Facebook Ads Boost CPA’s Lead Generation

One of my clients had been doing a good job of managing his own marketing program, but as his business grew, he found that he didn’t have time to develop and execute a strategic plan. The result? He ended up spending money on last-minute Hail-Mary efforts that weren’t reaching his audience. Those great one-time special deals that ad salespeople talk you into aren’t special at all; they’re a waste of money. We developed a strategy that includes Facebook ads.

Marketing had become fragmented and perfunctory

For this client, a CPA, a monthly newsletter was becoming a quarterly, his weekly blog was now a monthly and his social media posts were sporadic and uninspired, often missing images. He understood the power of marketing and enjoyed the creativity; he simply didn’t have time to do this well.

We reviewed his Google Analytics reports to evaluate his website traffic

We wanted to know the demographics of his visitors and from what domains they were coming, how long they stayed on his site and their drilldown patterns.

When I asked him about his target audience, his answer was too general, so our marketing plan included an exercise in creating personas. We wanted to develop detailed profiles of those clients with whom he really wanted to be working—not necessarily those with whom he was now working. We wanted to identify their likes and dislikes, ages, professions, lifestyle preferences, etc.

We agreed that Facebook advertising should be part of our marketing program

We included Facebook pay-per-click (PPC) in our marketing plan. We would start with keyword research to identify those words we should be using in all of our online communications. We also wanted to identify negative keywords—those words we should be avoiding.

Facebook advertising: ability to drill down to specific demographic information

Facebook may be unique for the detailed personal information it collects. Facebook’s fields make up a fairly comprehensive database. Every time we fill in a field with information about our lives and our preferences, we’re contributing to a rich data pool.

• We needed to create a goal—was it a phone call, email, a signup for his newsletter or a Like? The call to action needed to be clear and accessible.
• We decided to create landing page on our website. It will be branded and synchronize with the ad messaging.
• As with all online media, the headline is critical–you have just seconds and 30 characters to catch someone’s attention. Be a little edgy. Be bold. Be funny. Take a chance.
• Use high-res images that are relevant and attention-getting. Spend time finding really good images.
• Select a bidding option. Clicks, impressions, Likes.

The great thing about PPC advertising? You control costs

You pay only when someone clicks on your ad, and your daily budget identifies how much you will spend on a campaign. Once you hit your daily limit, your ads stop showing. Cost effectiveness, along with the ability to personalize your ads by detailed demographic fields, makes Facebook advertising a very effective way to promote your business.

Need help with your PPC campaign? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and internet marketing specialists.

Is It Time To Add Pay-Per-Click To Your Marketing Mix?

With increasing online competition, pay-per-click (PPC) is becoming a critical way to get your content in front of your potential customers. Those who rely on organic strategies may find themselves frustrated that their blogs, social media posts and newsletters are just not enough anymore.

Here are three myths that may be keeping marketers from implementing successful AdWords campaign.

Myth #1: People don’t click on Google ads

Google is a publicly traded company—anyone can access their financial records that tell the story. Google generates more than $100M in revenue every single day from people clicking on their ads. With an average cost per click between $1 and $2 that’s more than 50M clicks/day. Google experiments constantly to make their ads entice more enticing. They’re not going to present you with a free, organic result at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) when they could showcase several ads that generate revenue. Start paying attention: The first few line items at the top of every search is an ad.

One more thing: Think about your own behavior

When you see an ad that entices you, do you click on it? Of course you do! Smart companies are using remarketingefforts that identify customer tastes to present you with items that you may have been looking at earlier in the day. They may serve up similar items or those by the same designer or manufacturer. I shop almost entirely online, and I’m fascinated by remarketing, which illustrates how marketing has gotten smarter.

Myth #2: My competitors can just click on my ads all day, costing me money

Google has extremely sophisticated technology to prevent “click fraud” and “invalid clicks”. This involves the analysis of several click-pattern factors.

Google provides very good reports on AdWords campaign performance, and any suspicious activity is quickly exposed. If a business is concerned they are victims of click fraud, they can contact Google directly to launch an investigation. Google reimburses questionable clicks.

Myth #3: AdWords is an outbound marketing tactic

AdWords is designed to showcase your content when potential customers are initiating a Google search. It’s the only inbound marketing tactic that guarantees your content will rank high on Google when a user performs a search. This is one very attractive reason to be using Google as your PPC platform. The sheer number of Google searches/day makes you part of this community.

PPC delivers a better user experience for the searcher

Think of the information you provide when you set up your Google account. This all becomes part of a huge database, and databased information makes it searchable. Because of this information, when you create a Google ad, you are able to drill down by location, demographics, interests, etc. This is not specific just to Google—Facebook, Linkedin and other social channels also provide rich search preferences.

Integrating AdWords with your inbound marketing strategy

Along with your existing content marketing and SEO efforts, PPC is becoming a critical component of an inbound marketing strategy.

Do you need help with your PPC or other online marketing program? Talk to us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re internet marketing specialists.