Optimizing eCommerce Paid Search Campaigns from Tanya Green
I recently spoke with Tanya Green, Paid Search Analyst at Apogee Search. She shared her insights about eCommerce paid search campaigns and even offered a few tips to help eCommerce sites get the most out of their online presence.
Tanya began with a brief explanation of the paid search process. Paid search ads appear above and to the right of natural search results on major search engines. Advertisers generate a list of keywords relevant to their website and then bid on those keywords. Advertisers only pay for the actual clicks they receive on their ads, hence the term often used “pay per click.”
ECommerce paid search campaigns measure success based on sales and revenue rather than leads generated. Most paid search campaigns are lead generation campaigns. This means that paid search strategists must design eCommerce campaigns using different tactics than the typical lead generation campaign.
SEO vs. Paid Search
Many newcomers to search engine marketing wonder whether SEO or paid search is right for them. Typically, it is best to utilize both natural search (SEO) and paid search campaigns to expand your exposure on the search engines. However, for eCommerce sites, paid search may be the most efficient option to immediately drive traffic, while natural search campaigns may take time to build SEO ranking.
Paid search can also produce valuable data on keywords that can help shape the natural search campaigns. This is important as SEO keywords are long-term time investments.
Tayna shared several tips for eCommerce sites:
- Have tightly themed ad groups. This helps keep ads consistent and relevant to the webpage.
- Use relevant keywords. Don’t bid on keywords that have nothing to do with your site. This can improve your quality score, which is used to determine how much an advertiser will have to pay to be ranked in a certain position. The higher the quality score, the lower the cost of a higher position.
- Have calls to action in your ad copy. If you have a current promotion, market it in your ad copy.
- Make your ad copy timely. If you have seasonal promotions or products that make good gifts for certain occasions, promote them at those times.
- Send shoppers to the specific product page (landing page) that they searched for rather than the homepage. Ensure consumers can make their purchase on that page without having to click around too much.
- Adjust bids according to the success rates of those keywords. Bid higher amounts for successful keywords and bid less for keywords that convert at lower rates.
- Use negative keywords to eliminate unqualified traffic. If there are words that are related to your industry but will not bring you qualified traffic, set these as negative keywords so you do not pay for clicks that have no chance of turning into a sale.
