As you already know, remarketing campaigns are a great way to reach out to people who have visited your site but never followed through with a sale. Most likely you are already aware of your landing page bounce rates and shopping cart abandonment percentages. Hopefully you have a system in place for trying to reach those customers, but are you getting specific enough? You can use PPC and remarketing in a more targeted fashion to gain that potential customer’s attention again in the future. Try presenting a series of different offers to spark that precious interest of your customer. Just following up on their initial conversion may not do the trick.

 

You can also use remarketing to boost your cross-selling opportunities. Use feedback from tracked sales in order to remarket related products to your current customers. This is a great opportunity to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones.

 

It is commonplace for a customer to “shop around” when deciding whether or not to make a purchase. Chances are you have a few worthy competitors out there who are also hoping to make a sale. You should consider using PPC tactics to get the upper hand in this situation. Try bidding on your competitors’ keywords for the opportunity to show potential customers how you stack up. Use your competitors’ keywords in PPC ads to inform potential customers about how you compare. You can use landing pages with facts about you versus the competitor, or you can provide special call-to-action offers. Don’t be afraid to get creative in order to get the sale.

 

PPC is also a great way to reach the target demographic of folks who consider themselves “do it yourself” types. It’s tax season, and let’s say, for example, that you offer comprehensive services for folks looking to file their own taxes. Many people may want to take the cheap, do it yourself route. How can you convince these people that your service is worth it? Try bidding on keywords/phrases that are sure to reach this prospective audience. A phrase like, “How to do your own taxes” is something that is probably all too familiar to them while searching on Google. Try using that exact phrase in a PPC ad as a way to snag their attention and redirect them to your unique landing page. Here you have the opportunity to sell them on a special offer, or list out the pros and cons of doing taxes yourself vs. hiring the help of paid professionals.

 

In addition, you should find ways to combine your specific campaign elements to reach your maximum audience. If you use email marketing in addition to PPC, then find ways for these efforts to work in harmony. While exclusive opt-in email offers can be a great way to offer incentives to those who are already loyal, you may be neglecting new customers. When you blast your offer to your email list, try scheduling a similar offer in PPC ads. This will ensure that you are reaching your current customer base, without leaving out new customer opportunities.

 

Now is the time to be clever about your approach to PPC campaigns. Never hesitate trying new ways to reach customers who have shown interest in the past. Get creative when showing how to compare to your competitors, or when combining campaign elements to increase your sales, and reach new customers.

 

You should have an understanding of just how much your PPC campaign is interacting with other marketing channels during the time of a conversion. If you are not looking at all the puzzle pieces, it’s impossible to truly know how the conversion initially occurred and why it was successful. Visit the Overview report in Analytics to see a tool known as the Conversion Visualizer. Here you will be able to examine what marketing channels worked together to make your conversion a reality. There are many factors that affect a conversion, from the type of search that spawned the ad to the final landing pages that customers are redirected to. Here you’ll be able to get an idea of the path that the potential customer took that resulted in a conversion.

 

Are you aware of just how much PPC is directly affecting your conversions? Not long ago, Analytics only credited conversions to PPC if it was the final interaction leading to the actual turnover. This means that if PPC initiated the conversion or was involved somewhere in between, it was in no way attributed to the final product. You should be fully aware of Assisted Conversions. If you have only been analyzing and reporting these last interaction instances in PPC, then more than 50% of the total generated revenue that was at some point involved with PPC has gone unrecognized.

 

Of course, if you were neglecting assisted conversions as mentioned above you may have also been cutting or holding back on campaigns that were actually generating valuable revenue. If you have not been looking at the big picture thus far, it’s very possible that you have revised keywords, ad groups and placements that were in fact successful in assisting conversions, but may not have been that last interaction. Navigate to the Assisted Conversions report and visit the AdWords tab. Here you can filter the report to reveal Assisted/Last Interaction Conversions to see what portions your campaign has been helping more than you previously thought. You’ll want to consider optimizing bids for keywords that are driving assisted conversions and improve your overall return on ad spend (ROAS).

 

Your Assisted/Last Interaction Conversions report may also reveal that you’ve been underestimating your unbranded keywords. Often, the branded key words tend to steal the spotlight, because they lead to final conversions. Initially however, the potential customer was probably led to your site through a more general search on an unbranded term. If you fail to recognize this initial interaction, then you are giving all of the credit to brand names, and you are not crediting the whole path leading to the conversion. You can take a look at these analytics by visiting the Conversions Path report on AdWords. You can create a new segment that only shows the branded keywords as the final interaction, and filter your data from there to see where the spark may have started.

 

A final important step is knowing your PPC sales cycle and the average length of time it takes from the initial visit to the actual conversion. When you run your reports, consider  that a month-to-month comparison may not be the most accurate approach to analyzing your performance. Analyze larger chunks of time to form a better understanding of how your PPC campaigns are interacting with other marketing channels.

 

In the past, it was difficult to make changes across a series of platforms in regards to negative keywords. The formats were drastically different, so it took careful thought whenever changes were implemented.

 

Google had the widest variety of options for negative keywords, allowing you to use an unlimited number of keywords and apply keywords at the campaign or ad group level. Microsoft’s adCenter presented a more complicated set of limitations. For example, adCenter only allowed one kilobyte of negative keywords, or the equivalent of about 1024 characters, which could be applied at keyword, ad group or campaign levels.

 

Today AdWords and adCenter are more similar than they were in the past. Both platforms allow you to apply negative keywords at campaign and ad group levels, but only adCenter allows negative application at the keyword level. Keep in mind, that if you choose to apply negatives at the keyword level in adCenter you will still be subject to the 1024 character limitation. It is speculated that the negatives at the keyword level may be discontinued in the future.

 

In AdWords you can apply all match types to negative keywords, while adCenter only allows negative match types on the phrase level. Because of this, you will have to be very careful about adding plurals, misspellings and synonyms of the words that you would like to exclude in adCenter. For this reason you also have to be careful to add all specific word orders that you want to exclude.

 

Another thing to be aware of is how adCenter ignores conjunctions and prepositions (words like about, what, on, or, with, of, etc.) when used within keywords. Knowing this, remember that you can choose to exclude prepositional phrases within AdWords, but this cannot be applied the same way in adCenter.

 

Finally, the hierarchical application of negative keywords differs in Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter. In Adwords, campaign and ad group negatives work in a cumulative fashion, meaning they work in tandem. For example, if you have 25 keywords on a campaign level, and 35 on an ad group level, then there are a total of 60 keywords being effectively excluded for that ad group. They work together so that all keywords cover on the ad group level.

 

As for adCenter, negative keywords are considered to be “cascading,” meaning that the negative keywords will only apply at the lowest level where these keywords exist. This can be at campaign, ad group or keyword level, depending on which of these is the lowest level where keywords have been applied. For example, if you apply 25 keywords at a campaign level, and another 25 at keyword level, your campaign level keywords will be ignored, since the coverage has “cascaded” down to keyword level. You need to be careful to recognize the hierarchical difference in platforms because if you used the same negative keyword application in both AdWords and adCenter, it is likely that your click-thru rates would suffer. This would happen because the negative keywords would be handled differently, and possibly less accurately, in adCenter.

 

The most important thing to remember when managing your PPC campaigns across different platforms is to stay current. Make sure that you stay on top of any changes that may be applied to the rules in AdWords and adCenter. Keep your campaigns up to speed so changes can be made across platforms seamlessly. Using negative keywords across PPC platforms is possible; it just takes a little extra planning and monitoring on your end. The end result of your efforts is hopefully a large number of conversions and healthy click-thru rates.

 

Some advertisers have complained that it is difficult to run appropriate campaigns when Google’s trademark terms change from time to time. Google’s terms state that using trademarked company names within an ad can be considered a violation depending on how they are used. There are also rules about bidding on words that are common to certain brands.

 

Unfortunately these rules are not always crystal clear, which can make it difficult for advertisers to feel safe when developing their campaign tactics and advertising messages. Trademark laws vary among different global regions, and there are legal forms that all advertisers should be made aware of before launching a campaign.

 

You have the right, and it is often suggested, to use your own brand or company’s name in your ads. This can be especially helpful if your brand or product is familiar to consumers. Make sure to fill out and submit an authorization form stating that you own your brand’s name and trademark. This authorization protects you when using your name within your AdWords campaigns.

 

The rules are not so cut and dry once you get into the matter of competitors using your trademarked name within their messaging. Factors such as geographical region and how the text is used can determine whether a competitor is in violation. In 2009, Google opened Trademarked Keyword Bidding, giving competitors the opportunity to bid on competitors’ brand names for use as keywords within campaigns. This definitely caused a lot of buzz among AdWords users, and now in certain regions words have to show up with a trademark symbol within those ads for legal reasons. Some ads may be subject to removal if they are deemed “confusing” by leading consumers to believe that the ad is for a service or product that is indicative of a trademarked competitor.

 

If you use a competitor’s trademark within a region not covered by Google’s trademark policy, Google has the right to ask you to remove that portion of the text from the ad and agree not to use it again in the future. If you use a trademark and you are within a region covered by the policy (this list includes the United States, Canada and more than 250 other countries) then they cannot technically disable your keyword use. They can only look into the way that the text is used, and they only have jurisdiction on Google not search partner websites.

 

In European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, Google allows the use of trademarked keywords and only recently has begun completing investigations for improper use due to a series of complaints from advertisers who believe that they were infringed upon. There is another narrow list of countries (including New Zealand, China, and others) that are open to these infringement investigations as well and have resulted in related court cases that have caused violators significant fees and fines.

 

With this in mind, be sure to fill out appropriate forms and do your research when choosing your text in AdWords ads. You would have to formally permit your direct competitor to be able to use your trademark terms in their ads. You are likely not going to do that, so consider yourself safe in this regard. However, if your country of billing and residence falls under Google’s Trademark Policy they can still bid on your company’s brand/name as a keyword. Know the rules to prevent violations that could potentially results in the loss of your AdWords account, or legal problems. You should visit Google’s Advertising Policies for more information about using the brand names of trademarked competitors.

 

Perhaps the most important question you should be asking yourself now is whether you should invest your digital advertising dollars into display or search advertising. Both have proved efficient in properly executed campaigns. What it comes down to should depend on how you want to snag the attention of your audience. Some advertisers may find it is most effective to use both search and display advertising simultaneously, while others may opt to try them independently.

 

Recent reports on industry trends point to search advertising as being the main contender in this realm of advertising. Paid search revenue increased from 15 to 18 percent between 2010 and 2011, and up to an astonishing 28 percent during the third quarter of 2011. Though these numbers are significant, agency professionals at Forrester Research say that display advertising is also on the grow, with numbers projected to triple by 2016, and search numbers only doubling in that time.

 

There are many deciding factors that you should keep in mind when deciding where to invest your dollars. For one, you should consider how an average consumer spends their time online. For most consumers, approximately 96 percent of their time spent online is devoted to browsing content related web sites, while the remaining four percent is time spent using search engines. This information definitely shows the exposure that display advertising can offer.

 

On the other hand, the Pew Internet Study shows that 92 percent of people use the Internet for access to search engines, while less than 80 percent use it to get their news or engage in social networking. In this respect, both display advertising and search advertising have value to offer.

 

The advertiser should be mindful of how an ad’s appearance can affect performance. The nature of display advertising provides the opportunity for a variety of visuals and animation, while search advertising is relatively static and comprised of only text and links. If you have a flashy advertising message that you want to broadcast, perhaps display advertising will work well for you. However, if you have a very specific target demographic that you are trying to reach with keywords or phrases, search might give you the better advantage.

 

There’s no denying that search advertising is at the top of its game. ComScore reported that Americans were responsible for 19.5 billion search queries in September of 2011. As more of these queries are sent into cyberspace everyday, search advertising gets the first chance at capturing the attention of the user, and this can happen in a highly targeted manner. In a lot of ways, search advertising is a means to an end and many times it supplies a consumer with exactly the things for which they are looking.

 

For now, there’s not really a clear “winner” in the battle between search and display advertising. Both are important pieces of any marketing campaign, and can be tailored to meet your needs. You may want to consider trying both approaches to see what resonates better with your audience.

 

Only time will tell whether display advertising will grow at the rapid pace it is expected to, but in the meantime it is becoming more specialized and can be a great addition to any campaign. Of course, search is highly reliable and has the data chops to back it up.

 

Get 2012 off to the right start by researching your options and finding the best way to utilize your search or display campaigns. If you’re feeling brave, try both. If nothing else, it will give you valuable insights about your target audience, and in time you might find that one of these options has the appeal your campaign needed all along.