Scaling Smart: Agency Solutions for Growth

Written by

 

 

Whether you’re a small startup with big dreams, or a seasoned business ready to take on the world, scaling a business is your secret weapon for turning dreams into reality. Scalability represents a company’s ability to adapt, expand, and evolve, with no limits. With the right scalable structures, processes, and systems, businesses can experience exponential growth while minimizing risks and maximizing returns. Hiring a digital marketing agency is the best way to create a business growth strategy, as digital marketing specialists are there to focus on advertising so you can focus on what you do best, managing your business. Keep reading to learn more about how digital marketing agencies can help your business stay on top of industry trends and create long-term success.

 

What is Scaling in Business?

Scalability allows businesses to evolve and thrive in a competitive landscape, remaining agile, resilient, and sustaining growth over time. In today’s dynamic and ever-evolving marketplace, businesses must possess the flexibility and capacity to respond quickly to shifts in consumer preferences, technological advancement, and competitive landscapes. Scalability is crucial for organizations to be able to respond to fluctuations in demand, allowing them to take advantage of important opportunities as they arise. Whether focused on new market expansion, launching products or services, or restructuring business processes, scalability ensures that businesses can position themselves for sustainable success.

Marketing agencies play a big role in facilitating scalable growth for businesses by providing expertise, resources, and strategic guidance to maximize marketing efforts. The specialized knowledge and experience in various marketing channels allows agencies to help businesses optimize their marketing campaigns and adapt to ever-changing market dynamics.

Experienced marketing agencies can help both startups and more established brands by providing an invaluable partnership and achieving long-term success in today’s competitive landscape.

 

Agency Solutions for Scalability

Marketing agencies have many solutions to help with sustainable growth. These solutions include digital marketing services, such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, and content marketing, which allows businesses to engage with their target audiences effectively. Agencies may provide technology and infrastructure support, including website development, cloud computing solutions, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, to help businesses streamline operations and scale their processes as they grow. Strategic consulting and planning services offered by agencies assist businesses in developing scalable business models, identifying growth opportunities, and coming up with strategies to achieve their objectives.

Digital marketing strategies serve as powerful tools for driving scalable growth. Content marketing helps to educate and engage potential customers, and social media marketing uses popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram to connect with audiences, build relationships, and promote products or services. Email marketing is an effective way to build brand awareness and create personalized content, leading to more traffic to your website and a higher return on investment (ROI).

 

Conclusion

From digital marketing expertise to strategic consulting and infrastructure support, agencies offer effective solutions tailored to each business’s evolving needs and objectives. With the help of an experienced digital marketing agency, companies can navigate growth challenges, seize opportunities, and unlock their full potential for success. The partnership between a marketing agency and a business looking to expand is an instrumental part of driving scalable growth, fostering innovation, and shaping the future of business. Contact us today to see how we can embrace smart scaling strategies and experience sustained growth together. 

Marketing vs. Advertising

Written by

 

 

Knowing the Difference

How often do you mix up or get confused about the terms “marketing” and “advertising?”

No worries, these are often used interchangeably, and while both are vital components of a comprehensive brand strategy, they both serve distinct purposes and operate on different levels. Deciding to understand these differences can actually help you craft a more effective brand strategy and message. How does that sound?

To get started, the basic differentiation one should make is that marketing is the work and effort it takes to get your brand up and running while advertising is the promotion of what your brand is, does, and offers.

By the end of this read, you’ll never mix them up again!

 

1. Scope and Focus

Advertising: Advertising refers specifically to the promotional activities aimed at promoting products or services through various paid channels such as TV commercials, print ads, online banners, and social media sponsored posts. It focuses on creating awareness, generating interest, and driving sales or conversions.

Marketing: Marketing focuses on the range of activities that help a brand understand its consumer needs, identify target markets, and create value propositions that differentiate a brand from its competitors. It involves efforts like market research, product development, pricing strategies, distribution channels, branding, and customer relationship management.

 

2. Purpose

Advertising: The primary purpose of advertising is to communicate a brand’s message to a target audience and persuade them to take a specific action, like making a purchase, visiting a website, or signing up for a service. It aims to create brand awareness, drive sales, and generate leads.

Marketing: Marketing aims to create, communicate, deliver, and exchange offers that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. It involves identifying and satisfying customer needs and wants through the exchange process to ultimately build long-term relationships and deliver customer satisfaction.

 

3. Control and Communication

Advertising: Advertising messages are typically controlled by the advertiser and communicated through paid channels. Advertisers have direct control over the content, placement, and timing of the ads, which allows them to tailor messages to specific target audiences.

Marketing: Marketing communication is broader in scope and encompasses both controlled (e.g., advertising, public relations, direct marketing) and uncontrolled (e.g., word-of-mouth, social media, customer reviews) channels. Marketing messages are often executed through a mix of paid, earned, and owned media, and may involve two-way communication with customers.

 

4. Duration and Frequency

Advertising: Advertising campaigns are often and usually short-term initiatives with specific start and end dates. They may be launched to coincide with product launches, seasonal promotions, or special events. These messages are repeated frequently to reinforce brand awareness and drive consumer action.

Marketing: Marketing activities are ongoing and long-term in nature, spanning the entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention. Marketing efforts should remain consistent in building brand equity, fostering customer loyalty, nurturing relationships, and driving repeat business.

 

5. Cost and Investment

Advertising: Advertising involves significant upfront costs since businesses must pay for their ad space, production costs, and media placement. The effectiveness of these campaigns is often measured in terms of a return on investment (ROI), which revolves around factors like reach, frequency, and conversion rates.

Marketing: Marketing can require a significant investment from product development, and market research to more cost-effective investments like content marketing, and social and media engagement. The ROI of marketing initiatives is evaluated in several areas such as customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, and overall revenue growth.

 

How They Work Together

The magic really begins when you decide to combine the power of marketing and advertising under one roof because while advertising is a subset of marketing, marketing helps inform and guide advertising efforts. 

By delving into market research, consumer behavior analysis, and trend forecasting, marketers gain valuable insights that shape their advertising campaigns and messaging. For instance, understanding current trends and consumer preferences allows marketers to tailor their advertising content to resonate with their target audiences, which as a result, increases the likelihood of further engagement and conversion.

By housing both functions within a single agency, businesses can leverage these elements’ synergies and efficiencies that drive success across all channels. For example, having marketing and advertising teams that collaborate closely ensures alignment between strategic objectives and tactical execution. When marketers and advertisers work hand in hand, effective campaigns with consistent messaging and a chance at maximized impact are more likely to be delivered. 

Consolidating your marketing and advertising efforts also streamlines general operations, creating a more unified approach to your brand promotion. This also allows for greater agility and flexibility in responding to emerging market trends and opportunities.

By leveraging insights from marketing to inform advertising efforts and combining both functions under one agency, businesses can create more effective and productive brand strategies that drive success across various channels, digital or print. So, the next time you’re pondering the difference between marketing and advertising, remember that it’s not about choosing one over the other – it can be about harnessing their combined power to propel your brand forward.

Do marketing and advertising still sound like the same thing? Let us know!

Contractor Advertising

Written by

Advertising Methods For Contractors

Like all industries, construction is only as successful as its best marketing plan. Choosing the right blend of marketing channels through which to push your business is crucial to your company’s growth and success. Depending on your services and their needs and goals, the formula of marketing strategies will change. While each channel is strong on its own, the perfect mix is unbeatable. 

 

Advertising Strategies 

Within the realm of marketing, there are various channels to choose from. When it comes to construction specifically, some strategies have proven to be more successful than others. These channels are optimized to match the nature of the construction industry, which involves online research and more specialized search locations.

 

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click (PCC) advertising refers to a type of internet marketing where advertisers pay a sum of money each time their ad is clicked on. Because they are paid for, these ads appear generally at the top of search results when the keyword that they target is searched for. Both Google and Bing offer PPC options, with Google Ads being the largest and most used. While PCC does involve repeatedly spending fees, you only pay when the ad is clicked on. So, because it generated a click, the ad is deemed successful. Well-made PCC ads use engaging content that makes the user want to click,  but also keeps them on the page after the fact. 

 

PCC prices range depending on the keywords that are being targeted. The more competition there is for a specific word, the more expensive it will be. Competition, in this case, refers to the number of times a word is searched on Google or Bing. The more searches it has, the more popular it is. Ideally, you want to focus on keywords that actually relate to your business. The more your services match the intended search, the more likely you are to generate a viable lead. 

 

Social Media

Social media marketing is exactly what it sounds like, it involves using various social platforms to push your business and services. The most important aspect of social media marketing is choosing the right platform to push your ads. You want to target the platform demographics that you believe best match your potential clientele.

 

Social Media Demographics Breakdown

 

    • Facebook: Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users, with the main age group being 25-34 (26.3%). The gender split is 44% female and 56% male. While other platforms continue to rise in popularity, Facebook is still the most used and most engaged with. While its main age range is on the younger, statistics show an influx of older people joining the platform.
    • Instagram: Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, with the main age group being 25-34 (33.1%). The gender split is 57% female and 43% male. Instagram leads in the steadiest growth since its inception. Because Instagram and Facebook are owned by the same parent company, Meta, they share the same ad platform which offers various cross-platform promotional opportunities.
    • LinkedIn: LinkedIn has 738 million monthly active users, with the main age group being 46-55. The gender split is 49% female and 51% male. While LinkedIn statistically caters to an older audience, younger groups are visiting the platform. Because the majority of the active users are higher-educated, higher-earning, and more business-focused, it is an excellent advertising opportunity.
    • Pinterest: Pinterest has 400+ million monthly active users, with the main age group being 30-49. The gender split is 78% female and 22% male. Pinterest has one of the most evident gender predominances, making it a more common platform for products often geared towards women. 

 

Directory Online Marketing Strategy

In the contracting industry, there are online directories that function as an index to search and find potential companies to fulfill project needs. These directories can be divided into two main groups, specialized online directories, and general online directories.

 

    • Specialized: Specialized directories include platforms like Thumbtack, Builder Central, and Angie’s List. As a company offering services, you would sign up with these directories and create a profile that describes what you offer and past work. It is important to be thorough when filling out your profile as users will often skip over those that seem lacking. Encourage your past clients to leave reviews as it helps you appear more reputable.  It is important to note that while often setting up a profile is free, boosting your profile to show up higher when people search usually requires a subscription fee.
    • General: General directories are essentially the online version of YellowPages. Though hardly anyone still used the phone books, they may still opt for the virtual avenue. Either way, it is only beneficial to set up a profile in these more general directories. The more you appear on a google search, the more your company will look both professional and reputable. Additionally, these platforms offer sponsored listings where you can pay for your business to appear more often. 

 

Events To Attend

The event space is one where construction differs from other industries. Event shows are a good place for builders and construction professionals to showcase past work and meet potential clients.

 

    • Trade and home shows: Depending on the types of construction your company does, you may find a lot of value in attending trade and home shows. Before attending an event do your research on who is attending. If you target other businesses as opposed to individuals, look for more commercial venues. If you tend to target individuals, then more personal shows may be your best bet. Additionally, if you work mostly in a certain industry like hospitals or retail, look into potential shows that align with your target audience.
    • Community events: While community events aren’t the most lucrative of business opportunities, they offer value in their own right. Sponsoring a community event is a great way to get your brand presence out there as well as help a local cause. Leads aren’t the only important end goal, pushing your name and services to the public can benefit in the long run and foster results down the line. 

 

Publications

While traditional print marketing may seem like it’s on its way out, online versions are still viable sources. Depending on your target clientele, the publication avenue you choose will vary. Direct mail and regional publications are the two primary categories that your business may fall into. 

 

    • Direct mail: Direct mail refers to what many call email marketing. This option is considered rather successful as it is almost guaranteed that the recipient will see it. You can purchase local mailing lists that fall into your target market or generate your own based on past clients and projects. You can narrow these down by type of work and specific locations.
    • Regional publications: Regional publications are more general than direct mail and are also often less expensive. Most places have publications that go out to the general public and highlight life and work in the area. If you’re targeting location-specific clients, it may be worth your time to put an ad in your local regional publication. While quite a few of these publications are printed, they almost always have an online version as well. 

 

Tips For Boosting Your Online Presence

Online marketing is becoming the core aspect to many advertising strategies. Your brand presence, both online and offline, is incredibly important for growing your business. You want to be reachable, searchable, and reputable. With these three things, your service can rest above the competition.

 

On-Brand, Helpful, High-Performing Website

 

A great website is non negotiable. Your company’s platform should be fast to load, easy to navigate and hold all the necessary information for booking work. Investing in a custom-built website is imperative to get a high-quality site that looks good, loads quickly, and has interactive features that are both useful to you and your potential clients. Perhaps it’s a map pack that highlights your location or a responsive form for those looking to inquire. Whatever it may be, a custom site is the best way to guarantee all your features can be built out.  


 Key Elements For a Good Website

 

    • Functional: Good websites function properly in the sense that the flow of the site is intuitive and the clickable aspects are usable. Functional sites need a site map that includes all necessary pages and the key information to be easy to find.
       
    • Clear CTAs: Call to actions (CTAs) are generally buttons that call the user to take a specific action. This can include a “book now” button that leads clients to make an appointment or a “learn more” that leads to an inquiry form. CTAs help users stay on the page and generate potential leads to foster.
    • Optimized for mobile: More and more, most people are doing their web surfing on mobile search applications. It is necessary to build a site that will function properly and look good on a mobile version. If your site is not easily accessed or used on a phone, you may be losing potential customers.
    • Easy to find core information: Core information like location and contact email should be found almost immediately. Most companies opt for placing this type of information in the footer or the header so that it appears on every page. Its exact location, whether it’s at the top or the bottom, is not as important as simply being able to be accessed easily and quickly.
    • Load speed: The more things you add to a site, especially photos and videos, the bigger your site becomes. And the bigger the website, the longer it takes to load. Statistically, sites that are slow to load will get clicked off of and you may lose potential clientele. Custom-built sites that are programmed to your needs can help combat slow load times.
       
    • Reviews: Reputation is everything when it comes to services. While word of mouth is still incredibly important, your online reputation is becoming just as paramount. Most potential clients will look to your online reviews to gauge whether or not your company is worth spending the money on. Online reputation management on platforms such as Yelp, Google Reviews, etc., is worth spending the time and effort. Check in to see where your reputation sits online and if needed, reach out to unhappy or unsatisfied clientele.
    • Commercials: Even as time goes on, television commercials continuously prove to be effective advertising tools. While it is not recommended that you rely on commercials alone, paired with other marketing channels can make for a successful advertising campaign. You want to highlight your unique value proposition. Focus on what makes you better than competitors and why your potential leads should choose you. While this information can be included already on your site, a video provides a visual aspect that some potential clients may respond better to. Though it’s a heavy upfront investment, the long-term results are worth it.
    • SEO work: Search engine optimization (SEO), refers to the process of helping a web page rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP) and generally falls within the digital marketing strategy. When Google is composing the SERP, it crawls through potential web pages and ranks them based on their perceived quality. The higher you rank on the page, the more potential customers will see your company name and thus the more work you may get. Starting a blog on your page is one of the best ways to boost your SEO. Your marketing team can identify keywords in the industry or services in which you specialize, and create content that reflects them. Over time, Google will continue to push your page higher and higher.


Top Ways To Optimize Your Content

    • Cover related questions: Often people search for specific questions to find a piece of information. By identifying these questions and placing them on your site with helpful information, you can rank high in the SERP. Not to mention, you’ll be offering important content in your related field.
    • Keep it updated: Updating your content over time keeps it fresh and timely. This is important as time goes on and searches start to shift slightly in their keywords. By keeping your content updated with the search trends, your page will continue to rank over the competition.
    • Look at the word count: The length of your content is important. Too little information and you won’t be able to compete with other, longer pages. Too much information and your content can be hard to read and people may even potentially click off the page when they can’t find their answers quickly.
    • Keep it easy to read: Content on your page should be easy to read. As a rule-of-thumb, keep your paragraphs short and use headings to segment the piece based on topics. Pass your writing through online editors like Hemingway, to ensure that your sentence length is optimized. 

Conclusion 

Tailoring your marketing strategy to your industry and business is key in crafting the most successful campaigns. Choosing the right channels can take some trial and error, but with proper research you can identify some key spaces to grow your brand awareness and generate potential leads. Marketing is an investment that may not always drive immediate results but holds immense value in the long term.

Why Use Marketing Automation

Written by

Why use automation and email marketing?

Standing out in today’s email landscape has never been more difficult — or more rewarding.

In 2019 293.6 billion emails were sent each day. And that number is expected to rise to 347.3 billion daily emails by 2022.
With the average user receiving 121 emails a day, you might be tempted to think that all the work it takes to cut through the noise isn’t worth it.

But, in 2019, the Direct Marketing Association reported a 4200% return on spend among 197 surveyed marketers. That’s $42 return on every $1 spent. This wasn’t accomplished by just sending more emails and seeing what sticks. Fewer emails than ever are reaching the recipient’s inbox. This incredible return was accomplished by sending smarter, more strategic emails and using the best marketing automation strategies.

Don’t leave money on the table.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the use of a software platform to automate repetitive marketing tasks. These platforms are typically associated with email marketing but can also automate tasks within lead segmentation, lead scoring, and sales processes.

As you visit sites and engage with companies online, your actions are most often recorded and segmented so the company can help you along the buying process effectively. If you visit pricing pages, download eBooks, subscribe to newsletters, and more, you’re helping the company understand who you are and how they might earn you as a customer.

Using these platforms and segment information, a business can send valuable, relevant information to customers at the right time in their customer journey.

What are the benefits of marketing automation?

Marketing automation is an incredibly versatile tool that can help your business accomplish a variety of goals. Automation can help you optimize and shorten sales cycles, lose fewer leads, deliver segmented content to unique audiences, and more. Below are some of the most common benefits that businesses can see from an effective marketing automation strategy.

What email marketing can accomplish:

  • Attract and build a list of leads and potential customers
  • Automate repetitive tasks like rescheduling and abandoned carts
  • Automate CRM tasks like lead status, customer type, and buyer stage
  • Provide timely updates and promotions directly to interested buyers
  • Nurture and propel leads through the buyer’s journey
  • Build and nurture customer relationships through timely and helpful content

Customer Relationships and Automation

Customers today have a variety of choices for every product and service, and it’s never been easier to share customer experiences online. 84% of customers state that they trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Considering how much rests upon your customer reputation, it’s more important than ever that you manage that relationship proactively and effectively.

Marketing automation software can help you build a quality reputation online by serving your customers in a timely and efficient manner.

Some of the ways automation can help manage customer relationships:

  • Sending thank you and confirmation emails after subscriptions and purchases
  • Sending customers relevant FAQ content after they’ve made a purchase
  • Reminding customers promptly about scheduled maintenance or other time-centric concerns they might have
  • Emailing customers review invites at a specific point in the buyer’s journey
  • Emailing customers if they visit critical pages such as cancelation or complaint pages

What are marketing automation platforms?

Choosing a marketing automation platform can be overwhelming. There’s a significant variety of choices with different features and prices. Some platforms are all-in-one and can host your entire marketing and sales automation strategy. Some are small and will help you manage essential email campaigns and tasks. What’s more important than any one specific service is that you choose one that fits with your company’s short and medium-term goals.

Switching from platform to platform is an incredibly time-consuming task. We strongly recommend choosing a platform that will meet your needs not only today but years down the road.

Popular Automation Platforms

  • HubSpot
  • Marketo
  • ActiveCampaign
  • Drip
  • ConvertKit
  • Infusionsoft

How do you get started with marketing automation?

If you’d like to learn more about how marketing automation can help you and your business, and how to get started, you can read more from our eBook on the marketing automation fundamentals.

If you’d like to speak with an Epic Marketing representative about being your trusted email automation partner, fill out the form at the bottom of the page, and we’ll get in touch!

What is lead generation?

Written by

Lead Generation

The lead generation process helps you build interest in your products and acquire new customer leads. These leads can be gathered through a variety of channels like eBooks, guides, webinars, online tools and more. These leads are often created for list building, lead nurture or sales outreach.

Lead generation (creating new interest in your product or service) is an essential part of any business wishing to grow. Even if you only operate out of a single brick and mortar location, new customer foot traffic past your storefront is naturally a part of your lead generation strategy. Most businesses today need to find ways of generating this same spark of interest—but have to do so online.

Gathering leads online poses new, unique challenges that the physical storefront may not have. The first, most apparent issue, is that “foot traffic” is difficult to come by online. Traffic must be earned through SEO, social media channels, or bought with ads. But once you are able to bring people to your site, you’re still not done.

Information is the currency of the web. You may want the visitor to subscribe, fill out a form, or leave their name and email, but the visitor won’t do this without anything in exchange. Giving the visitor a reason to exchange their information is called providing a value offer but is also referred to as lead magnet, or lead bait.

We’re lucky to have so many value offer options when choosing a lead generation strategy. The basic plan is to offer an asset of real value for free in exchange for contact information such as name, email, or other helpful information.
Some of these list-building options involve in-person interaction. Some are entirely online. Choosing what fits best within your marketing plan is more important than choosing any one specific strategy.

Value Offers

  • eBooks
  • Guides
  • Videos
  • Templates
  • Case Studies
  • Webinars
  • Online Tools
  • Workbooks
  • Cheat Sheets
  • Memberships
  • Offers/Coupons

    • No one lead magnet is best. What’s most important is that it’s perceived to have value to your customer and delivers on that promised value. Think about when you give out your email address. Users guard their email and will only exchange it when they believe and trust that the exchange will be worthwhile.

    The best lead magnets have several standard features.

    1. Addresses a real problem that your customer faces.
    2. Promises a quick win.
    3. Are specific in the value offered.
    4. Are easily assessed or digested.
    5. Perceived as high-value.
    6. Instantly available.
    7. Relevant to the host’s domain.

    Once you’re driving traffic to your site and gathering leads with your value offers, you’re generating leads! If your traffic sources are organic and earned, you can anticipate a steady flow of leads as long as you maintain your earned traffic. If your traffic is bought through ads, you can monitor the flow of leads and adjust your traffic accordingly.

    Is lead generation sales or marketing?

    The lead generation process is typically owned by the marketing team but is definitely developed and maintained through collaboration with sales. It’s helpful to think of lead generation as a feedback loop between the leads delivered by marketing, and their sales experience. You can increase your lead quality by closely monitoring results and encouraging communication between your sales and marketing teams.

    It’s important to remember that once you’ve captured a lead, there’s still much more to do. After the lead is earned, you’ll need to nurture your leads.

    Lead Nurture

    Lead nurturing is the practice of helping your contact down the sales funnel by delivering timely and relevant content. This is accomplished by thorough lead segmentation, and message personalization.
    Lead nurture is the process of building relationships and trust with your customers. Answering their questions, and delivering value through the customer experience. The types of content that a customer finds valuable will change as they progress through the sales process. Lead nurture is where you deliver those valuable interactions at the right time.

      Lead Segmentation
      Segmentation is the process of separating your contact list into groups by a chosen characteristic. These groups can be qualities of the contact themselves, such as income or interests. These identifiers can, and should, also include sales-actions indicating the buyer’s journey position. You likely have a variety of customers. Creating unique experiences for them is a powerful way to build relationships, and increase sales.
      Personalization
      Automation platforms allow for a variety of personalization options. These options can include contact names in the subject lines or email bodies to changing pieces of content (like images) on a webpage to match a segmented group of visitors.
      Timely and Relevant Value
      Once you’re segmenting your audience and personalizing the customer experience, your focus should be to provide valuable and timely assets to help them along the buyer’s journey. The types of emails, links, and content that are helpful and appreciated early on in the decision process are much different from those that are appreciated near the end.

      For example, near the beginning of a customer’s experience with your brand, they might appreciate content explaining your product or service. Near the middle of the journey, they might want content comparing similar products or companies via pricing guides or feature comparisons. Near the end, a customer might be concerned with return policies, guarantees, promotions, or bundles

      Your Marketing Automation Strategy
      Effective lead generation is an important part of every business. With powerful and effective marketing automation, your lead generation strategies can help you reach your business goals.

      If you’d like to learn more about marketing automation, lead generation, and what it can do for your business, you can read more in our marketing automation essentials eBook.

    If you’d like to see how Epic Marketing can help your business develop effective lead generation, fill out our form at the bottom of the page and we’ll get in touch with you right away.

    The Importance of Quality Score

    Written by

    How Important is Quality Score?

    Paid search, oftentimes in conjunction with SEO, remains an essential marketing element for many businesses. This being said, it’s surprising that a lot of companies don’t know what makes a campaign succeed. Of the many factors that contribute to a successful paid campaign, AdWords quality score is one of the most important. This blog will explain what quality score is, why it matters, and what you can do to improve it.

    What is Quality Score?

    According to Google, “quality score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.” It is determined at the keyword level and is represented as a number between 1 and 10. All things equal, the higher your quality score the better your ads will perform. An increase in quality score can lead to better ad rank, higher clickthrough rates, and cheaper clicks. Google determines quality score by evaluating three factors: expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. These three factors are rated either below average, average, or above average.

    Quality Score

    Expected Clickthrough Rate

    Expected clickthrough rate takes into account the historical performance of your ads. At the same time, it excludes the effects of ad position (higher ad positions generally lead to better clickthrough rates), ad extensions, and ad formats. Clickthrough rate is a good indicator of relevance and can help you know if you’re sending the right message to the right audience. Your ads are more likely to be clicked when your ad copy is compelling and relevant

    Ad Relevance

    The second factor that affects quality score is ad relevance which measures how closely your ads match your keywords. If your ads brag about the cleanliness of your hotel rooms but appears when someone searches for flights to Dallas your ad relevance will suffer. If your keywords have below average ad relevance you may need to rewrite your ads or break up your ad groups into more specific ad groups. Whenever the search volume justifies it, you should make your ad groups as specific as possible and then match your ad copy to the keywords.

    Landing Page Experience

    Your landing page is evaluated on its content (is it relevant, useful and original?), transparency and trustworthiness, ease of navigation, and loading time. If your landing page was designed following industry best practice you won’t need to change very much. Just make sure you’re sending people to the landing page that most closely matches their search.

    You may have noticed that each of the three quality score factors mention relevance. This is the heart of the whole matter. If you want your ads to perform well if you want a high-quality score, ensure that your ads, keywords, ad groups, and landing pages are all related. People don’t like having to search through websites to find what they’re looking for. Managing the data of short-tail and long-tail keywords can be challenging at scale. Use a tool like Linkio to keep your various keywords organized.

    If you would like to see your quality score improve and drive more qualified traffic to your website, contact Epic Marketing today for a free consultation!

    Google Ads Average Position is Going Away… Now What?

    Written by

    It wasn’t too long ago that Google announced they would be retiring the average position metric in September of this year, but many advertisers are still scratching their heads and wondering what to do in the meantime. Yes, Google rolled out top and absolute top impression share metrics, but many advertisers still rely on average position because it’s seems pretty straightforward (but we’ll get to that in a second) and more important it’s what they’ve been using for years. Change is one of the only constant things in the PPC industry, so what do advertisers need to know in order to seamlessly transition from average position to these newer metrics? Here are a few things you should understand and keep in mind.

    Understanding the Differences

    Average position, simply put, is your average ad position compared to other ads. Seems pretty simple, right? Hold that thought and we’ll get back to it.

    Top impression share is the percentage of the time your ads are shown anywhere above the organic results. In other words, top impression share = Impressions on top/eligible impressions on top. If your ads are shown above the organic results every other time you would have a top impression share of 50%.

    Absolute top impression share is the percentage of the time your ads are shown as the very first ad above the organic results. Absolute top impression share = Impressions on absolute top/eligible impressions on top. If your ads are shown above the organic results and as the very first ad every other time you would have a top impression share of 50%.

    By its very nature, a percentage is a bit more nebulous than a number. Many of us can understand an average position of 2.2, but a search top impression share of 53.70%? That’s not as intuitive.

    So what’s the difference? Average position only looks at where your ad is compared to other ads and the new metrics look at where your ad is compared to everything else on the SERP. You could have an average position of 1.0, but still not be above the fold. The metrics that are replacing average position should give you a better idea about where your ads are actually showing. Here’s a chart from Google that may help.

    Average position chart

    Are the New Metrics Better?

    Technically, yes, I suppose they are. Otherwise, Google wouldn’t be getting rid of average position. However, I’m going to miss the simple, actionable insights you can gain from average position. Does average position paint the whole picture? No, but I’ve been using it for years and check it every time I get into one of my client’s accounts.

    Maybe you’ve already transitioned to the new metrics, but if not, here are few ways you can start getting used to top impression share and absolute top impression share.

    How to Use the New Metrics

    First things first, Google’s automated bid strategies take the guesswork out of tweaking bids to optimize your impression share. There’s even a bid strategy that automatically adjusts your bids based on whether you want your ads to appear anywhere on the results page, at the top of the results page, or at the absolute top of the results page. If, however, you use manual bidding then you’ll need to understand how to use these metrics.

    Top impression share big strategy

    There are different schools of thought, but typically when I’m running a branded campaign I want to be the first ad. I would, therefore, adjust bids and/or budgets to maximize my absolute top impression share.

    If I’m not running a branded campaign, I generally don’t want to be in the first ad position. I’ve found that although you usually get more clicks and a higher clickthrough rate, the increase in cost per click and more importantly cost per conversion isn’t worth it. In this case, I would focus more on top impression share. I don’t care about the absolute top, I just want to make sure my ads get seen.

    How to Improve Impression Share

    There are many different ways you can affect your impression shares, but I’m only going to cover some of the most common ones.

    Budget – This one should be a no-brainer, the more you are willing or able to spend the more impression share you could have. That’s about all I have to say with this one.

    Bids – At first glance, it would be easy to think that higher bids would always lead to higher impression share, but this is most definitely not the case. If you’re limited by budget then increasing your bids could actually lead to a decrease in impression share. Why is this? Higher bids usually lead to higher costs per click which means you’ll get even fewer clicks from your already strained budget. When you’re not limited by budget though, increasing your bids can be a great way to increase your impression share.

    Quality score – This should come as no surprise, but a good quality score can dramatically improve the performance of your ads. When your ads consistently have high clickthrough rates, are relevant to the searcher’s query, and send the searcher to a well-designed landing page, Google rewards you. All things being equal, if you improve your quality score you will get a lower cost per click while at the same time increasing your ad rank. So your budget goes further and your ad appears higher in the SERPs, you’re killing two birds with one stone.

    Final Thoughts

    After reading this you should have at least a basic understanding of the differences between average position and the new top impression share metrics, how to use the new metrics, and a few ways you can improve your impression share. Using this information, I’d advise you to start incorporating top impression share and absolute top impression share into your routine campaign optimizations. You can continue to use average position for now, but remember – it’s going away in September.

    Interested in a free Google Ads audit? Fill our contact form and we’ll be in touch!

    What PPC Metrics Should You Focus On?

    Written by

    When it comes to Google Ads, there’s no shortage of metrics you can track and measure. Last time I checked, there were 101 metrics you can view at the campaign level. The campaign level. Who knows how many other unique metrics there would be if I included metrics at the ad group, ad, ad extension, etc. level? Needless to say (but I guess I’m saying it anyway), there are a lot of different metrics you can track to try and get a clear picture of your marketing efforts. But which metrics should you focus on? What metrics should you base your optimization efforts on? That’s what I want to address in this blog, but before we can answer that question there are a few things we need to consider.

    What stage of the business life cycle are you in? Is your business just starting out? Are you an industry leader? What matters to a startup might not matter to a mature business. Let’s take a look at some metrics that matter more at different stages.

    Start Up Stage

    At this stage, you probably don’t have a lot of brand awareness. You may have a great product or service, but PPC isn’t going to help you very much if no one has ever heard of you. Because of that, many younger businesses focus on awareness metrics. These can include impressions, views, watch time, etc. At this point in time, you should be more focused on getting your brand out there. If you have a great product or service and a smart marketing plan, conversions will come.

    Growth Stage

    Your business is no longer an unknown and people don’t view doing business with you as risky. So what should you focus on? By now you should be trying to hone in on your messaging. At this stage, you should move on from awareness metrics and instead focus on relevance metrics. Metrics such as clickthrough rate, conversion rate, quality score, etc., help you know if your message and offer are resonating with your potential customers. You may still be limited by budget so it’s important to focus on the campaigns, ad groups, and ads that deliver the most relevant results.

    Maturity Stage

    By now, you’ve nailed down your ad copy and are well-established in the industry. You no longer need to focus on awareness or relevance, but can finally spend all of your efforts on driving more ROI. Conversion metrics such as cost per conversion or return on ad spend are incredibly powerful because you can use them to evaluate the effectiveness of your ads. Although you’re probably still limited by budget (unless you have deep pockets or are in a very niche industry), you can now focus on whatever combinations or settings, ad copy, and ad formats that deliver the most value. This is the stage that all business should hope to get to. Your Google Ads account is now a well-oiled machine and should continue to deliver great results month over month.

    To recap, before you can decide what metric to you need to focus on you need to identify what stage your business is in. You may need to focus on awareness metrics, relevant metrics, or conversion metrics. There is no one right answer because every business is different, but whatever stage your business is in, Epic Marketing can help you grow and get to the next level. Contact us today to learn how we can help you!

    When Should You Change an Ad?

    Written by

    “How long should I leave my ads running?”

    “How often should you change your ad copy or image?”

    “Has my ad been running long enough to know if it’s a good ad?”

    These are questions I get asked frequently and, perhaps surprisingly, they all have the same answer.

    Are you ready for it?

    Answer: It depends.

    I know, I know, that’s the kind of answer you’d expect from a marketer, but hear me out.

    An ad should only be changed when you’ve reached statistical significance. Said another way, when you’ve reached a P-Value of .05 you should change your ads. Said again, when you’re 95% confident that one ad will outperform another ad you should pause the underperforming ad. Final time without any statistical jargon, when an ad will outperform another ad 19 out of 20 times you should pause the other ad. Only then can you pause the ineffective ad, duplicate the winner, and create a new variation to start the A/B test all over again.

    Statistical significance, confidence levels, P-values … You may be wondering when this became a lesson on statistics. You can’t know when to change an ad without understanding some basic statistic concepts. Changing an ad for the sake of change is inefficient and ultimately won’t lead to better results. Hopefully these examples will help you understand the importance of statistical significance.

    Example One

    You have two ads running. Ad One has had 5 impressions and 1 click. Ad Two has had 5 impressions and 2 clicks.

    Impressions Clicks Clickthrough Rate
    Ad One 5 1 20%
    Ad Two 5 2 40%

    40% compared to 20% may seem significant, but is that enough data to determine which ad is more effective? At first glance you may think so, but let’s take a deeper look.

    What happens if in the next 5 impressions Ad One gets 5 more clicks while Ad Two doesn’t get any more clicks?

    Impressions Clicks Clickthrough Rate
    Ad One 10 6 60%
    Ad Two 10 2 20%

    Now Ad One seems to be outperforming Ad Two. 5 more impressions could swing the balance again though, your sample size isn’t large enough and you need to let your ads run longer.

    Example Two

    Let’s try that again using similar, but larger, starting numbers.

    Impressions Clicks Clickthrough Rate
    Ad One 500 100 20%
    Ad Two 500 200 40%

    Ad Two is winning, but what happens when both ads get 5 more impressions and Ad One gets 5 more clicks while Ad Two doesn’t get any?

    Impressions Clicks Clickthrough Rate
    Ad One 505 105 20.8%
    Ad Two 505 200 39.6%

    The clickthrough rates barely change and Ad Two remains the top-performer.

    Because the sample size (impressions in this case) in Example One was so small, you couldn’t with any confidence say which ad will outperform the other. Even 5 more impressions drastically changed the success rates (i.e. clickthrough rates). In Example Two though, 5 more impressions barely changed the success rate and Ad Two was still the winner.

    General Rules of Thumb

    Optimize based off of conversion rate when possible, otherwise use clickthrough rate.

    When your success rates are similar you’ll need a much larger sample size.

    When your success rates differ by a large margin you can get away with a smaller sample size.

    The more traffic your ads get, the sooner you can reach statistical significance.

    The less traffic you get, the longer your ads have to run before you can make a change.

    Statistical Significance Calculators

    Say you have a large sample size and the success rates seem to differ enough… Is it statistically significant? Unless the difference is drastic enough, there’s no way to look at a set of numbers and know if you’ve reached the 95% confidence level. Even then you shouldn’t trust your “gut”. This is where technology comes to the rescue. There are a number of statistical significance calculators out there, but I prefer House of Kaizen’s A/B/n split test significance calculator.

    I like this calculator because it makes things simple. Going back to the first example, I’ll put the impressions under #Visitors and the clicks under Conversions. When I hit the calculate button the calculator tells me what confidence level I’ve reached. It even reminds me to wait for a 95% confidence level.

    Statistical Significance Calculator

    How Will This Affect My Campaign?

    I don’t change ads for the sake of change. I only make changes when I’m 95% confident that one ad will outperform the other. By waiting to reach statistical significance I ensure I don’t pause an ad that will end up leading to more conversions or clicks. I duplicate the winner, make additional changes, and then start the process all over again. What this does is lead to an increase month over month in conversion rates or clickthrough rates. The increases aren’t always monumental (especially when I’ve been making these incremental improvements for a while), but they prove the system works. This is a screenshot from our AdWords manager account that shows the increase in clickthrough rate (in blue) and conversion rate (in red) since Epic Marketing implemented this optimization strategy.

    AdWords Performance

    As you can see, waiting for statistical significance before changing an ad has led to massive increases in both clickthrough rates and conversions rates in the last two years. This is a trend we expect to continue.

    Final Thoughts

    All things being equal, the longer your ads have been running or the larger your sample size the more likely you can determine a winner. You should wait until you reach statistical significance before changing an ad and there are many calculators that can help you know if you’ve reached it. By only changing an ad when you’re certain it’s the winner, you can achieve consistent month-over-month increases in conversion rates and clickthrough rates.

    So back to our original questions:

    “How long should I leave my ads running?”

    “How often should you change up your ad copy or image?”

    “Has my ad been running long enough to know if it’s working?”

    Answer: It depends.

    And now you know why.

    YouTube Ad Formats: A Beginner’s Guide

    Written by

    Every year more and more companies are looking to video ads as a new way to promote their products and services. Although several different platforms offer video ads, YouTube is still king. YouTube has allowed companies to run ads since 2006 and their ad platform has come a long way from their fledgling “participatory video ads”. At the time of this post, YouTube offers in-stream ads, video discovery ads, and bumper ads. In this post I will break down the main differences between these three formats.

    TrueView In-Stream Ads

    The first type of TrueView ad, in-stream ads allow you to play your video before, during, or after another video. These can be skipped after 5 seconds. Because you’re only charged when someone interacts with your ad or watches 30 seconds of your video (or the entire duration if it’s less than 30 seconds), you can get free views by ending your video before 30 seconds and giving people the opportunity to skip the remainder of your video. In-stream videos are the preferred ad format for many advertisers.

    TrueView Video Discovery Ads

    Video discovery ads are the second type of TrueView ad and these appear with YouTube search results, next to related videos, or on the YouTube homepage. TrueView ads can vary in length, but the gold standard is 30 seconds. YouTube recommends no shorter than 12 seconds and no longer than 3 minutes. One benefit of video discovery ads is that your ads will have a thumbnail of your video and some text, but you will only be charged when someone clicks on the ad. Make sure to make the text count because you get exposure even if your ad isn’t clicked on.

    Bumper Ads

    Like in-stream ads, bumper ads play before, during, or after another video but aren’t skippable and must be 6 seconds or less. You pay based on impressions so make sure your video is succinct and memorable. Quite a few companies have found ways to do this, Geico’s Unskippable campaign in particular comes to mind. Because these ads can’t be skipped they’re good for getting your message out there.

    Which Ad Format Should You Use?

    With three different ad formats to choose from, it can be hard to choose what format to go with. Unless I have run similar campaigns before, I always let data determine what formats I use and I recommend you do the same. In-stream and video discovery ads are easy to test side-by-side, but unless you make a video with the 6 second limit in mind your video won’t perform well when shortened to 6 seconds.

    If you’re new to video advertising it can feel a bit overwhelming, but never fear! Epic Marketing specializes in helping our clients achieve their KPIs, regardless of the platform. One of the best parts of working with a full-service agency is that we take a lot of the guesswork out of marketing. We’ve worked with hundreds of clients across dozens of verticals and industries. How can we help you?