By Marc Poirier, CMO/Co-Founder, Acquisio
Display networks are great spots to create brand recognition with the aim of turning that recognition into sales. What every digital marketer knows is that there is a cost associated with each of those sales. The goal, of course, is to lower that cost per acquisition (CPA) and increase the amount of conversions.
There are five aspects of display campaigns on the Google Display Network that need to be addressed in order to be successful. Each of these should be addressed individually in order to fully take advantage of the opportunities presented by display networks.
1. Keyword Lists: Create keyword lists that can be tested against each other for effectiveness. For example, take 20 keywords, divide them into two groups, and start testing them against each other. In order to get the best test here, you’ll have to let these go for at least two days. Keep the keywords that work best, and then add new ones to compete against.
2. Ad Placement: You may be surprised by which pages send the most profitable traffic, but our experience shows that the most relevant pages will convert at the highest level. These need to be addressed on a daily basis. You should give a fair amount of time to find out whether or not certain pages are going to convert well.
CTR and click volume are good early indicators of a good placement. Pages that are not generating clicks, or are sending poor-quality traffic, should be eliminated as soon as possible.
3. Bid pricing: Close attention should be paid to bid prices. By doing a good job at placement and keyword lists, you will be able to bid more strategically, which will allow you to find your target CPA. Bid prices fluctuate often, based on trends. Somewhat counter intuitively, when a keyword is trending more popularly, bid prices can be lowered — especially in cases where you’ve already got a good history with that particular keyword. This is especially relevant for seasonal sales cycles.
4. Ad Selection: This is not particularly different from any other PPC campaign. It’s important to pay close attention to your creative and to be vigilant about eliminating poorly performing ads. Make sure that you have a variety of creative to work with and to be continuously testing one against the other. You can never put enough effort into assessing the value of your ads.
5. Daily Budget: Campaigns that are underperforming, or are not generating revenue, should be cut to allow for more resources to be committed to campaigns that perform well. If you’re getting good results from a particular campaign, allocate more of your daily budget to that campaign in order to extend your reach, and potential conversions.
There are a lot of decisions that need to be made on a daily basis in order to get the most out of your display advertising campaigns. Using a tool that can help you with these decisions is optimal, but if you’re able to dedicate resources in this direction, ensure that proper care and attention is being paid to your campaigns. It can make the difference between a high CPA with few conversions and hitting your CPA target while converting a lot more customers.
About Marc Poirier
Marc Poirier is a professional Internet Marketer with more than a decade experience in the Search industry. He is Co-Founder and CMO of Acquisio where he leads all sales and marketing activities. He often speaks at events like SES, SMX, Ad:Tech, TFM&A and OMMA, and writes columns and articles for various publications, including Search Engine Watch, Visibility Magazine, SES Magazine, and the Acquisio blog.