Tag: Campaigns

20 Buzzword Ideas for Your PPC Campaigns

The best pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns catch the eye, target relevant audiences, and motivate users to click or buy. Buzzwords are one way to reach these goals in the brief amount of time someone may spend looking at an ad.

Effective PPC marketing will always come down to compelling language. No matter how many features you use or Google Ad extensions you add, the best ads will always be the ones with the most powerful ad copy.

What Is a Buzzword?

Buzzwords are popular or trendy words or phrases. They are sometimes referred to as “jargon” or “business jargon.”

A buzzword can be a single word, a short phrase, or an acronym that gains popularity and replaces more traditional words.

Is buzzword marketing effective in business? It can be. There are several instances where marketing with jargon can be appropriate. For example, if you want to show your audience you belong and understand their problems or when you want to filter out irrelevant readers who aren’t likely to buy from you.

Take a look at these ads for companies offering digital transformation. Are they written for a wide audience?

Buzzword marketing digital transformation example

No. They are clearly making an effort to stand out to a very particular audience, and use buzzwords they know will jump out at a potential customer.

These ads don’t explain or define these terms because they know their ideal client already understands them.

How Can Buzzwords Boost Your PPC Campaigns? 

When you only have a moment to make an impression, buzzwords can have a big impact. They become popular for a reason, and they are often catchy and memorable.

We tend to develop a preference for things that sound familiar, and that includes language. This is called cognitive fluency. When we’re familiar with words, we find them easier to understand — and easier to remember.

Why Is It Important to Use Buzzwords in Your PPC Campaigns?

Countless ads are competing for users’ attention. Your PPC ads need to make a big impact in a small space. Buzzwords can help your ad stand out while appealing to the people most likely to become customers.

Here are some of the benefits of using buzzwords in your PPC campaigns:

Grab Attention Quickly

Most readers only skim ads or read the first few words before moving on. Buzzwords can attract attention and quickly target relevant audiences due to swift recognition of the terms.

If you could only use a word or two to catch the attention of your customers, do you think your ad would stand out if you use words like quality, sell, buy, and fast — words used by every industry or business? Probably not.

It would be more effective to let them know your ad is relevant to them by using buzzwords they’ll recognize from their industry or interests.

Increase Your Visibility

Buzzwords can show up in timely searches for hot topics. You can then direct users to landing pages with content that uses less flashy language.

You can also use varying headlines on multiple ads with attention-getting buzzwords and change them as language evolves.

Target the Right Audience

A specialized audience who connects with your ad copy can become a highly motivated and well-targeted audience. Buzzwords allow you to signal that you’re an insider speaking to other insiders, and communicate value quickly based on that status.

Show You Understand Your Audience’s Needs

PPC is about marketing, but your ads are being read by humans who can be swayed by psychological impulses. Most are making practical decisions based on their emotions, whether they realize it or not.

People use this language because they want to belong. When you use the same language, you’ll tap into a psychological need to feel heard. They’ll respond to make sure they aren’t left out of the latest movement.

If your ad can create an emotional response that fills one or more of these needs, you’re likely to inspire action.

Customers are looking for reasons to buy from you. Reassuring them that you know what they’re facing and can solve their problems encourages them to buy from you.

How to Find Buzzwords to Use in Your PPC Campaigns

The best way to find buzzwords that your customers will recognize is to pay attention to the language they use.

What do your customers say when they email or call your business? What language do they use to describe their pain points and the frustrations they face? What are they asking for when they ask for solutions? What words do they use when they write reviews?

Talk to your service department. They talk to your customers all day long, and they’re used to hearing your customer’s language. If you can address these concerns in your ad, you’re one step closer to showing your customers you are listening. This is a powerful shift.

You can also look at conversations in the communities you serve. What are your customers or audience saying online? What are your competitors saying? What topics are at the center of the most active conversations online?

How to Use Buzzwords

If you want to use buzzwords in your PPC marketing, you should have a good understanding of the structure of an ad. Each ad you write will be made up of a few elements:  headline 1, headline 2, and a description.

You may find that your customers only read the headline of your ad, or that some devices cut off portions of your ad due to space constraints. If you use buzzwords to add impact, make sure your customers will actually see them.

20 Ideas to Get You Started Using Buzzwords in PPC Campaigns  

Ready to get started with buzzwords? Here are 20 ways to make the most of them in your paid ads.

  1. Consider the audiences you want to target with your ads.
  2. If these audiences resemble your existing customers, use the language they use. 
  3. Consult online reviews to see how customers describe pain points.
  4. Check your customer emails and form submissions for the solutions they’re seeking.
  5. Review client testimonials for positive feedback and how they describe success.
  6. Ask your customer service department for suggestions.
  7. Look into online forums and social media chats for new buzzword ideas.
  8. Develop your messaging from your customers’ language.
  9. Create your ads from this new messaging.
  10. Make sure your landing page content matches your customers’ search queries.
  11. Create multiple ads with buzzwords that all point to one relevant landing page.
  12. Keep your website content free of buzzwords and jargon that could go stale.
  13. Update and refresh your ads as the advertising language evolves.
  14. Do your best to send users to relevant content so they don’t navigate away.
  15. Think about the buyer’s journey as you write your ads.
  16. Let your customers see themselves in your ads.
  17. Show up as an insider in specialized industries.
  18. Become a trusted source for solutions by showing what you know.
  19. Create urgency by tapping into your customers’ need to be included.
  20. Target new audiences by adopting buzzwords used in their communities.

What’s the Difference Between Keywords, Buzzwords, and Hashtags?

Buzzwords are trendy words that attract a lot of attention — but only for a short period of time. They are not necessarily language that will stay fresh, and could eventually become stale or develop negative connotations. Buzzwords are ideal for short content that needs to make a fast impression, like your PPC ads.

Hashtags are words or phrases written without spaces after a hash sign (#) in social media posts. They allow you to tag your content so people can find your posts when searching for those topics online. Using hashtags on social platforms can ensure you show up in the right conversations online and grow your social media following.

Keywords are the search terms you want to research when trying to show up on the search engine results pages (SERPs.) While keywords are likely to be used in your ads and your site content and may help your content rank over time, they likely aren’t as trendy and short-lived as buzzwords might be.

Popular Buzzword Examples

From real estate to sales, healthcare, insurance, or the auto industry, every industry has its own specific advertising buzzwords.

Where else does language change quickly? Anywhere there is a lot of innovation in new areas and new capabilities being developed.

For example, in technology circles, if you aren’t using the terms your industry is throwing around, you’ll be left behind.

If your customers see you selling without language that positions you as an expert and trusted authority, they’ll go elsewhere. Buzzwords signal to your audience that you are part of the specialized group they want to be in.

In the auto industry, people have sold used cars nearly as long as cars have been on the road. However, the use of the term “certified pre-owned” vehicles is an example of how marketing language has evolved over time.

Buzzword marketing certified preowned vehicle example

Whether you like the term or not, most people will have a different reaction to ads for “used cars” compared to “certified pre-owned” vehicles.

Without using the new term, you might struggle to sell used cars at the same level as dealers who have adopted it. In this case, not using a buzzword could hurt you.

Buzzword marketing used cars example

Examples of Common Buzzwords

  • Disruption
  • Hyperlocal
  • Freemium
  • Clickbait
  • Leverage
  • Touchpoint
  • Transformation

Examples of Common Buzzword Phrases

  • Blue-sky thinking
  • Pushing the envelope
  • Facetime
  • Ping me
  • Digital transformation
  • Big data
  • Next-gen
  • Deep dive
  • Growth hacking
  • Value add

Examples of Common Buzzword Acronyms and Meanings

  • B2B (business-to-business)
  • EOD (end of day)
  • CAD (computer-aided design)
  • ROI (return on investment)
  • AI (artificial intelligence)
  • RFID (radio frequency identification)
  • SEO (search engine optimization)
  • CRO (conversion rate optimization)

How NOT to Use Buzzwords in PPC

Using buzzwords is a powerful way to boost your ad copy and quickly attract attention from specific audiences. However, be sure the buzzwords you use are relevant, widely used by your audience, and don’t have multiple meanings.

Don’t use buzzwords for communities you aren’t a part of or that will confuse your customers. They want to hear the language THEY use, not the language you use internally.

Ad copy needs to make a point at a glance, and without context, so your buzzwords will need to fit these parameters as well. If it needs explaining, it doesn’t belong in an ad.

If your value proposition isn’t clear in the first few seconds, your ad will likely miss the mark.

What About Using Buzzwords In Longer Content?

Avoid using buzzwords in your landing pages and content marketing. Buzzwords often sound dated after a few months, and it’s time-consuming to update pages of content on a regular basis.

Your ads can be updated and refreshed any time there is a change in language or the general response to popular buzzword changes.

Using too many buzzwords in your writing can turn people off and make them think your content lacks substance. Some buzzwords are so overused that they may turn people off entirely.

Examples of buzzwords to avoid include:

  • Low-hanging fruit
  • Hit the ground running
  • Bells and whistles
  • Get your ducks in a row
  • All hands on deck

Conclusion

Using buzzwords in your PPC campaigns can help you target specialized audiences swiftly and effectively. When used carefully, they can effectively trigger an emotional response in your customers and move them to action.

While using compelling language in your ad copy is essential, remember that plain language will always win out over complicated jargon.

Don’t clutter your ads with multiple buzzwords or try to cram unrelated buzzwords into single ads. Let them stand on their own, craft compelling copy for the rest of the ad, and watch your relevance.

Ad copy is a specialized skill, and many business owners find PPC consulting helpful to see results faster. My team offers PPC management if you’d like to get in touch.

Have you tried using buzzwords to boost results in your PPC marketing? What results have you seen?

The post 20 Buzzword Ideas for Your PPC Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

4 PPC Tools to Automate Your Ad Campaigns

The field of ppc (pay-per-click) is constantly evolving. If you use tools that automate some of the ad campaign processes, your campaigns may become more efficient and effective.

Pay-per-click automation tools allow marketers to automate some tasks by using third-party applications. These tools can save you time, improve campaign performance, and reduce wasted ad spends.

Rather than spending your time hovering over dozens of campaigns, you can focus on tasks like pinpointing areas for business growth, increasing audience engagement, and exploring new ad types that will benefit your sales funnels.

That isn’t to say automation is the key to the future, nor are we all going to be replaced by machines. Paid ad campaigns might always need humans to power them, but you can at least catch a break from constant campaign monitoring.

To start this off, let’s take a deeper dive into what PPC automation is.

What Is PPC Automation?

PPC automation refers to the system that charges marketers every time their ad is clicked.

PPC automation allows marketers to control their Google ad campaigns through machine learning, without spending hours tediously updating scope, timing, and targeting. By automating some of the systems and steps, you can leverage third-party applications to do the hard work for you.

For example, if you want your ad to stop running on a certain day, or if you want to change the target audience before the end of the running cycle, you can use PPC automation to control these details. This means no more activating, deactivating, and adjusting your ads by hand.

What a relief.

It also means you can shift your focus back to generating leads and growing your business and let the machine do the hard work for you.

PPC automation tools are a great way to optimize ad performance and focus your time on your larger marketing goals.

Why is PPC Automation a Popular Method?

PPC automation tools allow you to keep up with search engine marketing trends while also giving yourself the time to focus on optimization.

For example, when AdWords became Google Ads, many of the original tools and features were replaced. For a human, relearning these tools can be time-consuming and frustrating. For a machine, it’s instant.

Google actually suggests using PPC automation and smart ad bidding, as it saves you time and increases the performance of your ads.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re new to the paid ad world and want to launch your first PPC campaign.

You don’t know much about online paid advertising, but you understand how to target an audience and want a lower cost-per-click. With PPC automation, you can simply enter your campaign goals, choose your smart bidding strategies, and let the machine do the rest.

Even if Google Ads completely overhauls its system the next day, your machine will still know what to do. That means you can take the extra time to learn more about manual targeting or growing your online community.

ppc automation google ads

Pros and Cons of PPC Automation

Manual bidding can be a great asset to a campaign and offers unique ways of winning conversions and lowering ad cost rates. That being said, it only works when done correctly.

Humans often make errors that machines don’t. It’s not that we aren’t as good as they are, but we are more prone to making simple mistakes. The benefit of automated bidding and ad management is you don’t have to worry about those small, silly mistakes, like targeting the wrong audience. In contrast, leaving the work up to a machine can mean less personalization and some important details may be overlooked.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the pros and cons of PPC automation tools.

Pros of PPC Automation

PPC automation tools work best for long-term, ongoing campaigns. This is because to create a detailed automated system, you need to have relevant data to feed into it. If you’ve just started a new campaign with a new client and you don’t have any reference data to turn to, it might not be the best time to jump into automation.

That being said, once you get the ball rolling, PPC automation tools can save you a lot of time and money when maintaining and monitoring your PPC campaigns.

If a machine can do it just as well as we can, why not let it?

Cons of PPC Automation

Even though it might seem like a set and forget system, there are many details that go into the initial setup of automated PPC campaigns.

For example, you still need to determine which bidding strategies fit your business or what kind of results you want to target.

Also, even an automated campaign can have hiccups. It’s essential to continue monitoring your campaigns even if you choose to use automated PPC tools. The work involved in an automated PPC campaign could be less intense than a manual campaign, but don’t let this make you become a lazy marketer just because you think the computer is handling it.

If you’d rather something else handle your PPC campaigns, my agency is accepting new PPC clients.

Types of PPC Automation

PPC automation is a growing marketing trend and will only get stronger as our paid ad tools evolve. Getting familiar with these tools sooner rather than later will ensure your business can automate and optimize as much as possible.

PPC automation tools range in complexity and cost. You can find ways to automate pretty much anything – it’s just a matter of which steps you want to automate and how much work you are willing to put into your campaigns.

Here are 4 of the most basic ways to use PPC automation.

Integrations and Reporting

Reporting is undoubtedly one of the most frustrating parts of a PPC manager’s life. Think of all the hours spent compiling data, creating spreadsheets, and importing sources to create custom reports.

Automating your reporting systems through integrations can help make this process more efficient. No more manually exporting spreadsheets and no more comparing data.

Integration refers to the different apps and platforms you may want to pull data from when preparing reports. These could be platforms such as Google Ads or Instagram Insights.

When choosing an automated reporting software, be sure to check that it offers the integrations you will need.

Here are a few easy-to-use PPC reporting tools to help make your reporting easier:

Swydo

Swydo was built for PPC managers and is a simple way to automatically integrate data sets from various sources like Facebook Insights or Bing Ads.

Swydo can also help you monitor your clients’ key points of interest and translate them easily into your reports.

swydo ppc automation reporting

Swydo also lets you schedule your reports so they can be automatically sent to your team or clients, saving you an end-of-the-month scramble.

swydo ppc automation report scheduling

Swydo claims to help you increase client retention through their automated reporting systems. Pricing starts at $62.00 per month.

Reporting Ninja

Reporting Ninja boasts more than sixteen different integrations and has a range of reporting templates.

ppc automation report ninja

Plus, it includes cross-platform comparisons so you can combine data from multiple platforms into a single chart or graph.

ppc automation graphs ninja

Reporting Ninja can also help you create SEO and conversion reports on top of your PPC reports. Plans start at $20.00 per month, which includes ten reports.

Report Garden

Report Garden can help you create client reports, monitor budgets, and add new PPC campaigns, all in one app.

ppc automation report garden campaign

Their creative visual reports will help you look great in front of your clients or company leadership.

ppc automation report garden

They also have a range of interactive dashboards so your clients can see their reports in real-time.

Report Garden plans start at $250.00 per month for ten clients. Dashboards and reports are unlimited for your clients to access. Learn more about how automating reports helped this agency scale from 25 to 500 accounts with Report Garden on their blog.

Scripts

Scripts are Javascript code pieces that can tell your ads to perform certain functions based on performance data that you input. Scripts can help you customize specific parts of your campaign to automate and let you pick what data points to use and when.

For example, if you want to add ad schedules for a campaign, you might use a script that looks like this.

ppc automation google script

You don’t have to be a coder to use these scripts. Google has a whole library of code scripts you can use if you’re new to this method.

Scripts are a great way to do split testing, big management, and reporting. They can be used to automate internal or external functions and save you a lot of time in PPC account maintenance.

Custom Builds

Custom builds are certainly the most complicated area of PPC automation. These builds require some expertise, so you might need a developer to help you get started.

Custom builds are coded automations that allow you to customize almost anything in your ads. These builds will enable you to focus on unique metrics and create columns that can segment account data down to its finest points.

PPC Automation custom build column example

Google describes customization like this:

For example, to see the percentage of clicks you get from mobile devices, create a custom column that divides mobile clicks by total clicks. Or let’s say you’re a shoe retailer and enjoy a 40% profit margin for each pair of shoes you sell. To understand your total profit for each sale, ensure your conversion value column tracks revenue. Then, create a custom column that multiplies conversion value by 40% and call it ‘Estimated Profit.’

Comprehensive Software

Comprehensive software platforms allow you to customize, automate, and manage your ad campaigns in a more user-friendly fashion than custom builds allow. A comprehensive software would enable you to do everything we discussed above and more from one simple platform.

Here are a few of the best PPC automation software tools out there, so you can get the most out of your paid ad strategy.

WordStream PPC Advisor

WordStream PPC Advisor is a great pick for small businesses ready to jump into PPC campaigns but don’t have large budgets or big staff rosters to support them.

WordStream offers Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter integrations as well as report building, data analytics, and landing page optimization.

PPC Automation WordStream optimize search traffic screen

WordStream PPC Advisor plans start at $264.00 per month for 12-month plans.

Optmyzr

Optmyzr is a good choice if you’re running multiple PPC campaigns and are looking for a range of automation features.

ppc automation optmyzr

With Optmyzr, you can create, track, and report on your PPC campaigns. You can also automate scripts and alerts directly from the platform. Optmyzr offers integrations for Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, and Bind Ads.

Plans start at $499.00 per month for the pro version.

Google Ads Editor

Google Ads Editor is free for anyone using Google Ads software.

It’s a great platform for managing your Google ads to create, track, and edit your ads directly from the software. You can also make bulk changes, which is a big benefit when running multiple campaigns for a single client.

Here’s a short explainer video:

Although Google Ads Editor is great for managing your Google Ads, it doesn’t offer much integrations. If you’re running ads on multiple search engines or platforms, then you might find this software limited.

Semrush PPC Toolkit

The PPC management software toolkit offered through Semrush is a great asset to campaign planning, keyword research, and competitor research. This tool lets you easily see how you rank against your competitors and how you can modify your ads to out-perform them.

It also offers a range of SEO features like the Keyword Magic Tool, which can show you search volume data alongside suggestions for stronger keywords. (You can also pull keyword data from my tool, Ubersuggest.)

Semrush offers a tiered pricing plan, which starts at $99.00 for the pro version, $199.00 for the guru version, and $399.00 and up for the business version.

Still unsure if you can make paid advertising work for your business? Watch the video below to find out how you can get the conversions you want from paid ads.

Conclusion

Ready to launch a high-conversion PPC campaign?

Interested in using PPC to diversify your web traffic and boost your business?

With these great PPC automation tools, you’ll be able to tap into the benefits of paid advertising and start making conversions that matter.

What are some of the ways you’ve found success with PPC automation?

The post 4 PPC Tools to Automate Your Ad Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Create PPC Campaigns for Real Estate Marketing

Even if you have a smaller real estate business, you don’t have to rely on third-party databases to get traffic to your listings through real estate marketing.

With pay per click (PPC) advertising, you can bring people directly to your real estate website, where you own the medium and are in control of how you present yourself. This means rather than your listing appearing—and perhaps being lost—among a sea of competitors, you can showcase your entire portfolio without viewers being distracted by others’ listings.

PPC campaigns aren’t usually difficult to set up. With a few tweaks, you may reach your target audience more efficiently and bring motivated buyers to your website.

PPC Real Estate Marketing Trends

With six million homes sold in the U.S. in one year, it’s no wonder competition between real estate agents is tough.

As you would expect in such a competitive market, real estate marketing plays a huge role, and the tactics businesses use are always developing.

Today, we see many realtors using trends such as virtual staging, drone photography, inbound marketing, and automation of lead verification. New trends come and go, the need for a good website never changes—and neither does the need to bring traffic to your site.

This is where pay per click (PPC) comes in.

One of the difficulties with bringing traffic to your site is competition from huge online real estate databases like Zillow (236 million monthly users) and Realtor.com. Let’s take a look at a search query for “buy homes in Naperville IL.”

Real Estate Marketing Google search example

As you can see, those large sites are dominating the search engine results pages (SERPS).

However, ranking organically isn’t the only way to get to the top of the SERPs, and PPC may grant you a route to the top of the listings. Through a successful PPC campaign, your website could feature at the top of the page for your chosen keywords, potentially bringing in a large volume of traffic.  

You pay a small fee for each click, but if you’re utilizing the latest real estate marketing trends well, then you could see a solid ROI. PPC allows you to bring traffic to a medium you control, which puts you in control of your marketing.

Selecting Keyword Phrases for Your Real Estate Marketing PPC

PPC could allow your website to appear at the top of the SERPs for virtually any keyword. Your real estate marketing isn’t going to benefit from featuring an irrelevant search term, though. This means you need to find the keywords that work for you and bring in people who convert into leads.

To do this, start by understanding your target audience.

  • What does their customer profile look like?
  • What information are your potential customers looking for?
  • How do they search for that information?

Think about your audience and write out a list of all the ways they might search for your business.

For PPC to work for you, you also need to ensure your landing pages reflect the keywords you’re advertising for. When someone clicks on your ad, the page they land on needs to directly address why they clicked in the first place. Take a look at your current pages and list all the keywords reflecting the content you have on your site.

Once you’ve built up a list of keywords, it’s time to narrow it down so the keywords you bid on are relevant to both your audience and the pages they land on.

Part of succeeding at this is understanding where someone is in the buying cycle. For example, someone searching the keyword “best Chicago suburbs” might be at the beginning of the cycle, where the buyer intent is much lower than later on. Later in the cycle, they may search for “buy houses Naperville IL,” meaning they could quickly become a lead. This distinction should help you understand each keyword’s value and focus your real estate marketing PPC on boosting ROI.

After you’ve narrowed down your list, go to Ubersuggest to find out the cost per click and level of competition for each keyword.

Ubersuggest for real estate marketing

Optimize Your Site for PPC Campaigns that Use Local Keyword Phrases

With all our examples so far, we’ve used what’s known as a “location modifier.” For instance, in “buy houses Naperville IL,” the terms “Naperville” and “IL” allow us to target a specific area. Nothing is stopping you from advertising for “buy houses,” and you’d probably get plenty of traffic—but there’s no point if you’re selling houses in Naperville and the user wants to buy one in Ft. Lauderdale.

Local keyword phrases are vital to real estate agents because they’re selling a product with a fixed location. As location is one of the driving forces behind real estate purchases, many people use these modifiers in their searches.

When you use local keyword phrases, your landing pages must match the search intent. If your advertisement says “houses for sale in Naperville,” then it has to deliver on its promise. Many people will click back to Google if it’s showing houses for rent or homes outside of Naperville.

Setting Max CPC Budgets for Your PPC Campaign

When you set up your real estate marketing campaign, you’re going to be asked to set a budget and decide the maximum you’re willing to pay per click for a specific keyword (max CPC). Remember, you’re not tied into anything—it’s something you can adjust as you go and optimize to get the best results.

To get an idea of your budget, set out the goals you want to achieve with your PPC campaign. For a simplified example, to make $5,000 a month from your advertising and the average value of your houses is $100,000 with a 1% commission, you need to sell five houses a month through your PPC.

The average cost per click for keywords related to real estate is $2.37 with a conversion rate of 2.47%—so, to sell your five houses, you might need just over 200 clicks at the cost of $494. While your numbers might vary from the industry average, you can always adjust your budget based on your average conversion rate and cost per click.

It’s also worth remembering that it’s not all about the price you pay per click, as your advertisement’s quality also plays a part. Google wants to send people to high-quality results, and if your ad achieves this, it’s more likely to be favored by the search engine’s algorithm.

Another way to maximize your budget is by boosting your click-through rate (CTR.) The average CTR for real estate ads is about 3.71%— but if you’re writing excellent ad copy, then you may find even better results. But remember, these are just industry averages, and your experience may vary. An ad budget of hundreds (or even thousands) doesn’t guarantee a sale, but PPC is worth a try for most markets.

Deciding Which Ad Platform is Right for Your Real Estate Marketing

When we think of search engines, our minds are naturally drawn to Google because it’s the biggest, with 3.5 billion searches per day. However, there are lots of different search engines and lots of other ad platforms.

Which ad platform you use should be decided by your business goals and your target audience. For example, if you’re selling sleek condos to millennials, your advertising will look very different than if you’re targeting seniors looking for a second home.

This differentiator is where you could help your real estate marketing campaigns by selecting the right platform.

Social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are vital sources for real estate marketing, and they offer great PPC options. 99% of Millenials and 90% of Baby Boomers begin their real estate searches online, and with billions of people on social media, this could be a perfect way to reach them.

The great thing about PPC on social media is that they are highly visual media. Whereas with Google Ads you might be limited to text, social media allows you to incorporate video, images, and other effects. These tools can help your advertising stand out from the crowd, but you must choose the platform and message that resonates with your audience.

57% of Americans aged 25-30 are on Instagram, compared to 23% of 50- to 64-year-olds. However, the numbers look very different on Facebook, as 68% of 50- to 64-year-olds have accounts. This data shows people search for information differently, and your advertising needs to reflect this. You might find Google is the best way to reach your audience, or you may discover an alternative such as Instagram that offers you the most useful real estate marketing campaign.

Here you can see just how different a promoted post on Instagram could look from the traditional ads you see on Google. These various formats could give you the ability to appeal to particular audience demographics and potentially maximize the effectiveness of your real estate marketing.

Real Estate Marketing which ad platform to use
Real estate marketing SERP

Whichever platform you use, you’ve got to make sure your message suits the medium, and you’re giving people the experience they’re looking for. Various advertising platforms allow you to diversify your marketing, but you’ve got to focus on the techniques that work best for each campaign.

Deciding Which Real Estate Marketing Ad Format is Best

When you come to set up your ads, you’ll find you have lots of format options. The options vary depending on which platform you’re using, but for Google, you’ll have the following choices:

  • Search ads: These are the “traditional” ads at the top of a SERP. These are particularly useful for real estate marketing because they allow you to reach a targeted audience at the precise moment they are looking for your product.
  • Shopping ads: Shopping ads are product-focused advertisements that also allow you to feature at the top of a SERP. However, shopping listings are more commonly used for very specific searches such as “buy Barbie dolls,” where many retailers sell the same products.
  • Display ads: Display ads allow your listing to feature on other people’s websites. While this can be a cost-effective way to reach a broad audience, it’s more difficult to judge where these people are in the buyer cycle because they haven’t made a specific search.
  • Video ads: Video ads play between videos on YouTube and are a great way to incorporate a more interactive aspect to your advertising. Many people use YouTube as a search engine, so it’s another good way to reach motivated buyers.
  • Gmail ads: These advertisements appear at the top of someone’s Gmail inbox and allow you to reach a targeted audience. The difficulty with Gmail ads for real estate marketing is determining buyer-intent. You might be targeting someone because they are interested in real estate, but this does not guarantee they’re looking to buy a house.

The key to these different ad types is finding the ones that best suit your business goals. For many real estate businesses, this is likely to be search ads.

This is because this method may best allow you to understand the searcher’s intent. Someone has put a specific query into Google—“find houses in Naperville”— so you more clearly know what they’re looking for and can judge where they are in the buying cycle.

With options like display ads, you can reach a targeted audience—for example, people looking at a house improvement website—but you don’t have control over searcher intent. As you’re selling something very specific that focuses on location, search ads are a good place to start.

Conclusion 

Pay per click advertising is an essential tool for your real estate marketing. If you’re to take back clicks from online real estate databases like Zillow, then you’ve got to find alternative ways of getting traffic to your website.

PPC is an excellent way to do this, and it could bring large numbers of targeted, highly engaged visitors with a strong buyer intent to your website. From there, you’re in control of the medium and not reliant on a third party who controls your interactions with customers.

If you’re investing in real estate marketing trends like virtual staging and drone photography and you want to maximize their effectiveness, a way you could do this is by getting them in front of a targeted, engaged audience. With good PPC, you could do just that because it may allow you to boost your lead generation significantly—and perhaps sell more houses.

If you do need help with your PPC campaigns, reach out to my team to see how we can help.

Has PPC benefited your real estate business?

The post How to Create PPC Campaigns for Real Estate Marketing appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Use Instagram Filters in Paid Social Media Campaigns

One billion – that’s how many people use Instagram each month.

With such a huge, highly engaged audience, you can bet the competition between brands is tough. This is why small details can make all the difference, and Instagram filters could play a part in making your social media campaigns more successful.

What are Instagram Filters?

Everywhere you look, marketing advice says you need high-quality images to succeed on platforms like Instagram. But what if you’re not a professional photographer?

This is where Instagram filters can be a game-changer for your marketing and particularly your paid social media campaigns—they can make your images look as sleek as if they’d been professionally shot.

Here’s an example of an unfiltered image vs. its filtered twin:

Unfiltered instagram photo of boats on water
Instagram photo of boats on water using clarendon filter

Not only do Instagram filters make things look cleaner, but they also allow you to edit your image with one click. Where most editors make you alter contrast, saturation, and so forth individually, Instagram lets you pick a pre-set filter that suits your image—though you can tweak them if you’d like.

While these filters have been around since 2011, they’ve taken off in recent years. With the added capabilities of augmented reality (AR) technology—which adds imaginary images to those of the real world—they can significantly impact your social media campaigns.

Why Should You Use Instagram Filters in Your Paid Posts?

Social media platforms are competitive, and standing out from the crowd isn’t easy. If you’re going to get the best cost per click with your paid social media campaigns, then your brand needs to grab attention and drive engagement.

When you run an Instagram ad, you don’t have much real estate to work with, so you’ve got to find ways to draw your audience in with the limited space you have.

If you can combine innovative use of filters with creative images and excellent text, then you could achieve exceptional results— as Opel did with their “Opel Adam” campaign. In just two weeks, the campaign achieved a 2.5x increase in registrations and significantly lowered Opel’s cost per registration.

It’s possible to achieve the same results for your business, but you’ve got to make the most of the tools available to you.

If only 18% of Instagram posts use a filter, this means you’ve got an opportunity to make your content stand out over the other 82%. Research shows that AR filters have an average dwell time of 75 seconds, which is four times that of even video content—so using it can make a huge difference.

Social media platforms crave engagement, and if your advertisements give them that, you may find you reach more people for less—and Instagram filters are one of the best tools to help you achieve this.

How to Use Instagram Filters for Your Paid Campaigns

Turning your posts into paid campaigns through the Instagram app couldn’t be easier. All you need is a business or creator account, and then you can get set up with your paid ads.

  1. Click the profile icon in the bottom right-hand corner.
  2. Select promotions.
  3. Choose a post to promote. Instagram will prompt you to use your top post, but you can select any of your previous posts to promote.
  4. Select where to send people— your profile, website, or direct messages.
  5. Define your audience. The easiest option is to choose “automatic,” which targets people similar to your followers, but you can create your own.
  6. Choose your budget, setting your daily cost and how long you want the campaign to run for.
  7. Review and publish.

 

how to use instagram filters for your paid campaigns

To create a promotion through the app, you need to have already created your post or story. Luckily, Instagram makes it exceedingly easy to snap an image on the go, add a great filter, and promote it within seconds.

Tips for Picking the Right Instagram Filter for Your Campaign 

The right Instagram filter might be a quick way to give your images the professional touch, but the wrong filter can have the opposite effect. When you’re choosing your filter, keep these three points in mind:

  • Your images reflect your brand
  • Consistency works well on social media
  • Don’t go filter crazy

Your images help define your brand, so the filters you choose matter. Your filters should reflect the mood of the product or service you’re promoting, and you need to stay consistent with this.  

A great example of this is JetBlue’s Instagram account. You can easily spot how consistency has allowed them to develop their own simple yet effective style by using similar image styles, colors, and more.

Screenshot of JetBlues use of Instagram filters

While the right filter can make things look amazing, “over filtering” can have the opposite effect. You don’t want to alter things so much that they look surreal. Instagram filters are optimized to please, so it’s often worth sticking to the tried and tested rather than over-editing.

If you’re looking for inspiration, Canva studied the most popular filters, and Clarendon, Gingham, and Juno came out on top.

Instagram Filters for Posts

Adding filters to your Instagram posts couldn’t be easier. In five simple steps, you can post amazing images that grab your audience’s attention.

  1. Click the + button at the center of your home screen.
  2. Select the image you want to use from your library, or select “photo” or “video” to create a new one. Click next.
  3. Choose your filter from the list at the bottom of the screen. Remember, you can add more by clicking manage at the end of the reel.
  4. Add your caption, tag people in your posts, post your location, and choose other social platforms you would like to post to.
  5. Hit share.
Guide to Adding Instagram Filters for Posts

Instagram Filters for Stories 

Instagram stories allow you to post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours. One-third of the most viewed Instagram stories are created by businesses, so they are an excellent way to make your posts go further.

The process of posting stories with filters is just as simple as with posts, but you’ll notice a lot more options when it comes to AR filters.

For a live video or image:

  1. Select your profile icon.
  2. Hit the + button in the top left-hand corner.
  3. Select “story” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Use your camera to take live video or images, or select an existing one from your library by clicking on the image in the bottom left-hand corner.
  5. Choose between your front-facing and rear-facing camera if you’re taking a live image.
  6. Select your filter from the reel at the bottom.
  7. Tap the center button to take a picture or hold the button to take a video.
  8. Use the editing buttons in the top right-hand corner to add extra filters, overlay text, or download to your library.
  9. Hit “send to” and select where to share your story.
A step by step guide to adding Instagram filters for stories

Bonus Instagram Filter Tip

If you’re scrolling through Instagram and see a filter you like, you can save it to use on your own stories.

  1. Go to the profile of the person with the filter you like.
  2. Click the smiley face emoji to see all their filters.
  3. You can save it by clicking the down arrow or try it on.
  4. When you’re trying on the filter, click the drop-down menu.
  5. From here, you can save the effect or send it immediately as a story.
  6. The next time you send a story, the filter will be ready for you to use.

Instagram Filters for Faces

When you created your first story pin, you likely noticed there are a lot of things you can do to your face with AR.

AR allows you to add computer-generated effects over the live image you see on your camera. For example, if you want to see what you look like wearing sunglasses, there’s an AR filter for that. The sunglasses appear on your face and follow you as you move.

There are endless Instagram filters with AR, which gives you more options to engage your audience. However, as with any Instagram filters, it’s essential to find the ones that suit your brand.

Some companies have had great success with AR filters on Instagram, such as this one by Ray-ban. But if you’re going to use these filters, then you’ve got to make sure you stay on-brand.

Rayban Instagram Filter of woman with antlers

To create a story with AR filters, simply follow these steps:

  1. Select your profile icon.
  2. Hit the + button in the top left-hand corner.
  3. Select “story” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Choose between front- and rear-facing camera.
  5. Slide between the filters at the bottom and watch as your face is brought to life with AR.
  6. For more effects, slide to the end of the reel and select “browse effects.”
  7. Choose a filter.
  8. Click the middle button to take a photo, hold to take a video.
  9. Click send and then select where to share.
Instagram filters for faces

Other Instagram Features to Help Your Paid Campaign

One of the reasons Instagram is so popular with advertisers is because it gives you lots of tools to give your paid campaign extra oomph. The beautiful thing about it is it’s so easy for anyone to add filters, gifs, text, and music to their images.

While a recent study found that images without text overlay generally perform better than those with text, marketing is all about finding the message that engages your audience, so it’s worth experimenting to find the formula that works for you.

These Instagram features give you added options when it comes to reaching and engaging your target audience.

Adding Gifs

Gifs provide a great middle-ground between static images and video. They were talked about as a big marketing trend, and while AR has taken over somewhat, they’re still a handy tool for your paid Instagram campaigns.

A gif is a quick and easy way to add something extra to your story, and once again, Instagram makes it exceptionally easy to do:

  1. Select your profile icon.
  2. Hit the + button in the top left-hand corner.
  3. Select “story” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Choose between front and rear-facing cameras or open your library via the icon in the bottom left-hand corner.
  5. Take a picture, or choose an image from your library.
  6. Choose the square smiley face at the top of the screen.
  7. Select gifs, or use the search bar to find a specific gif.
  8. Make your gif bigger or smaller by pinching in or out with two fingers and drag it into position.
  9. Select “send” to and choose who you want to see your story.

Adding Text

Instagram might be a very visual platform, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t use for text. The right use of text can help give your posts and stories context, grabbing people’s attention and linking the image to your brand.

Text is a vital part of Instagram because this is where you make use of one of the most important features: hashtags.

Hashtags not only help people find your posts, but they also boost engagement and allow you to zero in on what’s popular in your industry. The statistics show that Instagram posts with even just one hashtag can see an increase in engagement of 12.6%. So with only a little extra text, you can give your campaigns a better chance of success.

You can also use text overlay on your stories. You’re in control of your text’s font, color, and look, which means you have another way of giving your images a professional look.

To add text overlay to your stories, simply:

  1. Select your profile icon.
  2. Hit the + button in the top left-hand corner.
  3. Select “story” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Select your image or video.
  5. Click the “Aa” in the top right-hand corner.
  6. Type your text.
  7. Choose your font, color, and effects, using the tools at the top of the screen.
  8. Hit “done.”
  9. Select “send to” and choose your audience.

Adding Music

Music has always played an important part in advertising. Music helps make advertisements more memorable, evokes emotion, builds the story, and accentuates the brand, so it can be an essential tool.

While some people will use Instagram with the sound off, Instagram makes it so easy to add features such as music that you don’t lose anything by using them.

Again, make sure whatever you choose fits your brand and is going to engage your audience.

Here’s how you can add music to your Instagram stories:

  1. Select your profile icon.
  2. Hit the + button in the top left-hand corner.
  3. Select “story” from the pop-up menu.
  4. Choose between front and rear-facing cameras or open your library via the icon in the bottom left-hand corner.
  5. Take a picture or choose an image from your library.
  6. Choose the square smiley face at the top of the screen.
  7. Click the music icon.
  8. Choose your song.
  9. Edit which part of the song you want to showcase, clip duration, and how you want to credit the song.
  10. Click “done.”
  11. Move the music sticker, making it bigger or smaller to suit your image.
  12. Hit “send to” and select your audience.

Instagram Filter Features Within Other Photography Apps

You might be thinking, “I want my Instagram posts to stand out, so why would I use the most common filters such as Clarendon?” While many brands find success with Instagram’s filters, you have other options if you choose to go that route.

To help you with this, there are lots of photography apps that have curated Instagram filters you can pay for or give you the ability to create your own, including:

  • VSCO
  • Afterlight
  • A Color Story
  • Tezza
  • Spark AR

You may have to invest some time in finding or creating the perfect Instagram filter, but once it’s saved to your Instagram account, you can add it to all your posts and stories in seconds.

Conclusion

The right Instagram filter can immediately improve your images and give your brand an identity. When you’re running paid media campaigns, you want to give your images and videos every chance of standing out from the crowd, and filters can help you achieve this.

Instagram makes it incredibly easy to add this extra element to your posts. Turn your images into posts that people want to engage with and share, then watch how they may improve your paid social media campaigns.

What’s the go-to Instagram filter for your brand?

 

The post How to Use Instagram Filters in Paid Social Media Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns

If you’ve ever led a marketing team, you know it’s easy to get overwhelmed by tasks and plans. Numerous blog posts, social media marketing campaigns, and emails crowd your pipeline. But distractions and urgent issues get in the way, and when you check the clock, several hours have passed. It happens all the time: you miss …

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How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns

If you’ve ever led a marketing team, you know it’s easy to get overwhelmed by tasks and plans.

Numerous blog posts, social media marketing campaigns, and emails crowd your pipeline. But distractions and urgent issues get in the way, and when you check the clock, several hours have passed.

It happens all the time: you miss one deadline and end up missing more. The result is a half-baked campaign that fails to hit your goals.

Without a concrete schedule, this becomes an inevitable cycle.

To solve this problem, consider using a marketing calendar.

Why Use a Marketing Calendar?

In my experience, you need a marketing calendar to get a full overview of your team’s deliverables, deadlines, and tasks.

Recent research in an article by Evinex states that marketers who record their strategies are 538% more likely to complete tasks on time. Consider goal-setting as well, as 81% of people who set goals do achieve them.

I’ve worked on plenty of marketing campaigns, and I can tell you that it’s easier to hit your goals when you can streamline your tasks and manage deadlines.

So today, I’ll show you how to create your marketing calendar.

Step 1: Understand Your Customers

Every task in your marketing calendar should revolve around attracting your target audience. Your marketing efforts’ ultimate purpose is to reach the most customers and get them past the sales funnel.

For example, if you’re offering video games to students, you’ll want to launch aggressive marketing campaigns during school breaks. Similarly, if you’re targeting employed adults, you’ll want to post content during normal break times, after work hours, and or weekends.

Here are questions to consider when planning the activities in your marketing calendar:

  • What does my audience need?
  • What are their interests?
  • When is the best time to engage with them?
  • How will they interact with my content?
  • Are they more likely to sign-up for your program or service during a specific period or season of the year?

You have to think long term to reach the most number of consumers for your marketing campaigns. 

Step 2: Identify Marketing Calendar Responsibilities

Every member of your marketing team has a role to fill. Their responsibilities are often based on their skills, which will determine their tasks in your marketing calendar.

Here are some typical marketing roles:

  • Marketing Specialist
  • Social Media Manager
  • Search Engine Optimization Specialist
  • Email Marketing Manager
  • Web Content Writer
  • Web Producer
  • Product Manager
  • Marketing Analyst
  • Advertising Coordinator

Here an example of how to make it work for you.

  1. Web Content writer: works on blog posts, guest posts, social media copy, and landing pages.
  2. Social Media Manager: responds to social media messages, schedules posts, and plans social media marketing campaigns.
  3. Email Marketing Manager: builds customer segments, oversees email marketing campaigns, and develops contact strategies.

Since most marketers on your team work on different content types or areas, you may want to organize their tasks through other marketing calendars and templates.

Here are common types of marketing calendars to consider:

  • Content marketing calendar: With this all-purpose calendar, you get full visibility of your entire marketing strategy. This calendar includes your team’s marketing functions, content marketing campaigns, podcast series, SEO tasks, etc.
  • Editorial calendar: Use this to streamline the production and publication schedule of blogs or articles.
  • Social media calendar: If your business is active in several social media platforms, you’ll want to plan posts and organize tasks. This calendar lets you track high-performing posts and determine the best times to post throughout the week.
  • Email marketing calendar:  Use this to plan, organize, and schedule the content you’ll share with your subscribers.

The specific goal of each calendar is to organize and schedule your marketing initiatives.

Unlike your marketing plan, which lists down your deliverables, a marketing calendar shows when your team can expect to work on a task. Marketers may use several types of calendars to track related activities in one document.

Step 3: Determine Marketing Calendar Content Quantity and Publication Frequency

Most successful websites have a specific quantity and frequency for publishing content.

It would be best to plot out the content you must create per week or month. Then, once you’ve determined how often you will promote, consider your marketing budget and your team’s capabilities.

The types of content which you can publish per week include:

  • Blog posts
  • Case studies
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Social media posts

A good tip is to finish a consistent number of deliverables each week.

For instance, you can host a podcast episode on Tuesdays and post a long-form blog post every Thursday. Meanwhile, you may aggregate the results of your social media campaigns every Friday.

marketing calendar example

Yes, it can be challenging to plan and fulfill different types of marketing content. But a consistent weekly plan enables your team to establish a routine and consistently finish their tasks.  

Step 4: Identify Marketing Calendar Themes

For B2C retailers, core themes of marketing campaigns revolve around specific seasons or dates. A millennial fashion brand could regularly promote back-to-school outfits near the end of the summer.

In contrast, B2B brands could focus on their industry’s opportunities and challenges. Due to the pandemic, some businesses may want to cover topics such as “digital transformation,” “future of work,” and “long-term impacts of a recession.”

Now get a spreadsheet and list potential themes that are specific to your industry. Set a meeting and invite your team to brainstorm topics relevant to your target market.

Now use Ubersuggest to find out the search volume of each keyword. Themes with a high search volume are likely to be relevant topics that your target audience searches for.

For this example, I used Ubersuggest to research the phrase “digital transformation.”

using ubersuggest to build a marketing calendar

I discovered the topic has a pretty high search volume and a moderate SEO difficulty, so it is a good theme to keep in mind.

using ubersuggest to build a marketing calendar graph

I highly recommend having various themes and topics to cover each month, especially for brands catering to different buyer personas.

In the long-run, this will help you establish a variety and keep posts fresh.

Step 5: Creating a Marketing Calendar Backlog

Next, it’s time to create a marketing calendar backlog.

Think of content projects and marketing deliverables. During the process, you may discover some tasks are better suited for execution at a later date.

Having a content backlog ensures you can document all the ideas for your next campaigns, podcasts, or blog posts.

Here’s an example in Google Sheets to create a content backlog, but you can use other software and apps too.

The document should include the type of content, topic or headline, priority level, and deadline for each content idea.

marketing calendar example

Coschedule has a useful marketing project prioritization matrix for identifying tasks with the most significant impact on your marketing goals.

They suggest using a “10x versus 10% framework,” which goes like this:

  • 10x ideas are relevant to a significant portion of your target consumers. These ideas are likely to increase your results by at least 10x.
  • 10% of ideas refer to projects with minimal or almost no impact on your marketing results.

Let’s see how you can put this theory into action:

  • Step 1: Create an X/Y chart and place “Value” in the vertical Y-axis and “Target Audience” in the horizontal X-axis.
  • Step 2: List down each idea in a sticky note and place them on the X/Y chart. The most valuable projects are placed on the top, while projects relevant to most people are on the right side.

The most prioritized content should be situated on the top right corner of the chart.

Step 6: Create a Marketing Calendar

While there are many calendar tools and software in the market, we’ll use Trello for this article as an example.

A Trello kanban board usually consists of tasks that are organized into lists. 

using trello to build a marketing calendar

However, Trello also has a calendar view that gives users a complete overview of their tasks and deadlines per month.

Here’s how it’s done:

First, create a Trello board.

Hover to the Menu Bar and click “Power-Ups.”

trello card example marketing calendar

On the “Essential Power-Ups” section, add the “Calendar” to visualize Trello cards in a calendar format.

using trello to build a marketing calendar options

To create a task, click a date, and choose the “Add Card” button.

add card in trello marketing calendar

Then type the name, deadline, and task description.

You can open up the tool again and complete the following fields:

trello card example to build a marketing calendar
  • Card description: provides more in-depth information about the task.
  • Comments: gives feedback to team members. You can @mention your team member so they will receive a notification.
  • Add members: lets users assign tasks to members of the Trello board.
  • Add checklist: adds subtasks for activities that require several stages to accomplish.
  • Add due date: adds deadlines to cards.
  • Add attachments: attaches files from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box.

Trello calendars provide a complete overview of your marketing team’s activities and deadlines. By monitoring deadlines, marketers can set priorities and accurately determine the time it takes to complete each task.

Note: Mark vacations and holidays. These events could impact the schedule for your marketing content.

Step 7: Updating Your Marketing Calendar

Planning your marketing initiatives often involve a multi-step process. Prior to publication, most marketing content starts with a draft and requires reviews from superiors.

Here’s how it’s done in Trello with a sample account.

First, a deliverable gets written on the Content Backlog of your Google Sheet. Content with a high level of priority is the first one to get assigned to an author. When a content creator claims a task, the status of the deliverable becomes “In Progress.”

using spreadsheets in progress to build a marketing calendar

Next, return to Trello and create a card for the task. Add a due date, description, comments, and assign it to a member of your team.

blog post trello card example in building a marketing calendar

Trello lets you sort cards into “Lists.” The title of each list can be based on the current status of the task, which includes:

  • Open: a task still needs a deadline, description, due date, and other additional information before it gets assigned.
  • In Progress: a task has been assigned, and your colleague is working on it.
  • In Review: a task has been completed, but it still needs to be reviewed by your organization’s superiors.
  • Completed: the task is done.

If your colleague is working on the task, set the status to “In Progress.”

After submitting the draft, you can classify it as “In Review.”

trello card example in marketing calendar

In this phase, a superior will check the article to make edits or ask revisions. If there are significant changes, the card returns to the “In Progress” column with a new due date.

Once the task receives approval, then the card can be transferred to the “Closed” column.

You can also de-clutter the Trello board by archiving cards upon publication of the post. This removes them from the list.

Step 8: Plan Ahead 

Now that you’ve launched a marketing calendar, you’re ready to plan your projects for the upcoming weeks or months.

Holiday marketing campaigns take months or weeks to plan.

For instance, the entire bundle of holidays for the end of the year include Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, and Christmas. Many marketers may begin holiday planning as early as August to prepare for the influx of customers during their busiest time.

There’s no need to come up with specific content to publish yet. Just be aware of the main marketing campaigns and tweak the plan as you see fit.

Aside from preparing for upcoming campaigns, a calendar will help you set a realistic amount of projects. You can create content weeks in advance to hit your marketing goals during peak sales time. Your team won’t be stressed out with a practical schedule or be forced to downsize the campaign due to missed deadlines.

Conclusion

If you want to build a marketing campaign, you need an elaborate plan to succeed.

A marketing calendar lets you determine how far in advance you need to begin your marketing campaigns and the amount of time you have to fulfill them. Setting up tasks and deadlines is the only way to streamline your campaigns and make sure your team is on track to hit their goals.

How will you use your marketing calendar?

The post How To Create A Marketing Calendar That Will Streamline Your Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

How to Set Up Microsoft Bing Shopping Campaigns for E-Commerce Businesses

Google may lead the search engine ranks, but they’re not the only player in the game.

Bing holds 11.22% of the global search engine market share. Compared to Google’s 72.94%, that may not seem like much — but with upwards of a third of US desktop searches coming from Bing (and Bing-backed AOL and Yahoo), it’s pretty huge.

For ecommerce businesses, that makes Microsoft Shopping Campaigns (formally known as Bing shopping campaigns) a killer opportunity to boost your bottom line.

NOTE: Bing now refers to all platforms related to their shopping ads by the Microsoft name. For example, what was once called the “Bing Merchant Center” is now the “Microsoft Merchant Center.”

Bing Does Not Equal Google, but That Could Be a Good Thing

Long story short: Your paid media strategy deserves diversification, and Bing is the place to find it.

Why?

Because Bing offers unique demographics you may not be able to target from Google Ads.

More than 70% of Bing users are over the age of 35. At the same time, nearly 40% of Bing users have a six-figure annual household income. The company reports a good chunk of their user base comes from the South Atlantic region of the US (which includes various states from Delaware to Florida, plus Washington DC) — but they also have a stronghold across North America, Latin America, China, and more. 

If you are looking for high earners in a particular region, Bing could be your gateway into a lucrative ecommerce market.

Bing has some other perks too, like:

  • Affordable cost-per-click: Bing competition is significantly less than Google, with one ReportGarden study sharing the average cost-per-click for Bing Ads is just $7.99, while the average Google Ads cost-per-click costs more than $20. Of course, this depends on the industry — but a 250% price increase is nothing to ignore. 
  • User-friendly design: You don’t have to be a digital marketing pro to use Bing Shopping (though you may feel like one after you’re all set up.) You can easily craft ecommerce ad campaigns across platforms (Google included) to reach a wider audience.
  • Targeting differentiation: On Bing, you can target the device (desktop, smartphone, or tablet), operating system, timezone, and more. (Google allows similar targeting, but the options are far more limited.) 
  • An in with major websites: AOL and Yahoo both use Bing to power their search engines. This benefit provides Bing shopping marketers with a combined 700+ million unique monthly visitors from these two websites alone. Additionally, Amazon’s Alexa currently uses Bing for web searches.

When used in tandem with Google Ads, Bing can diversify your paid media campaigns for all kinds of ecommerce products. 

For more information about paid shopping and product campaigns, check out this video and the eCommerce Unlocked series on my YouTube channel:

How Does Bing Shopping Work?

When a user searches a branded or non-branded keyword on Bing, they’ll receive a grid of shopping results from various ecommerce platforms, which are usually from big ecommerce giants like Amazon and small businesses with compelling offers and inventory.

If the user has their location tracking turned on, Bing will refine the results by adding products they can find locally.

example of a bing shopping campaign ad -- How to Setup Microsoft Bing Shopping Campaigns for Ecommerce Businesses

Bing “hiking boots” search query

Depending on your layout, these ads might show up as a vertical grid on the SERP’s right-hand side.

As an ecommerce marketer, your Bing shopping campaigns can give you valuable real estate above the fold.

And it may just put you in contact with a whole new audience while you’re at it.

How to Set Up Your Bing Shopping Campaigns

First things first: Create your Microsoft Merchant Center account. 

You can do this by logging onto your Microsoft Ads (formerly known as Bing Ads) account, click the “Microsoft Merchant Center” button, and create an account. You’ll need to verify your store with a destination URL, which may take up to 48 hours.

set up bing microsoft shopping account

Once that’s done, follow the steps below. 

Create an Up-To-Date Shopping Catalog

A shopping catalog (or shopping feed) is where your products live. You can either import your existing shopping feed from Google Merchant Center or create a brand new one. You can upload any new catalogs to your Microsoft Merchant Center.

Import ecommerce product feed into microsoft bing merchant center account

When creating a new feed, don’t forget to set up all of your product attributes.

There are mandatory product attributes (like title, link, price, description, product identifiers, and more), but there are also some optional ones (like color, gender, material, and size).

Add as many as you can because this info helps you connect with users in your target audience. That will help improve your conversion rates —  which is always a good thing.

Create an Audience

Creating a custom audience tells Microsoft and Bing who you want to reach. Aim to create a narrow audience, so you don’t waste ad spend on people outside your target audience.

On your Microsoft Advertising account, head to “Shared Library.” Under the audience header, you’ll click “View Audiences.” This section is where you can lay out your ad’s plan of action once it’s live.

Create a Campaign

From your Microsoft Merchant Center, click Create Campaign. Then click Sell Products.

You’ll adjust your campaign settings, like setting priority levels for each of your Bing shopping campaigns.

Priority levels can be high, medium, or low. The higher priority campaigns take precedence, so set your important campaigns with a bigger budget on high priority while leaving your runner-ups on medium or low.

Organize Your Product Groups

You can organize based on various attributes you’ve given to each product. This feature helps with targeting.

Turn on Automatic Item Updates

This option ensures your ad prices always reflect your website prices, and you’re not advertising products that you’ve already sold. A new consumer isn’t going to give your shop a second look if prices are off or you’re promoting out of stock items.

Instant updates also help you avoid wasting your budget. 

Use Custom Labels to Streamline Audience Targeting

Head to the “Labels” on your product feed in your campaign editor. You can organize campaigns, keywords, ad groups, and ads in a way that works for you.

While it won’t directly impact your Bing ads, this does help you better analyze your campaigns and improve future targeting. That can boost future campaigns and help you optimize existing ones.

Need a more hands-on guide? Microsoft has a training course for newbies.

Tips and Plugins to Optimize Your Bing Campaigns

Why settle for average when your ecommerce shop can run the Bing shopping game?

Try these tips and tricks to optimize your Bing ad campaigns and maximize your ad dollars. You can also view my free PDF of Bing Ads resources.

Import Google Ads to Bing Shopping Campaigns

It may seem like magic, but you can import your shopping campaigns to Bing straight from Google Ads.

All you have to do is make sure your website is set up on an ecommerce platform (think Shopify and the like.) Then, ensure your Google Ads shopping feed and campaign are up and running.

Once you create your Microsoft Merchant Center store and verify it, you can import your campaign using Microsoft’s Google Merchant Center (GMC) Import tool.

import google shopping campaign into microsoft bing shopping campaign

Then, tick the option that allows you to sync the two platforms to keep everything updated.

Universal Event Tracking

Universal Event Tracking (UET) is a Microsoft tool that helps track the sales and conversions that stem directly from your Bing shopping campaigns. 

Events are consumer actions like clicks throughs, add to carts, and purchases. You can track which events matter most to you and follow the consumer’s path from start to finish.

This tracking will help you understand how much revenue you can attribute to your Bing ads. The process includes applying a UET event tag and short web coding to record the conversions as they come.

Use Microsoft’s how-to guide for implementing UET for your Bing shopping campaigns.

Microsoft Ad Extensions

To help businesses of every kind (including you ecommerce folks), Microsoft has developed a series of ad extensions for Bing shopping campaigns.

What are my favorite extensions for ecommerce businesses?

Well, since you asked:

  • Sitelink extensions: Sitelinks are a cool tool that sends ecommerce customers straight to the right page. Word on the street is that you can’t actively control these on Google, so take advantage of this in Bing ads.
  • Image extensions: Add relevant images to your Bing ad using image extensions.
  • Review extensions: Show average reviews for your ecommerce products, right on the ad.
  • Price extensions: List your competitive price to lure in consumers from the SERP.
  • Action extensions: Add a call-to-action to your campaign that’s clear, concise, and action-oriented.

Shopify Ecommerce Store Integration

If you use Shopify to run your ecommerce store, you can integrate it directly with Bing Shopping.

Use the Shopify app to streamline analytics and keep all your data in one easy-to-access place. 

Shopify is especially helpful for ecommerce teams who want collaborative access to Bing shopping campaign info. But regardless of how many people you have on your side, it’s undoubtedly beneficial for Shopify store owners.

Set up Bing Remarketing Audiences

Remarketing is a process that lets you target consumers based on their prior web actions.

Keep in mind, if you import Google shopping feeds over to your Microsoft Merchant Center, you can’t import your remarketing data. That means whether you’re importing or starting campaigns from scratch, you’ll need to set up remarketing audiences manually.

Start with your existing audiences in your Microsoft Advertising platform.

You’ll also want to make sure you’ve set up UET tags and coded them into your website. This tagging makes sense considering you’re basing it off of the customer’s previous actions, so you need to track them.

Once you hit the “Audience” page, click “Create a remarketing list.”

From there, create a tag and configure the settings as you see fit. And whatever you do, don’t forget to save!

Use Local Inventory Ads For Storefronts

Bing’s local feature is pretty cool. It shows your ads for localized product queries, including cities, states, or phrasing such as “near me.” 

So if your ecommerce business also has a local storefront, set up Local Inventory Ads to maximize reach. 

All you have to do is provide your shop’s physical location, upload and submit product info, keep your inventory updated, and enable your Microsoft Shopping Campaigns.

Conclusion

There’s no denying Google‘s prowess, but ecommerce advertisers should consider Bing campaigns as well.

Adding Bing shopping campaigns to your marketing repertoire is an easy way to diversify your paid advertising.

Is your ecommerce business ready for an adventure into the world of Bing shopping?

The post How to Set Up Microsoft Bing Shopping Campaigns for E-Commerce Businesses appeared first on Neil Patel.

Top Recession Crowdfunding Campaigns: How to Push Your Recession Crowdfunding to the Top

The COVID-19 pandemic and the likely resulting recession has most small business owners scrambling for ways to fund their business.  First, be sure you take advantage of all that is offered by the Federal government and your state government, including the Paycheck Protection Plan, or PPP.

How to Run a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign in a Recession

Crowdfunding in a recession may or may not work.  It will be harder to run a successful campaign for sure.  In the best of times, crowdfunding can be hit or miss, so it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to realize it can be worse during a recession.  We can show you how to help yours become one of the top recession crowdfunding campaigns so you can stay afloat during hard economic times.

To become one of the top recession crowdfunding campaigns, you first need to understand what makes any crowdfunding campaign successful.  That’s what we are attempting to help you to do here.  We have found taken a look at some of history’s most successful campaign, and dissected them to figure out what the secret was to their success.

Of course, in a recession people generally have less disposable income.  You can still run top recession crowdfunding campaigns, but it may be harder. The formula holds however. The characteristics of a top campaign remain the same, recession or not.

In both, a healthy dose of luck is needed.  That’s the element that is outside of anyone’s control.  So focus on what you can control.  The first step is understanding exactly what crowdfunding is.

Top Recession Crowdfunding Campaigns: What is Crowdfunding?

It’s actually pretty cool. Crowdfunding sites allow you to pitch your business to thousands of micro investors. Anyone who wants a piece of the action can buy a piece of the proverbial pie.

Investors pledge amounts on a broad spectrum depending on the campaign and the platform in use. They may give $5, $80, $150, or even over $500. Generally speaking, investors can pitch in however much they like.

Though not always necessary, most entrepreneurs offer rewards to investors for their generosity. Typically, this comes in the form of the product the business will be selling. Different levels of giving result in different rewards. For example, a $50 gift may get you product A, while a $100 gift will get you an upgraded version of product A.

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Where Do You Start to Launch Top Recession Crowdfunding Campaigns?

There are many crowdfunding sites, but the most popular are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. While the platforms are similar, there are some very large differences. The most obvious is the timing in which you receive the funds from investors.

With Kickstarter, you have to reach your preset goal before you can receive the funds. If you set a goal to raise $12,000, investments have to reach that amount before you get your hands on any of the money.

Indiegogo, on the other hand, lets you choose if you want to receive funds as they come in or wait until you reach your goal. In addition, they have the option for InDemand, which lets you continue to raise funds after your initial campaign is over, without technically starting a new campaign.

Indiegogo also has a flexible funding option for those who may need it.

Each have warranted amazing results for many entrepreneurs. To make the choice for yourself, you need to evaluate who your audience is, and which platform will best reach them.

How Successful Can A Crowdfunding Campaign Really Be?

It can be quite successful actually. While it certainly isn’t the norm, these top campaigns far exceeded their fundraising goals.

Pebble Smart Watch

Pebble actually has several of the top 10 campaigns ever on Kickstarter. Their 2nd campaign is the highest funded campaign to date, reaching over $20,000,000. That’s not too shabby for a goal of only $500,000. They blew it out of the water!

Are they still successful? Well, yeah, but not in the way you may think. They actually sold to FitBit. I call that success, but they no longer exist as their own company.

FlowHive

This one is not one that most would expect to explode onto the scene the way it did. The FlowHive Indiegogo campaign definitely generated some major buzz. The idea was to find a way to get the honey from bees without harming the bees.

Traditionally, hives are simply broken open to obtain the honey. This process can kill the bees. FlowHive developed a fake hive of sorts, made from reusable plastic. Bees make honey in it, and the honey flows through a spout out into the world. The bees are safe and fresh honey is ours for the taking.

Apparently, beekeeping is a growing interest. This campaign raised $14,000,000. Though they won’t disclose exact numbers, the bees at the top claim they are still buzzing along nicely.

CoolestCooler

The CoolestCooler was a Kickstarter campaign that came in at over $13.000,000 raised. The cooler boasted bluetooth and a blender among other super cool gadgets. Investors received a cooler for their donation toward the cause.

This one did run into some trouble when it wasn’t able to deliver investment rewards as quickly as promised, and there was actually a lawsuit. In the end, everything worked out and everyone got their rewards.

The cool gang at CoolestCooler says they are glad to put that behind them and get back to work. You can still buy one today, and it is definitely cool.

Kingdom Death Monster 1.5

Yeah, you read that right. What do you say to that? Well, apparently a lot of people said yes. They said yes to the tune of $12,000,000 on Kickstarter.

It’s a board game, if you are wondering. It did take a while to get the ball rolling, but investors finally got their copy. After production stopped resale values went upwards of $1,000. A later campaign promising updated material did just as well. Seems like a lot people love horror games.

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BauBox Travel Jacket

This jacket was set to be hot with 10 different go-go gadget like design elements like a drink holder and a neck pillow. They raised over $11,000,000 across 2 campaigns. While it had a bumpy start, including the jacket being available on retail sites before investors even got theirs, it is still selling today.

What Makes a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign?

There is never a guarantee, but there are a few things that most campaigns that reach epic status have in common. These things don’t guarantee success, but they can usually help you get over any bumps in the road if you also have a great business idea and everything else in place.

Without further ado, here are our best tips for how to become one of the top recession crowdfunding campaigns:

Research

You can’t go in blind.  You have got to know what you are getting into. This is a risk, and research is your protection.  It’s like you are jumping out of a plane, and research is your parachute.

Make sure you can meet demand. Know your market. Find out how much you actually need before you set your goal. Many a well-meaning entrepreneur has kicked off a campaign only to find the demand isn’t there or their goal fell short of what they actually needed to get started.

Show Them Something Real

If you are selling a product, have a sample to show investors. This is key to becoming one of the top recession crowdfunding campaigns. People are much more likely to jump onboard if they can actually see the ship. This one is so important that Kickstarter actually requires you to have a prototype to show investors.

Crowdfunding Platforms are not One Size Fits All

Once you know who your target audience is, you can decide if you would be best served by Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or some other, lesser known yet equally successful platform. If your audience doesn’t frequent the platform you are on, it won’t matter how great your idea or product is. They will never see it.

Do Not Be Afraid to Offer Incentives

But be sure you can deliver. Be fearless. Don’t hold back. I mean, don’t give away the company either, but if someone one is going to help you get started, they deserve something pretty epic for their trouble. Don’t you think?  Go beyond a thank you note and be generous with what you offer as a reward for their support.

Goal Setting is Vital

Setting attainable goals is absolutely necessary to becoming one of the top recession crowdfunding campaigns. Make sure you crunch the numbers with actual facts before you set a fundraising goal.  Be

certain you have production facilities on the line that can meet the timeline goals. Never set random goals with no clue what it will take to reach them or if they are even realistic to reach.

Be Extra with Marketing Materials

You can’t just throw something together. Videos need to be professionally edited. Social media needs to be specifically geared toward your audience. This means you, of course, need to know your audience well.  Are they preppy?  Cheesy?  Hippy?  Play to what they love.

All marketing has to be relatable to your core audience.

Does Being One of the Top Recession Crowdfunding Campaigns Guarantee Success?

No, it doesn’t. If you don’t have the other pieces of the puzzle in place, it doesn’t matter how much you raise, you won’t be able to make a go of it. Meeting your crowdfunding goals certainly helps however.

Just be sure you can meet expectations. If you make promises to investors, keep them. Get your arms around how long it will take to deliver and don’t promise anything any sooner than you can actually handle, taking the recession into account.

If there are problems, address them like a professional. Communication with investors goes a long way.

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Have a Back Up Plan

Now, what if you do everything right and it still isn’t enough? This is where having solid business credit comes in. If you need to bridge the gap between your crowdfunding funds and capital needs, a good old-fashioned working capital loan or even business credit cards can get you there.

How to Get Business Credit

Start working on your business credit in conjunction with your crowdfunding campaign, if you haven’t already.  It is never too early.  The first steps are the easiest.  You need to get separate contact information for your business.  This includes an address and a phone number that are not your own.  It also means getting a separate business bank account and using it for all business-related transactions.

Make certain your phone number is toll free, and list it along with your business address under the business name in the directories.

You also need a professional business website and dedicated email address.  The email address should have the same URL as the website.  Do not use a free service such as Yahoo or Gmail.

In addition to these simple things, there are a few other steps that will help further separate your business from yourself.  These include formally incorporating, obtaining an EIN, and applying for a DUNS number.

When it comes to incorporating, you can choose from a corporation, an S-corp, or a limited liability corporation.  They vary in cost and the amount of liability protection they offer, but they all serve the purpose of separating your business so you can build business credit equally.

You can obtain an EIN for free on the IRS website, and the DUNS number is free through the Dun & Bradstreet website.

What’s Next?

Work with starter vendors in the vendor credit tier.  These are vendors that will offer net 30 invoice terms without a credit check, and then they will report your payments to the credit agencies.  If you have laid the groundwork by establishing your business as separate from yourself and getting the necessary identifying numbers, you will now be well on your way to building business credit.

Top Recession Crowdfunding Campaigns are Possible

They really are, but they are not always enough.  Follow these tips and you may meet all your crowdfunding goals.  Start building business credit now though, so that if it isn’t enough, you will have something to fall back on.  Funding a business is never easy, and a recession makes it even harder.  Still, it is possible if you know where to start and where to go.

 

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