Online sales start to kick up on black Friday, the day after thanksgiving. This is typically when online sales start to increase and online retailers being pushing their holiday promotions.
Many online retailers use PPC as a way to generate sales. When done correctly, paid search can not only drive up holiday sales, but can also increase the next years sales. Being able to increase ones email marketing list means new customers to market to in the future.
Being in paid search for many years has me paying more attention to ads and landing pages. I enjoy seeing great ads next to relevant landing pages is a joy. However, when I come across retailers who miss the mark totally, it’s frustrating to see wasted ad spend on poor ads and even worse landing pages.
Last year I came across a few ads for Dockers.com. I was so disappointed not only in their ads but where they sent users to. Dockers.com were dumping users on the home page of their site. A very amateur mistake that can cost an online retailer a lot of money. Why is this such a big mistake?
- Quality score will be poor and therefore cost more to bring people to the page.
- When I user comes in from an ad for “Mens Belts” and isn’t taken to a page with mens belts, they will leave and click another ad. Most people want to see belts and not navigate through a site to find them.
Why do big retailers have such poor PPC management? There are 2 major reasons for this…
- They hired a novice or tried to do paid search internally because they feel it’s easy to do and doesn’t take much knowledge to get a search campaign running.
- They’ve hired a firm or individual who has no real experience in PPC and has over charged them for poor management.
Many businesses larger and small don’t ask enough questions from their paid search person/company. Many companies hide what your CPC and CPA is and therefore you will never really know if your PPC is cost effective.
In a recent PPC overhaul I did for a major online retailer…. I more then quadrupled their sales from the previous year, while still hitting their target CPA! Companies don’t always need to go to large firms that charge based on spend and a management fee. The right individual can be very affordable and can take your online marketing to the next level.
