decide which ads to run, and which type fits your business? Lucky for you we’ve got a breakdown of some of the most popular and useful choices below.

Before we get there, let’s talk about where we see most clients spend their ad dollars: Facebook ads and Google Ads. There are other players here too (Instagram, LinkedIn, other search engines, and TikTok to name a few), but what takes up the majority of our clients’ budgets are these two. There are more than 2.5 billion Facebook users, and on average, advertisers make $8 for every $1 spent on Google Ads. We find these two reach the largest and the right audience for our clients more often than the others.

Facebook Ads

Over 2.5 billion Facebook users equates to over 30% of the world population. There is good chance that there is an audience for what you’re advertising on this platform (and this is why so many advertise here). Facebook ads have really great options to hone in on the exact type of audience you want to show up for. They have advanced targeting settings to get your content in front of your core audience and other audiences you would potentially never reach with organic content alone.

Google Ads

Google Ads allow you to anticipate the wants and needs of consumers. These ads capture the attention of your audience in a different way than just organic search alone. Google Ads deliver your advertisement to specific consumers based on keywords you select and other specific inputs like location and other demographics. Keyword selection helps target specific people looking for exactly what you’re offering, matching them up to be a great potential sale for you. In addition, this is what people think of when they want to appear at the top of a google search. See the example below for an ad that pops up at the top of a search.

In addition, within both of those platforms, there are different styles of ads. Curious about paying for qualified leads, but don’t know which type of ad to use? Let’s break it down.

Types of Social Ads

Everyone has been on Facebook and seen ads before. Those generally don’t show up there on accident. A business likely paid to make sure you saw them. And, something about you triggered their targeting. It could be your age, where you are from or what you do for a living.

This is something every business can take advantage of. Within Paid Social Advertising there are three categories.

Standard ads

These are the ads like I talked about above (and pictured above in the Facebook ads section). Targeting is set up, budget is determined, copy is put in place, and you’re up and running. The ultimate goal of these ads is to get people to go to your normal social media page and follow you there. So, it’s important to keep organic posts frequent while running an ad…but that’s a whole different blog.

Re-targeting

Ever shop for something and then the product followed you around the internet? That was a little re-targeting pixel that hit you when you visited that website. Now, those ads follow you around and try to remind you that you want to buy those shoes…even if you don’t need to. Turns out its not actually witchcraft, but paid advertising.

These ads are a great resource because they always bring qualified leads. These ads require no targeting, they only hit people who have already been to your website. So most importantly, you know you have what they are looking for. This is a great option to bring costs down and qualified leads up.

Boosted posts

Boosted posts work a little bit differently than ads do in the social media world. A boosted post is when you simply take a social media post of yours that you like and put money behind it. Just like an ad, you can determine who you are targeting. Facebook uses your budget to push the post out to those people, even if they aren’t following your page. The post can run up to two weeks on it’s own. This strategy is best for attracting new visitors to your social media profiles.

Types of Google Ads

Google Ads can show up basically anywhere including when you search, watch a video, or just surf the web. There are infinite versions of a Google Ad, but I’m going to hit three major ones.

Search

This is one of the most standard and most crucial forms of paid advertising. These ads are simple but powerful. If you’re a hair salon, clients can Google “hair salon near me" and you can ensure that you show up at the top with proper strategy and budget (and that your competition doesn’t show up when people search for you). Paying for a search ad puts you above any other organic result on the page. It can be competitive out there, so be ready to pay to play. Google takes a lot of things into consideration when displaying ads, and your budget is one of the most crucial.

Display

Display ads are more involved than search because they require a creative aspect to go along with them. These are the ads that will show up when you are on any website. They are usually off to the side, but grab your attention. This can easily be your business to those you target by creating and managing a display campaign. Be prepared to put work in for this one though, good content won’t be enough to make you stand out. Creative work is just as important.

Re-targeting…again.

If you liked the sound of retargeting above, then you’re in luck! Google also has its own re-marketing strategy. It works exactly like the one listed above but can show up on any website that is Google affiliated. This goes far past just Facebook and Instagram.

Think you are ready to take your business to the next level on the internet? Let us know. We are happy to help you create copy, creative, and strategy to get you some extra leads.

The post Paid Ads: A basic breakdown appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

Has the digital marketing landscape changed that much in a month? 

Hmmm… yes, and no. 

As the confirmed number of COVID-19 cases climbed and state-mandated stay-in-place orders took effect, the U.S. economy took a nosedive. Companies, and therefore people went into crisis management mode. Yet, when it comes to marketing (and other primary functions of business) decisions are best made when cooler heads prevail. The knee-jerk reaction when sales come to a screeching halt is to reduce expenses. Naturally. However, indiscriminate cost-cutting, particularly as it relates to consumers’ evolving needs, has negative long-term implications. 

The good news is that we do have historical data that can help guide our decisions as we navigate this time. The even better news is that our technology and ability to analyze data in real-time is better than ever! So, while we’re all navigating something unprecedented, we’re not doing it totally blind. Harvard Business Review published an article that examines companies in downturns since the 70s, and what they determined is that the companies who continued to invest in brand awareness and kept a pulse on changing consumer behavior not only were able to sustain during the downturn, but rebounded more quickly when the economy recovered. 

Let’s take a look at our own clients. 

Of our existing clients, we’ve had people fall into one of two camps relative to ad spend. Those who’ve forgone the ad budgets altogether and those who’ve maintained the status quo (with some extra COVID related messaging). Note: In general, ad costs have decreased. 

The clients who’ve eliminated or reduced their ad budgets have fallen off the map, while those who’ve maintained have continued to see growth. And, they’re experiencing that growth at a lower cost than before.

Based on our clients who have continued to maintain their current budgets, specifically speaking to home service-based in the few weeks following stay home announcements, we saw positive trends on activity and conversion rates. After the end of month figures we analyzed, we found an average of 20-25% increases in conversions from previous month figures. 

We are happy to see the continued trend comparing data on the first two weeks of April vs March with 2-5% additional increases across the board on activity and conversions. While this sample size is small, it certainly supports the larger data suggested in the findings by the Harvard Business Review. 

Chopping off an entire marketing arm is one of the worst things that you can do if you want your company to sustain a downturn. Digital marketing can be divided into two parts: paid, or targeted efforts, and organic. Yet, most businesses see them as a whole and not the sum of all parts. A good example of this is on the downturn during the weeks following the initial stay home order, clients we apt to nix their organic media completely losing social media coverage and ongoing content campaigns like gated content or educational posts. 

In doing so, if the client, who exchanges money for time, cannot adapt and run platforms or generate content have now effectively lost their audience as we know algorithms favor activity and quality content. 

Respecting the notion that businesses must mind every dollar being spent,  it’s important to turn inward and evaluate where you should focus your attention. 

Companies should address these topics: 

1. Are we committed to our brand narrative? And, what’s the evidence that supports the notation that you’re leaning toward it during this time? 
2. When it comes to social media platforms, think before acting. Think through the following questions: 
   • Is this in our wheelhouse?
   • Can we scale this? 
   • Can we generate enough quality content to stay relevant?

Hone in on channels that are yielding the most return on engagement for now and add-on when the time is right. 

3. Is there a part of the business that can be monetized online? 

Think about leveraging smart eCommerce tools like WooCommerce or Shopify. 

4. Administratively, are you being efficient? 

Scheduling platforms like Calendly are easy to use, time saving and inexpensive. Invoicing, Email Workflows and CRM integrations with your website provide a better user experience. Remember, people are online now more than ever. 

5. Are you focusing your spending appropriately? 

Don’t eliminate spend everywhere. Reduce it where you have to. Our data suggest that focusing spends on Google Ads and other pay per click platforms is still fruitful, while a smaller budget of paid social campaigns makes sense for some brands (for now). 

While much has changed, much has stayed the same. We’re lucky to have communicative technology affordably at our fingertips. If you’re not sure how to navigate this terrain, and you have more time on your hands than usual, now might be a great time to find an agency partner. We’d love to hear from you. 

The post How Digital Marketing is Flexing its Muscles During a Global Pandemic appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

This is an interesting time in the digital landscape. With the stay at home orders, people are inside and online more than ever, spending much of their time glued to their screens. Most people are seeing more ads than usual in a typical day. Can you leverage this? How do you advertise when you know financial issues are looming for many?

Advertising doesn’t mean you’re tone deaf

It isn’t the fact that you are advertising that will turn people off, it’s if you’re crass or insensitive about it. How you craft your messaging and what you say are imperative to your advertising efforts. Choose the most meaningful path here—what true value are you adding to your consumers’ lives? Are you keeping them safe, clean, entertained, etc.? As this quarantine life is giving us ample time and reason to evaluate what is truly important in life, take that same inventory of your business and drill down to hone in on the meaningful impact you can have. That’s your best message.

For example, Lowe’s home improvement has shifted its messaging to maintain positivity. Their Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, Marisa Thalberg, was quoted as saying, “Home has never mattered more, and we can’t begin to unpack the new emotional importance of home." She’s definitely not wrong. I would read or watch any content talking about how to improve my home, change up the decor, and make it look like a magazine ad.

Additionally, creating content that gives people things to do instead of just selling products gives you added value. A lot of products won’t do too much good right now, but while everyone is stuck inside, they are looking for new things to do. Maybe it’s a live cooking class, a workout or yoga session, or how to budget your money. Get creative. Whatever your brand can offer, deliver it. People will be grateful, engaged, and are more likely to continue to connect with you long after the pandemic passes.

In addition, losing your foothold in the marketplace right now could have detrimental effects in the long run. If you choose to voluntarily cut your ad spending, your competition will have more opportunity to get in front of your (former) potential consumers, making it that much harder to get back into your client pool when things open back up. On the flip side, some people will choose (or be forced) to cut spend on advertising. This is an opportunity for you to keep your status quo (or increase your spend if you’re capable) to access more potential business than before.

This doesn’t mean change your branding

It can seem daunting to stay the course in a downturn, but keep your branding. It may feel like your tone of voice doesn’t fit the market right now. Or you may be ready to move downmarket to reach a new audience that is more willing to spend money with you. However, this has its downfalls. Imagine trying to regain your previous audience when the market shifts back towards normal. The imbalance between the two personas you’ve created will cause some massive mistrust in your client base, causing a downturn when really you should be growing. Not to mention, if you already have a loyal fan base, they can get confused by your change in branding.

People value authenticity, and with the mindset shift of this pandemic and quarantine, I think it’s fair to say that is only becoming more and more true. Stay true to who you are, what your business is, and you will be better off for it. Branding is at the heart of your business, and this is the time to remind your consumer why you matter to the world.

Understand your audience

This might seem basic—it’s important to understand your audience. In the time of an impending recession, it is even more so. Who are they? Are they working adults with children who are now doing school from home? Are they young adults working from home looking for contactless delivery on their favorite items? Are they former service industry professionals looking for new opportunities?

Ultimately your audience needs a friend and to know that your brand cares about them. Solve their problems. Be a source of comfort. And pro tip: you can also allude to the pandemic around us while not flat out saying it. AdParlor gives the example of a soap company saying “Spread love, not germs." This helps to not inundate your consumer with constant streams of fear and anxiety about what is happening. Those are definitely not feelings you want to be associated with your business either. (But do bring up specifics if it’s in line with your offerings —we trust you can figure that out.)

These are all important factors that will play into purchase decisions right now. If you can do contactless delivery, do it. If you can advertise sterile bags, do that. Let your audience know you have procedures in place for your services to ensure maximum safety for both parties. Remember that meaningful message we talked about earlier? Tie it directly to your offerings, and you’ve got an ad. Even more important, you have an effective ad.

So what are some actions you can take in the now?

• If you have the funds, keep advertising. Stay consistent and keep the leads coming in. (If you don’t, apply these same rules to your organic content.)
• Review your messaging. Make sure it’s meaningful and adds value, specifically in this climate.
• Stay true to your brand.
• Instead of conversions, think brand awareness. Then, once the economy evens out or stabilizes, your brand will be well known and conversions can grow.

Keep on keepin’ on

First and foremost, this recession will end. When that happens, all the marketing you have done in this downturn will not go to waste. This is truly a time where record levels of trust can be built with your consumer base, and that might be even more powerful than your marketing efforts. But that won’t happen if you don’t help that along.

We know this is a tough and confusing time regardless of if you are taking advantage of advertising efforts or not. As always, we want to help you. If you have any questions, send them our way.

The post Advertising During a Global Pandemic appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.

1. They get you in your feels. Whether we’re laughing or crying (or somewhere in between), these commercials artfully hit you where you feel it. They’re attention-grabbing and memorable.
2. They are true to their authentic brand. The values depicted relate perfectly to the company. Brand attributes like playful, reliable, serious, or meaningful come across in the commercial, all by design.
3. The best ones leave you with a subtle call to action. Not a ‘here’s a thousand dollars off our product’ or ‘rush to your nearest store’, but usually wishing you a holiday full of joy, laughter, and love, and ‘oh yeah – our products might just help you do that in the best way’. CTAs are important, but when you subtly incorporate it with a sincere message, it is doubly effective.

So with that in mind, here’s a list of 6 commercials – new and old – that we think have these 3 aspects in spades. 

Our 3 favorite throwback commercials:

The Coca Cola Polar Bear 

These polar bears have been around for a long time (the 90s). Feel old yet? This specific commercial was an instant classic. The polar bear didn’t even need words to convey the feeling of cracking open an ice-cold Coke. Classic, timeless, and perfectly satisfying – just like a Coke.

Campbell’s Soup Melting Snowman

Oh, the nostalgia. This takes us back to literally feeling like the melting snowman after coming inside from a day of sledding as a kid. We can literally feel the craving for soup coming up as we watch this one.

M&Ms meet Santa

Is there a better commercial out there? Because we haven’t seen one. This is hilarious and sweet – just like your favorite M&M’s. The nostalgia of childhood, the goofy yellow M&M, and the sweet sentiment of holiday magic through candy – a marketing masterpiece.

Jumping to 2019:

Frito Lay + Anna Kendrick’s My Favorite Things

Couple Cheetos and the Sound of Music together and you get holiday perfection. Anna Kendrick’s voice is perfect for the brand as she brings life to this classic song and pairs it with a holiday pitch-in staple. It’s a feel-good fun view. Frito Lay gets it.

Oreo + Elf’s First Christmas

This commercial hits you right in the feels and reminds you how much joy Oreos can bring. Putting Oreos out for Santa is a super sweet concept, and we’ll be thinking about this commercial every time we’re in the cookie aisle.

Apple Ipad Commercial

Alright, who cut the onions? Apple just knows how to do commercials, and this one is no exception. I’ve linked the longer version here because it’s worth the watch. It captures the power of technology in a single commercial. Apple designs things for easy use and interaction, and most importantly connection. Their tagline is “Think Different”, and the two girls in this commercial definitely thought outside of the box for a memorable Christmas memory. This one hits all the points of a good commercial.

Like any marketing masterpiece, these commercials leave you thinking about a product for (literally) decades. They are basically any brand’s dream and deserve some recognition.

Did we miss your favorites? Sound off with your all-time faves!

The post Best Holiday Commercials – Past and Present appeared first on Kicks Digital Marketing.