Author: Jen Casali

Using GDN for Awareness? Here are 3 More Impactful Strategies

In the B2B marketing world, generating qualified leads is typically the highest priority need. Marketing teams are focused on any lead gen method that proves successful, whether it be Google search, LinkedIn, email marketing, Meta, etc. The question digital marketers are often faced with is, how can we raise awareness? How can we increase our top of funnel customers even earlier in the buying cycle? As an agency we are constantly asked to run ads across the Google Display Network (GDN) for awareness purposes. While awareness is definitely important to any marketing strategy, we find the display network to be one of the least effective brand awareness platforms for B2B advertisers. Below gives an in-depth review of the shortfalls of the GDN network, and more effective platforms that should be prioritized ahead of the GDN.  

Why is GDN Not Effective? 

Poor Audience Targeting Options: 

There are minimal options for quality audience targeting within Google. You can create audiences off website visitors, but there are no other options to further qualify the targeted users (company size, job titles etc.).  More granular targeting is critical for B2B companies looking for prospects within their ICP.  More recently, Google introduced custom intent audiences where you can target people who are searching on certain terms or people who exhibit purchase intent related to these terms. While this appears to be a good option for prospecting, we have found impression volume incredibly high for this audience with an influx of poor-quality placements. On average, custom intent audiences generate a 35% lower conversion rate than general site retargeting audiences. 

Placements are Poor Quality: 

The Google Display network consists of millions of websites, apps, and other Google owned properties. Of those millions, we find the majority of placements matched to users to be spammy or poor quality. Typically, we see top traffic and impression driving placements come from international sites, mobile apps/games, parked domains (even when excluding parked domains), or websites with untrustworthy domains. You can remove placements across the display network and you can opt out of mobile apps, but it requires constant daily exclusions given that roughly 90% of placements are considered low quality or spammy.  

3 Alternatives to Google Display Network: 

LinkedIn Ads: 

The LinkedIn platform allows for the strongest audience targeting, letting users build audiences off job titles, company size, professional groups, seniority, industry, etc. In addition to platform targeting, users can also develop campaigns for known targets, such as high priority companies or industry contacts. LinkedIn also allows for multiple integrations to your CRM, allowing for robust strategies to be deployed against your pipeline to assist in down funnel activities.  

Because we can hit such a highly relevant audience, we can utilize more top of funnel advertising methods like sending users to eBooks, guides, webinars, and even events. Additionally, users who are on the LinkedIn platform are more likely to be looking for business related content, rather than a user browsing the internet with GDN. LinkedIn also offers inMail advertising which delivers a targeted, personal message to the inbox of LinkedIn users. According to LinkedIn, 50% of prospects open inMail messages. You can then evaluate performance to see which job titles or roles are interacting and taking action with your brand. 

In addition to lead gen efforts, LinkedIn now offers Connected TV (CTV) as a new placement for advertising. This allows users to advertise on specific television networks, such as the Discovery Channel, Paramount, and Nat Geo, while targeting the same highly relevant, job-title based audience you would have on the feeds. LinkedIn continues to prove to be a more suitable option to spread awareness given the audience targeting capabilities.  

Google Demand Gen Campaigns: 

Google Demand Gen campaigns (previously Discovery) are a form of display campaigns that target just Gmail, YouTube, and the Google Discover feed on mobile devices.  Placement quality is the number one benefit of Demand Gen campaigns due to ads being limited to more legitimate and credible sites. Additionally, Demand Gen ad types are more visually appealing as they are shown across more visual platforms. Demand Gen campaigns can feature carousel ads, where a user can swipe through multiple visually appealing images. Traditional responsive display ads (RDAs) will show ads wherever the placement can fit, commonly resulting in plain text ads across websites. These tend to look “spammy” to users and result in extremely high impression volume. Lastly, Demand Gen campaigns automatically use Google’s AI to generate growth. Automated bidding is required for Demand Gen campaigns with conversion bidding, value based bidding, and max clicks as options. Therefore, campaigns are more focused on goals (site traffic, conversions, etc.) rather than driving impressions like traditional GDN. 

Account Based Marketing (ABM) Platforms: 

There are also other 3rd party platforms like 6sense or Demandbase, which are ABM platforms that allow users to create precise audiences based on ICPs within their B2B databases. These solutions use existing account lists, targeted keywords, and any other data points to identify accounts best fit for your business. Users can develop more personalized ads for accounts based on their stage in the buying journey. Typically, these solutions allow for advertising within the actual platform however you also can export audiences to apply to existing Google ads search campaigns or Demand Gen campaigns for an additional layer of audience targeting. 

In general, it is commonly assumed that the Google Display network is effective for awareness. While building awareness is important for any B2B company, the lack of targeting capabilities and low quality placements lead to highly ineffective spend.  We recommend testing other display opportunities, including LinkedIn and other, more targeted display platforms, to produce more meaningful results.  

If you have any questions regarding display best practices, or would like to discuss how to optimize your digital marketing programs, please contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com.

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The Benefits of Investing in B2B Paid Review Sites Like Gartner’s Digital Market

It’s no secret that reviews are pivotal to the success of your business, regardless of the industry. Whether you are shopping for a birthday gift on Amazon or looking for a design team to revamp your company’s website, reviews are paramount in influencing a purchase.

In 2022, Google released a series of Product Review Updates, designed to prioritize valuable review content and research right within the organic search results. As more review articles enter the SERP, a site’s organic visibility has the potential to drop. And that’s where paid marketing can come into play.

According to Gartner, 71% of B2B buyers start their research with a generic search for products or services, and then explore directories and ranking sites to find the best fit for their needs. It is important for B2B companies to opt into these review site partners like Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice not only to bolster their SEO presence but also as an alternative lead gen strategy to paid search. Websites like Capterra are exclusive to B2B software solutions and attract visitors who are further down the conversion funnel, since they are comparing software and looking for rankings.

Pay-Per-Click vs. Pay-Per-Lead on Review Sites:

Gartner Digital Market’s Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice offer both pay-per-click (PPC) and pay-per-lead (PPL) solutions for advertisers through their vendor portals. By upgrading your free basic listing to a paid account, you can opt into “bidding” through the PPC program. Like Google search, PPC programs use max CPC bids to show your Capterra listing across 1,200 different software categories. The higher your bid, the higher your listing will rank across dedicated software category pages. You can then view click, cost, position, and conversion data. You will only be charged when a user clicks off the Capterra domain and onto your landing page. Therefore, you can also improve overall brand awareness and credibility of your site.

The pay-per-lead (PPL) program offers marketers an alternative way to reach the right software customers and generate sales qualified leads. When a user opts into the PPL program through Software Advice, they participate in an overview with a Gartner rep who will work with the team to determine targeted buyer profiles. They can then set max CPC bids, like the PPC program, on the leads they want to purchase. These leads have already been pre-screened by free dedicated sales representatives who are experts in the targeted industry to ensure that the lead best fits the organization’s target customer profile. Once approved, the hot lead is sent to the appropriate sales team for further nurturing.

The Benefits of Investing in Gartner Digital Markets:

Efficient Cost/Lead and CPCs:

In most cases, conversion rates across Gartner Digital Market sites are stronger than Google search, leading to a more efficient cost/lead. This is likely due to the user being more targeted and further down the funnel, looking for a B2B software solution. Consider the data below, from an organization that completely shifted away from Google due to high CPCs within their industry and devoted their full marketing budget to the Capterra PPC program.

Global Reach:

Every month, 9 million highly invested B2B customers visit review sites looking for software solutions. Additionally, listings are available in 60 different countries.

Strong Customer Service:

Once you opt into a paid listing within Gartner Digital Markets, you are linked with a dedicated service representative. These reps are available for phone call meetings, budget projections, optimization recommendations and general consulting needs.

Landing Page Creation:

Gartner’s team of experts offers services to create conversion-optimized landing pages for PPC clients. Depending on the package type, these landing pages can be translated into different languages and will connect with your CRM system to funnel lead volume.

Easy to Manage:

The vendor portal platform within Capterra is easy to use and manage. Bid management for all three sites (Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice) are located under one view. The bid simulator will give estimated positions which can better help determine bids.

Strong Competitor Insights:

With the help of your rep, you can perform deep-dive competitive analyses to see which competitors have opted into paid listings and which categories they are actively bidding on.

As a lead gen focused agency, we are constantly looking for methods to better improve our lead volume to drive qualified, targeted opportunities for our clients. For more information about review site paid efforts, please contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com or phone at 781-591-0752.

What to Keep in Mind When Launching a Branded PPC Campaign

One of the most commonly asked questions when presenting a PPC proposal to a new a client is “why should we waste money bidding on our own branded keywords?” What is the purpose of bidding on brand when you are already showing at the top of organic listings? Brand can be a core component to any paid search strategy whether you are a massive well-known retailer of a small business start-up B2B company. To some, brand may seem like a “no-brainer” and easy strategy at that. Pop a few exact match keywords into the account, advertise a demo request and let it ride. However, there are actually numerous SEM strategies that can greatly improve your brand performance. First, let’s start off with answering the question on every client’s mind.

Why Bid on Brand When You Have Strong Organic Listings?

There are several reasons why devoting account budget to a brand campaign can be a worthwhile strategy for paid search.

1. Brand ads will help beat out Competition:
   1. It may seem obvious, but many fail to realize the impact that competitors can have on your own brand name. Consider the image below of a branded search (domains have been masked). There are four PPC ads listed (none being the brand searched). The organic listing is shown at the bottom of the page with no meta description above fold. Not only will running a branded ad help win back traffic from competitors, but the keywords will naturally have strong quality scores, due to relevance, and will likely be inexpensive.

2. Brand ads can help improve overall conversion rate
   1. As mentioned above, objectors to brand bidding claim the organic listing will suffice. Brand organic listings will commonly send users to the site homepage. However, in using paid search ads, you will have the opportunity to send that user to a conversion optimized landing page.
3. Brand often makes up a small percentage of budget
   1. Across numerous clients, as an agency, we find that brand campaigns tend to make up only 10% – 20% of account spend usually due to strong quality score and low average CPCs. Because spend can be low, testing out brand can be a cost-effective strategy that will not significantly impact cost KPIs.

Now that we have emphasized why brand bidding can be critical to any PPC program, we have a few strategies to help ensure that your brand campaigns will be a worthwhile initiative if you decide to implement.

1. Register Your Trademark:
   1. It may seem like an obvious next step, but many new organizations put off registering for a trademark. Using the registered trademark symbol in a branded ad is a great credibility booster but more importantly, not having a trademark allows other competitors to use your company name in their ads. “An XX Alternative” or “We’re Better Than XX” are just a few examples of competitor ad copy strategies we have seen. The ability for a competitor to use your brand name in their ad immensely helps with their Quality Score and lowering CPCs, allowing them to run competitive ads cost-effectively.
      1. To remedy this immediately, one you have a trademark, you can fill out a trademark complaint form within Google. All you need is the trademark owner’s name, the registration number, and examples of competitors using your name, and Google will quickly disapprove ads inappropriately using a registered trademark. This is something that you should always be monitoring. In many cases, competitors can simply upload a new ad that will be approved. It is important to be persistent in submitting complaint forms to Google.

2. Robust Ad Copy:
   1. Since brand is often the most successful and consistently strong element of a paid search campaign, it can be easy to ignore the optimization tactics that you practice within non-brand campaigns. It is equally important that your ad copy is robust and utilizes all relevant ad extensions. Ad extensions result in robust ads that take up more real estate in the SERP. Testing is also important in brand campaigns. For example, our agency found through testing across numerous clients, that the use of “Official Site” within headline 1 i(.e. “Client Name – Official Site”) yields higher CTR.

3. Dealing with Aggressive Competitors:
   1. In some cases, like the image above, competitors can be aggressively bidding on your branded terms, driving up CPCs. Organizations can sometimes be forced to bid to position 2 because they cannot afford to pay the inflated CPCs it takes to maintain position 1. One strategy you can take, in order to knock out the competition, is to temporarily artificially inflate your max CPCs. This will force the competitors to have to bid more aggressively and significantly worsen their efficiency. Our agency has implemented this strategy with great success after just one week of inflated bids.

4. Negating Brand in Non-Brand Campaigns:
   1. To best optimize your account, we always recommend breaking out brand and non-brand campaigns. Many times, brand names can still match out to your non-brand broad or phrase match keywords. For example, the query “buy [client name] clothes online” may match out to the broad match keyword “buy clothes online.” For the best reporting, you need to make sure you add in all brand keywords as phrase match negatives to non-brand campaigns.

As paid search marketers it is critical to emphasize and importance of bidding on brand. Not only do we need to be aware of its importance, but we also need to understand the key strategies for brand campaigns. For more information about brand bidding please contact us by email at sales@synapsesem.com or phone at 781-591-0752.

How to use Google In-Market Audiences for Search

While the concept of RLSA campaigns (Remarketing Lists for Search Audiences), Customer Match, and Similar Audiences have been key SEM strategies for some time now, Google has recently introduced the ability to use existing in-market audiences for search. These audiences were traditionally only available for GDN campaigns.  This gives paid search marketers the opportunity to further test and optimize search campaigns using audience strategies and boost keyword performance in a cost-effective manner.

What are In-Market Audiences?

An in-market audience is designed to connect your campaigns to individuals who are actively searching on terms heavily related to your industry. Google analyzes millions of users, looking at search history and site behavior. They even consider previous conversions, looking at what the users have (and haven’t) purchased. Ideally, these individuals are closer to making a purchase, and are past the research stage. These users are divided into audiences that can later be applied to your campaigns. For example, consider the scenario below.

• Joe wants to plan a trip to Florida with his family
• Joe looks at hotels
• Joe purchases plane tickets
• Joe looks at tickets for Disney World

Based on his search history, Joe would be a prime candidate for the travel audience. When you couple intent with the current keyword set, you can hone in on the right audience (see details below). The categories of in-market audiences range from things like software and financial services to dating sites and babies. Once you select a major theme, you have an option to narrow down your selection even more. Below depicts the multiple selections users can choose under the Travel theme.

In-Market Audiences in Display vs. Search

In-Market audiences are not new. Google announced this targeting option in 2014. Yet, the ability to use them within search was announced back in May 2018. Our agency has tested using in-market audiences for display campaigns in observation mode, and consistently saw poor results. Consider our findings below.

Using in-market audiences for search is a different story. Here, the keyword set can be used on individuals that are proven to be relevant. Instead of risking “opening the flood gates” to this audience, like in the GDN, we are still ensuring their relevance through the “searched” keyword. In the chart below, you can see that the in-market audience drove in a stronger click-through-rate as well as a stronger conversion rate when testing in a search campaign.While the in-market audience drove in significantly more traffic while in observation mode, it had a much lower conversion rate compared to the previous visitor audience. We found this audience to be high spending and hugely inefficient across the board. This makes sense. Google-generated audiences can be filled with irrelevant users. This is a common factor and risk with anything using “machine learning.”

How to Apply an In-Market Audience to a Search Campaign:

1. Sign into you Google Ads Account
2. Navigate to the Audience tab in the left-hand panel
3. Click the pencil icon to create an audience
4. Select which campaign and ad group to edit
5. Click the browse tab
6. Select “what they are actively researching or planning”
7. Choose your desired audience

When to Use In-Market Audiences:

The answer is always! For search campaigns, you should always be using in-market audiences, or any audience for that matter. Just because you apply an audience to a campaign, does not mean that you need to increase bids on these audiences. For search campaigns, you can overlay audiences, in observation mode, and then analyze performance of these audience segments. This is a great way to test out if in-market audiences, and which in-market audiences, work best for your campaign.

At first glance, it may seem that in-market audiences are only beneficial for eCommerce, consumer-based businesses, but that is not true.  In-Market audiences provide a great opportunity for B2B business to exclude irrelevant searchers. Applying an in-market audience as a negative to a campaign can help to create a more targeted audience, boost conversion rate, and most importantly save money. Software based companies may find that their conversion rate is weaker for specific audiences bucketed into the travel and lifestyle related audiences like beauty, apparel and hotels.  That being said, negative audiences are not limited to B2B companies. For example, it is pretty safe to assume that a wedding venue is not interested in targeting users whose search history has been focused on dating sites. Again, these assumptions can all be confirmed through testing.

Test, Test, Test…

Before you make any bid adjustments or create targeted campaigns using these audiences, it is crucial that you overlay all relevant audience types to your campaigns and analyze the results. The audiences will gather data over time, and then you can factor in conversion rate and click-through-rate numbers to help aid your decisions.

You may be surprised with the results, which is why we always recommend testing as many audiences as possible. There are obvious assumptions. For example, it is likely that a rental car service, would benefit from targeting users who have previously been interested in booking a hotel. However you may find that users who have a previous interest in beauty and travel convert better for your luxury watch website.

The Future of In-Market Audiences:

As Google announces more and more new features, we can see a common theme evolving. Google is moving toward “machine learning” which ultimately is causing marketers to steer away from the strong reliance on the keyword, and shift gears to focus on utilizing on this user intent data provided from Google. We can expect more and more announcements based on “automated learning” to come from Google. We are keeping up with the trends and determining what works and does not work with these new features.

 To learn how Synapse SEM can help improve your audience marketing strategy, you may complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752

Get Ahead of the Game with Google’s New Expanded Text Ad & RSA Updates

Google has recently announced yet another impactful change to their ad format. In 2016, expanded text ads were unveiled, essentially revolutionizing the basic paid search ad. With these ads, advertisers were granted a second headline, along with a longer description line of 80 characters. Now, Google has come out again and revealed that the format of newly launched Responsive Search Ads will also be available to regular text ads. Users are now allowed to create an additional headline 3 and ads can contain 2 description lines. That’s right…get excited paid search advertisers. Let the ad copy testing games begin.

What is Changing:

The goal of the new text ads is to give advertisers an opportunity to have more “real estate” in the search engine results page and to have a greater opportunity to deliver their message. The changes will entail:

• A 3^rd headline consisting of 30 characters
• A 2^nd description line
  • Both descriptions will have a 90 character limit as opposed to the historical limit of 80 characters

This means that these new ads can contain up to 300 total characters which makes them double the size of an expanded text ad. Essentially ETAs on steroids. While these additional headlines and descriptions are optional, the extra features provide a great opportunity to gain a competitive advantage in the SERP.

What Impact to Expect:

Not only will the ads be inherently larger than the original expanded text ads, but they also will likely drive stronger CTR and overall conversion rate due to the added messaging available. Back in 2016, when ETAs were first available, we saw significant incremental lifts in CTR for the new ads across various clients. Not only is CTR likely to improve, but the option for more content will help to improve quality score. With 2 description lines advertisers have a greater opportunity to enhance ad relevance by using relevant keywords and messaging.  Consider the findings below that document performance when the historical expanded text ads were launched back in 2016.

The expanded text ads drove in a 11% higher CTR than the original ads. More importantly, overall volume grew by 37% which is expected due to the incremental lift in quality score. The enhanced quality score also helped to reduced CPC by 10%.

The notion of the additional headlines and descriptions in search ads came from Google’s latest ad unit, Responsive Search Ads. Earlier in the year Google announced that users will now be able to enter multiple combinations of descriptions that will be rotated automatically by Google’s new machine learning. The idea is that, over time, Google will interchange these headlines and description to find the best optimized ad combination. Advertisers will soon turn away from A/B testing, which is becoming more and more difficult, and rely on Google to automate their ad rotation. While that may be a very scary thought for advertisers, responsive search ads are still in beta and will be rolling out slowly over the next couple of months.The New Future: Responsive Search Ads

In the meantime, users can test out the messaging on their own using the additional headlines and descriptions available within the expanded text ads.

4 Proven Methods to Maximize Your RLSA Efforts and Boost Conversion Rate

In PPC, RLSA campaigns can sometimes be overlooked. Companies often latch on to the idea of flashy image ads to advertise their offerings, but little attention goes to how powerful remarketing can be for a search campaign. It truly surprises me how many businesses fail to recognize RLSA as a valuable paid search strategy. The given benefit of RLSA is that you are targeting users who have historically been to your site. Right off the bat, you know they are interested, and more likely to convert. Simply enabling RLSA and mirroring a current campaign structure can help to improve conversion rate. What many PPC experts do not know is how several simple strategies can boost conversion rate even more. Below explains 4 proven methods of creating a fully optimized RLSA campaign.

1.Excluding Audiences Based off Session Duration

Although it seems simple, excluding an audience compiled of users who have spent, for example, 5 less than 60 seconds on your site can be extremely impactful when it comes to increasing conversion rate. The ultimate goal of effective paid search is to target quality traffic, so why not weed out the bad when it comes to your RLSA campaigns?

In order to determine the proper session duration, we recommend analyzing custom segments within Google Analytics to determine what drives the lowest conversion rate.

Before implementing any sort of new exclusion we recommend confirming results with a test. You can use the AdWords Drafts and Experiments feature to replicate an existing high-volume campaign as a draft. A specific audience, targeting returning users with < 60 seconds on the site, was excluded from the draft campaign. It is important to choose a high-volume campaign so that results can be generated and deemed statistically significant as soon as possible. Check out the results of the test after a couple of weeks running.

As suspected, the campaign with the exclusion was lower volume, but produced much more qualified traffic. Conversion rate improved by 20%.

2. Highly Focused Cart/Checkout Abandoner Campaigns

If your site produces a decent amount of traffic, a strategy targeting cart or checkout abandoners can be key to improving conversion rate. According to the Baymard Institute, roughly 70% of users abandon a site after reaching the checkout point. Applying an audience of users who have reached the final checkout page, but have not converted, to an RLSA campaign can yield positive results.  Since this audience is highly invested in your product, you can increase bids drastically to target this user. Consider the campaigns created below.

It is clear the volume is much lower than a regular search campaign, but the conversion rate and CPA improvements are extremely beneficial. Conversion Rate increased by 60%, while CPA is 38% lower than the search campaign. CPC increased because we are naturally much more aggressive with our bids in the Cart Abandoner campaign. Not only does excluding cart abandoners improve conversion rate compared to regular search campaigns, but it also can help to improve overall account performance.

3. Understanding the Differences between Bid and Bid and Target

Possibly one of the most crucial aspects in developing a profitable RLSA campaign is knowing when to use the campaign setting of “Bid Only” (now called Observation) or “Bid and Target” (now called Targeting). Consider the scenario:

• You have an existing search campaign and you want to apply an RLSA audience to the campaign. If you choose “Observation,” the campaign will function as a regular search campaign, and the bids will be adjusted, based on your audience bid modifier. So, if a returning user searches for a keyword, the bid will be increased based on the modifier. If a new user searches a keyword, the regular Max CPC will be applied. Choosing this option will not cause the campaign to only target returning users.
• You have a new campaign where you would like to solely target returning users. For this method, you would apply the RLSA audience to the campaign and make sure the setting is set “Targeting.” This method is useful when creating custom copy or testing out overly generic keywords. Also, this method will inherently be much lower volume than the “Observations” setting.

Both settings can be key in helping boost conversion rate. It is just critical to know the differences between the two.

4. Using RLSA Audiences with DSA Campaigns:

DSA (Dynamic Search Ads) use the content on your site to target individual users. For example, if your site advertised bracelets and somebody search “gold charm bracelets” the DSA campaign would display an ad, with a dynamically created headline, and send the user to the page that Google determines the most relevant. This time saving strategy is a great way to expand your reach. Since you are not bidding on a specific set of keywords, DSA is perfect for keyword expansion.

A great way to combat the low volume nature of RLSA campaigns is to combine it with DSA campaigns. DSA is often criticized for being too risky, and it tends to generate high traffic.

RLSA is a key paid search strategy that, when used properly, can heavily enhance overall campaign performance. Overlaying the strategies discussed above can help to create high focused campaigns designed to boost account conversion rate.

To learn how Synapse SEM can help improve your RLSA marketing strategy, you may complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752.

4 PPC Remarketing Lists You Should Always be Using

Whether you are a paid search marketer or not, we have all experienced those image ads following us around on almost every site we visit. Remarketing is a feature that allows advertisers to reach individuals who have previously visited their site when they are searching on other sites. Fans of remarketing boast about the ability to easily establish branding and influence customers who are likely to be interested in your product (since they’ve visited your site previously). Critics complain that the “Big Brother” aspect can be creepy and irritating to users. That fact is, remarketing and audience creation are powerful tools for paid search.  When implemented correctly they can increase conversion volume and provide countless opportunities to cross-sell your target audience.  A successful remarketing campaign starts with an audience. Here are 4 remarketing audiences that every search engine marketer should be using.

1. Non-Converter Audiences

A crucial point of remarketing is to attract previous site visitors to return to your site and make a purchase. Many marketers follow through with this strategy by simply targeting all users to their domain. However, they leave out one significant element.  Advertisers are constantly wasting their impressions and sometimes even clicks on individuals who have already converted on their site. A great way to narrow down your remarketing efforts and strengthen your target audience is to exclude anyone who has visited a confirmation page or a specific checkout page. This will also help to improve click-through-rate because obviously, someone who has already downloaded or purchased a product is less likely to click on that same advertisement.

Another key strategy is to specifically target users who have reached a checkout page or a cart, and left the site without converting. These individuals are typically more interested in your product, and you can capitalize on this by increasing bids. All of these strategies can be put in place when creating an audience. Google Analytics gives you the option to exclude users who have completed a goal, and you can also exclude anyone who has visited a specific page (i.e. a confirmation page).

2. Content Nurturing Audiences

Many B2B companies attract low funnel leads through content downloads (i.e.  (white papers, infographics, eBooks, etc.). A great remarketing audience strategy is to create a separate audience list for users who have downloaded a specific piece of content.  Then, you can specifically target those users with deeper funnel CTAs (i.e. free trials and demo requests). This notion can be seen in the results of one of our B2B clients. We set up a nurturing campaign in order to cross market to our previous converting users.  Consider the conversion rate discrepancy between the regular Non-Branded Search campaign below and the special Content Nurturing campaign. Although volume is lower than the search campaigns, conversion rate is 164% higher.  This is an excellent practice for B2B companies who have specialty lead nurturing marketing programs.

3. Similar Audiences

For smaller companies attempting to use Remarketing to acquire new customers it can often be a challenge to create an audience that is large enough to become eligible for the Display Network. For example, a remarketing audience list must contain 100 active visitors or users within 30 days. If you are utilizing very specific and niche targeting, this can sometimes be a challenge. Google remedies this with the introduction of Similar Audiences. These audiences are created by Google and take into account the actions users take within your original audience.  Google assigns any user that has similar search history as your site converters into a Similar Audience. For example, if your audience is targeting users who have reached a page about bedroom comforters, instead of targeting users looking for the broad category of “bedroom furniture,” it will remarket to people looking specifically for comforters on Google.. For more information on RLSA campaigns and Similar Audiences read our latest blog post.

4. Login/Career Page Users

One uncommon aspect of Remarketing audiences is the ability to use them for search campaigns. This is often practiced in RLSA campaigns, but there is one strategy that can be used for almost all search campaigns. Most sites have a Login Page or a Careers Page. Most likely, organizations are not interested in targeting individuals who have visited those pages. A great strategy to implement is to create a search audience targeting visitors to those two pages if applicable. You can then exclude that audience within your search campaign. Doing so will help limit impressions to only relevant customers. This is a technique that can be beneficial for both brand and non-branded campaigns.

If you’d like to learn more about how Synapse SEM can help you improve your paid search or organic strategy, please email us at sales@synapsesem.com or call us at 781-591-0752.

How to Grow Your RLSA Campaigns with Similar Audiences

If you are a Google advertiser you have, without a doubt, been plagued with the client’s request of “How do we grow more traffic?” Growing traffic for any search engine marketer isn’t exactly a difficult task. You can increase bids, target new locations, or switch up your match types. You can launch Display or Remarketing campaigns, using image ads to capture new users.  Let’s face it, growing PPC traffic is easy, but, growing efficient PPC traffic is not. In the end, we all want more conversions, but for the same or lower price. All the above strategies need to be fine-tuned, tested, and matured before anything is deemed successful. We are all familiar with Display and Remarketing campaigns.  However, the more untouched strategy of RLSA campaigns may be the secret solution to growing traffic efficiently.  Recently in May, Google unveiled new additions to RLSA campaigns to further enhance performance.

What is an RLSA Campaign?

RLSA is essentially remarketing for search campaigns. This Google feature lets you customize search ads and bids to people who have already visited your site. You can choose which visitors (non-converters, etc.) automatically are added to your RLSA remarketing list.  Marketers then have the opportunity to develop campaigns, knowing that the targeted user has already visited, and is already interested in your product.  There are two basic ways to target users using RLSA.

1. You can replicate your existing keyword set and increase those bids knowing that the user is typically more qualified. According to Google, industry experts recommend being as aggressive as using a 100% bid multiplier on your keywords. The chart below shows an example scenario of a keyword in a regular search campaign versus the same exact keyword in an RLSA campaign. Even though Avg. CPC increased by roughly 100%, we saw a 253% increase in conversion rate, leading to a much stronger ROI. Users are more likely to convert, because they have already demonstrated interest in your product.

1. The second strategy marketers implement with RLSA campaigns is bidding on more generic keywords, knowing that the user is already interested in their product. For example, if you are running a paid search campaign for a luxury jewelry store, you may want to avoid bidding on the term “earrings”, because it is too broad or vague. However, if you know the user has already visited the earrings page of your site, you can bid on a term such as “earrings” and develop custom ad copy and send that user back to a specific PPC optimized earrings page. RLSA campaigns are also often used to promote discounts and promotion codes via the ad copy to interested users.

How to Grow Your RLSA Audiences:

The one limiting factor of RLSA campaigns, is that your search remarketing list can often times be small. If you are enabling the “target and bid” option for your ad groups, a user must hit your site, and then do another search while matching out to your assigned keywords within a set time period.

You may have noticed that every time you create a remarketing list, whether it be display or search, Google creates a “Similar” audience.  This look-a-like list consists of prospective users that contain the same interests as other users who have visited your site. In May, Google announced that these “Similar” audiences are now available for search campaigns.  Google assigns users to these lists by looking at the query behavior of each site visitor.  For example, say someone visited your site by searching “hotels in London” and converted. Google would then scan queries of other relevant users to assess their overall quality. If someone searches for “best things to do in London” or “where to stay in London,” Google would consider them to be a relevant candidate for a Similar Audience.  Users only remain on a Similar Audience list for 24 hours to ensure the highest amount of relevancy to your product.

The chart below depicts front end metrics comparing RLSA, Non-Branded Search, and Similar Audience campaigns.  As you can see, the Similar Audience campaign generates about 100% more volume than the traditional RLSA campaigns.  Although the differences in ROI are drastic between the two campaigns, the Similar Audience campaign is actually directly in line with our regular Non-Branded search campaigns in terms of ROI.

RLSA campaigns can be a great and effective way to boost overall site traffic in an efficient manner.  When implementing, paid search strategists should consider utilizing Similar Audiences to further grow traffic and capture a wider and more relevant audience.

If you’d like to learn more about how Synapse SEM can help you improve your paid search strategy, please complete our contact form or call us at 781-591-0752.