Categories
General Growth Academy

Maximize ROI in PMAX with Geo Splits

Hey there, savvy advertisers and business owners!

Today, we’re diving into an eye-opening case that underscores the paramount importance of strategic budget allocation in your advertising campaigns, particularly when utilizing platforms like Google PMAX. Buckle up, because we’re about to embark on a journey through numbers, performance, and, most crucially, capitalizing on missed opportunities!

The Tale of Two Countries: A Striking Contrast

In the spotlight, we have two countries: Switzerland and France. A recent client data snapshot revealed a stark contrast in their advertising performance, despite both nations being targeted under the same campaign through Google PMAX.

  • Switzerland:
    • Spend: CHF 668.31
    • Conversions: 73.51
    • Conversion value per cost: 8.01
  • France:
    • Spend: CHF 326.79
    • Conversions: 3.00
    • Conversion value per cost: 0.63

Switzerland clearly outperformed with an impressive conversion rate, while France seemed to lag, presenting an intriguing puzzle: Is the allocated budget being utilized in the most effective manner?

Digging Deeper: Understanding the Numbers

A closer look at the data revealed that, despite the heftier spend, Switzerland’s conversion value per cost soared at 8.01, significantly overshadowing the 0.63 achieved in France.

Now, the million-dollar question: What if the client had shifted more of their budget to Switzerland, capitalizing on the higher conversion potential? Spoiler alert: They could have boosted their sales by almost 50% without increasing their budget by a penny!

The Importance of Geo-Strategic Ad Spending

This case unveils a crucial lesson in the realm of digital advertising: the imperative of monitoring and analyzing performance across different geographical regions. It’s not only about how much you spend but where you spend it.

Regular checks on performance metrics by country, region, and city can spotlight potential goldmines (like Switzerland in this case) and illuminate areas (like France) that may require a strategic rethink.

Guiding Your Path with Ad360

Embarking on a journey to optimize your ad spend per geographical performance? Ad360 is here to steer your ship through the often turbulent waters of ad spend optimization. Our AI-powered platform doesn’t just highlight the highs and lows of your ad performance but also navigates you towards making informed, data-driven decisions, and forces Google to spend your budget in an optimal way by splitting campaigns by geo regions, and optimizing the budget allocation.

Your Turn to Steer

So, fellow navigators of the advertising seas, the horizon is clear: Regularly scrutinize those performance metrics, understand the underlying currents, and be bold in reallocating your budget to sail towards higher ROIs.

Intrigued to discover how Ad360 can be your compass in this journey? Book a demo with us and let’s explore uncharted territories together!

Categories
Growth Academy

A Glossary to Increase Sales on Shopify

A common pattern we find with ecommerce business owners – especially one from brick-and-mortar shops – is frustration with the frustration with the jargon, acronyms, and lingo used when discussing ways to best increase sales on Shopify.

“This will help your CPC decrease, thereby increasing your ROAS and ensuring your website’s SEO becomes more robust and dynamic, funneling customers along the AIDA hierarchy.  In fact, we may move to a CPM ad model soon over CPC.  Or would prefer a PPC payment model?”

…. WHY!  WHY SO CONFUSING?!?!  It can almost seem like online marketers are purposefully throwing difficult jargon out there to test the business owner’s knowledge of the e-commerce landscape.  From there… it becomes doubtful their sole aim is to help your business increase sales on Shopify.  Instead, beating you over the head with technical lingo gives the sense marketers want to muddle the conversation to the point it’s impossible to get a straightforward answer on how exactly their services helps your business.  It all can feel very esoteric and disconnected from your promotional goals to increase sales on Shopify.

To help combat overcomplicated explanations, Ad360 wants to provide a small glossary of terms – and how they work in an online marketing context – so you feel knowledgeable and secure when discussing your business aims with potential clients or partners.  That way, as you search for ways to boost your Shopify sales, you won’t be lost when discussing the more technical side of online marketing.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is a standard online advertising method, where businesses agree to a specific amount charged every time a customer actually “clicks” on their ad.  It involves setting a “maximum amount” you are willing to “per per click,” but, based on other factors, you may not end up actually paying that amount! 

Let’s say there are 3 keywords you want to establish a Google ad campaign for, and each one is ~$3 per click.  You want to make sure you get at least 100 clicks, so 100* 3 keywords *$3.00 per click = $900 ad budget.  HOWEVER!  If you pick keywords with less “competition” (less companies bidding for the same keyword), you can bring that cost down per click.  PPC ad channels are a fundamental tool to increase sales on Shopify. See the next term for more info on that 😊

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

CPC (cost-per-click) is basically the “other side of the coin” and relates directly to PPC (pay-per-click).  While PPC (pay-per-click) is the actual ad campaign itself, CPC (cost-per-click) refers to the amount your business ends up actually paying to run the campaign.  Instead of the max amount you set, CPC refers to the “average cost per click” you end up paying.  Based on your ad’s quality, the keywords use, and the day-to-day changes in the marketplace, your CPC will fluctuate.  However, you will never pay more than the “max amount” you set when starting your “pay-per-click” (PPC) campaign.

CPC ad campaigns are best when the goal is not to spread broad awareness of visibility of your site, but for increasing sales on Shopify through upping your conversion rate.  By paying for each click, you are ensuring you do not pay a dime to the publisher until customers actually click on the ad. 

Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM)

More accurately, CPM stands for “Cost per mille,” the latin prefix for “1,000.”  In contrast to “Pay-Per-Click” (CPC) campaigns, CPM campaigns focus on web visibility rather than conversions.  Businesses pay a certain amount per 1,000 “impressions,” meaning 1,000 people at least scrolled past the ad on their web browser or app. 

CPM campaigns are best for awareness campaigns in the online ecosystem because there is no guarantee users will actually engage with your ad.  If you only run CPM campaigns, you risk being scrolled by, paying for thousands of impressions but landing no conversions.  When trying to get customers comfortable with your brand, it can help to run a few CPM campaigns.  When looking to increase sales on Shopify by boosting conversions, you should consider other ad channels besides CPM.

Click-through Rate (CTR)

CTR (Click-through Rate) indicates the percentage of visitors who, after seeing your ad – referred to as an “impression” – actually took the step of consciously clicking your ad to view your landing page!  Major online advertisers like Google and Facebook keep track of how many “impressions” your ad received, meaning these metrics are available to online business owners.  Measuring your CTR will be important when analyzing how to best increase sales on Shopify.

CTR (click-through rate) is related to your conversion rate – the percentage of visitors who actually end up purchasing something.  For example, if you have 100 visitors and 10 perform a “buy” action, that is a 10% conversion rate (10/100).  Pay attention to both when assessing ways to improve your digital marketing strategy and boost sales on Shopify!

Return on Ads spent (ROAS)

Return on Ads Spent (ROAS) is a more convention marketing metric most business owners will understand and recognize.  Basically,

The wrinkle in ecommerce ROAS is making sure you use the right customer data and analytics to calculate an accurate ROAS for each campaign.  Whether using Facebook ads, Google ads, or another platform, remember you should be running segmented “niche” ad campaigns that may vary in their purpose and structure.  With that in mind, you want to attribute your increased revenue to the correct ads.  Doing so will ensure you can distinguish which ad channels are bringing in a high ROAS vs which ones, after A/B testing, are proving to be a dud with your audience.

ROAS is closely related to ROI (Return on Investment), which takes into account the product cost when calculating your overall profit margin.  When working to increase sales on Shopify, it is important to know the merits of each metric.  Again, taking the 360 degree view, it is important you can sort out which ad campaigns are attributed to bumps in your revenue!  Otherwise, any clarity on which ad channels are truly driving your ROAS become muddled.  Retrace which ads were responsible for which conversions, and you’ll gain much greater insight into what boosts your Shopify sales 😊  

Bounce Rate (BR)

These terms are more straightforward bounce rate is simply the percentage of online users who leave your page without taking any action.  No further clicking, no purchases, nada.  Make sure to not let any slick-talking marketer take your bounce rate out of context.  Sure, it’s an important metric and acronym to know, but it doesn’t mean jack until it’s put into context with the rest of your website. 

Regardless, you want users to feel there are plenty of cool options to continue clicking through your site, so step into the shoes of the customer, check out your home page, and ask yourself, “What design pieces or clickable links/buttons can I put in here to keep my customer’s attention?”  Answering that question will be a big step toward increasing your sales on Shopify!

Call to Action (CTA)

Call to Action buttons are those “big shiny red buttons” in the movies that you want to click… in this case, the world won’t blow up if you do.  Instead, you’ll boost your Shopify sales!

While too many can become a distraction, make sure mobile ads, landing pages, email campaigns, and basically all your social media ads have clear, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing and even “fun-looking” CTA buttons.  One of the biggest issues Ad360 sees when working with clients is a lack of CTA buttons that make it easy for the customer to purchase from your site, converting more sales for you.  More conversions mean increased sales on Shopify, so definitely reassess how you have organized your CTA buttons across all your ads, social media posts, and your ecommerce site itself.

AIDA Customer Awareness Funnel –

AIDA is a customer model that segments your audience into 4 basic categories:

1. Attention – do customers know you exist?  Do they know they have a problem, and you offer a solution with your product?  At this point, you are providing valuable information to your customer, not being “pushy” or “In your face” with your product offering.  Folks ain’t ready yet.

2. Interest – Customers here are leaning forward.  They like what they heard already, and you’ve officially piqued their curiosity.  It doesn’t mean they are ready to buy, but they are primed to hear your offer.

3. Desire – Ok, now they’re ready to buy.  Here, you re-enforce why your product is desirable to your audience.  Take it from the point of view, “How do I communicate to my audience their lives will be better off buying my product?”  Make them desire that end goal.

4. Action – You have a customer ready to purchase!  Make sure your website is secure and optimized so the buying process is smooth, and follow up with them in an email newsletter or something of the sort!  You may have a new regular 😊

AIDA has utility in providing structure to multi-channel ad campaigns.  That way, different segments of your audience receive different messaging depending on their “awareness” of your product.  You can prepare ad banners that cater to each level of the AIDA funnel, giving you a 4-pronged attack when increasing sales on Shopify!  It’s a nice framework for guiding your promotional efforts.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is thrown around a ton, and we have done a full article on it here, but basically, it encompasses all the factors that help bump your ecommerce store on the rankings.  A higher ranking on Google directly correlates to increased sales on Shopify, so it is crucial you consider the SEO factors for your online business, some of which are listed below:

  • Genuinely interesting and engaging content with quality keywords
  • Good-length text descriptions
  • Site speed and optimized loading time
  • Quality backlinks that lead users from an outside side to yours (be prepared to pay for this)

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Search engine results dictate a huge portion of web traffic, and SERP is simply the acronym for the “pages” that list each result.  Being on page 1 is a highly, highly desirable position.  If your business makes it onto page of one Google’s SERPs, you will almost certainly see an increase in sales on Shopify.

Secure-Socket Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS)

Both SSL and TLS are acronyms for the technology that encrypts customer payment info at checkout.  Make sure you have a good provider and include their trust badge, verifiable by the customer by clicking on the badge itself.  The badge should lead directly to the third-party certification of your site.  These encrypted “checkout” technologies make your customer feel more secure when purchasing from your site, thereby increasing your customer conversion rate on Shopify. 

Quick note – TLS is the more modern and secure version of checkout encryption technology, so go for a TLS certification if you can manage it.

Conclusion: Knowing Digital Marketing Metrics can Boost Shopify Sales

Now if you see these words casually thrown around on the Internet, you’ll feel confident in your response.  Throwing out a piece of complicated jargon or acronyms is a classic way for marketers to “size up” what kind person they are dealing with.  Based on your response, they decide whether you are someone they can “gloss over” meaningful details with, or are someone who will ask hard questions and demand better solutions.  We hope this glossary of terms serves to make more the latter and not the former 😊

If you want 24/7 support willing to walk you through each stage of digital marketing, reach out for a free demo from Ad360 today!  Acronyms aside, we commit to providing services all relating back to the core goal: increasing your Shopify sales.  Boost your bottom line with Ad360 today!

Categories
Growth Academy

Budgeting for Facebook Ad Success

Introduction: A Dollar Spent, 10 Dollars Earned

Return on Ads Spent (ROAS) is a key metric for companies advertising online.  Businesses may have budgets of different sizes, but many of the core elements of running the campaign remain the same.

Successfully setting a daily Facebook ad budget, testing different ad sets, and engaging the target audience multiple times are all key to growing your Shopify sales.  A little marketing planning can go a long way here, so make sure to have a blueprint in place before you begin!

Setting a Daily Budget

First off, Facebook ads provides an option of setting a “daily” or “lifetime” budget – we’d opt for the daily budget while starting out.  It provides a chance for more flexibility as the promotional campaign developers.

An amazing feature of Facebook ads is that Shopify businesses do not have to “break the bank” to reach their audience – even $10/day is enough to have your ads be sent out across the 2.7 billion Facebook users!  If you consider yourself a “Small-to-Medium” sized store at the moment, aim for a daily budget between $10-30.  Your ads will be seen, and the data collected from their performance metrics will be invaluable in how you further develop the campaign.

Test Ad Sets before scaling up

When framing your Facebook ad campaign, remember it’s not just one ad banner you are sending out your entire audience!  Remember from our post on Facebook custom audiences that effective Facebook ad campaigns segment their audiences based on key factors (e.g. – demographics, location, interest).  For each custom Facebook audience, you likely will roll out a different “ad set.” 

Each ad set is specifically targeted to one of your custom audiences, and from there, you can try different versions of the ad as a form of A/B testing.  For example, you may have three ad sets prepped for three distinct custom audiences.  Within each ad set, you roll out two versions to see which one better drives engagement and boost traffic to your store!

Better to Reach an Audience of 100 10 times than 100,000 people Once

Finally, please note it’s better to concentrate your ad sets to smaller audiences you can reach multiple times, rather than blasting out a single ad to larger audiences.  Marketing research has shown that customers need to see your ads 7-8 times before they consider purchasing something from your store. 

Thus, it’s more efficient to have a small audience you show multiple ads to rather than a broad audience who briefly see your ads only once.  Facebook ads breaks up these factors into awareness, consideration, and conversion.  You may have also heard of concepts such as AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) that conceptualize how customers are funneled to drive sales to your store. As you scale up your ads, remember the average customer needs exposure to your store’s promotion multiple times.  Otherwise, your ROAS will suffer.

Conclusion: Who can Help Analyze my Facebook Ad Data?

After running a Facebook ad campaign, setting a daily budget, and releasing your various ad sets, it can feel confusing how to make sense of the data collected – that’s where Ad360 steps in!  We specialize in analyzing your customer data and subsequently optimizing future campaigns.  Better ads mean more sales, so please reach out to try a free demo by Ad360 today!

Categories
Ad360 News

Ad360 is a certified Google Partner

Google has introduced in February 2022 a new Partner Program, with more robust Partner requirements.

This is a way for Google to certify businesses that have the required skill, experience and knowledge to help businesses run more successful Google Ads campaigns.

Ad360 is honored and proud to have been certified as a Google Partner under this new program launched in February 2022.

This certification recognizes the value that Ad360 brings to its users. Thanks to the integration of Google Ads campaigns in our Apps, Ad360 users are more likely to succeed and get better outcomes out of their advertising campaigns.

Google Ads is a fantastic and rich environment, that many businesses use to find new customers. However, its vastness sometimes also makes it difficult to navigate for business owners who don’t have professional advertising background or skills, especially given the numerous Google products and platforms included in Google Ads: Search Engine ads, YouTube ads, Gmail ads, Google Maps ads, all with many ad formats and features to master.

Ad360 helps users get the most of Google Ads. Thanks to automatic management and campaigns optimization using the years-long Research & Development of Ad360, they maximize the results of their campaigns. Plus, all these campaigns can be managed under one roof, along with other Social Media platform ads, and ads that run in millions of independent websites and mobile.

If you’d like to learn more, and get helped to run successful Google Ads campaign, please book a demo and see Ad360 App in action for yourself.

Categories
Growth Academy

Why Retargeting is indispensible!

Gone are the days of traditional marketing; the world has, and is still evolving digitally with no signs of stopping in sight. This is why you – as a business owner – need to re-evaluate your business and marketing strategies on a regular basis. If you want to drive customers to your website/business, you need to advertise, and you need to do it over and over again. 

Why?

Because according to Business Insider, over 97% of the people who visit your website for the first time are likely to leave without buying anything. This is where it becomes crucial to bring them back, otherwise, they will be lost forever. 

The solution for this is “Retargeting”.

No worries if you don’t know what this is or how it works. Ad360 is here to help businesses of all sizes get more results out of their online activites! You’re about to learn everything you need to know to make a massive difference in your business and get more sales! 

So let’s turn back to retargeting and discover how it can help your business grow.

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting is the process, rather, a strategy that keeps reminding visitors who have visited your website once that you still exist. This is done via ads and is one of the most powerful ways to re-engage with customers. It allows you to reconnect with potential customers online (on websites and even on apps) and convert them into paying customers. 

Basically, you are targeting people who have visited or interacted with your website previously at least once. This includes people who abandoned shopping carts. 

Unfortunately, this is an option too frequently averted by new and small businesses; this is a big mistake!

Why is Overlooking Retargeting a Mistake?

Because retargeting focuses on people who are already familiar with your brand. If your brand reappears to them over a course of time, it is proven that they will return and shop from your site. Over 92% of people who visit your site for the first time are not yet ready to make a purchase; retargeting them over and over helps to ease them in and convert them into paying customers. 

Retargeting will keep you on the top of their mind the next time they are out to look for a product you are hosting/selling on your website. Websites that employ retargeting experience higher Return On Investment (ROI). The goal of a retargeting campaign is to make potential customers take action that they didn’t on their initial visit. 

How does Retargeting Work?

Most of the people have already experienced retargeting and have converted into paying customers without even knowing. 

  • When a customer visits your website, their visit data is store in a privacy-compliant way. 
  • Instead of showing ads to random people on the internet, retargeting will use all the information about the activities of the customers (the product they viewed, etc.) to show only relevant ads to persons that have shown an interest in your products. 
  • When the customer visits some other website that displays ads, they will be served ads based on those or similar products that are available on your website.

By constantly reminding them of those products and having your website just a click away for them, the ad campaign will prompt the customer to click on the ad and redirect them to your website where they will take the desired action: make a purchase. 

Note the importance of repetition!

There is a marketing rule of thumb where if you really want to make up a visitor’s mind to make a purchase from your website, you must ensure they see your ad at least 7 more times. This means in order to convert a visitor into a customer, you must use retargeting to show them your ad repeated so they finally make up their mind about purchasing from your website. Not to mention it greatly increases your brand visibility to people who already have displayed an interest in your products. 

Benefits of Retargeting

According to InternetSearchInc., over 56% of businesses employ retargeting to win more customers. And if more businesses knew about retargeting, this figure would be much higher. According to Google, by combining retargeting with other marketing and advertisement strategies, you can increase sales by 50%.

Retargeting allows new businesses to regain loyal customers over a period and serves as a long-term strategy. You can use it to:

  • Showcase your best selling products along with promoting other items that are popular among your targeted audience, increasing your ROI gradually
  • It helps you promote new products to an already existing audience and let them know how you are expanding your inventory to include a new variety of different types of products; this makes them revisit your website and view those products
  • You can show ads about sales and special promotions to your audience without having to put in any extra efforts
  • It keeps your brand on top of their mind and the next time they need to make a purchase; they will visit your site instead of looking for a new place to shop from

Conclusion

Retargeting is a low-budget yet highly efficient technique that has helped new and small businesses develop an online presence as well as a loyal customer base. 

Ad360 App for Shopify make it easy for individuals who are not tech-savvy to develop their brand further with its advanced easy-to-use features. Grow your online sales and business by generating more visibility, traffic, and sales.

If you want to learn more and or helped with implementing retargeting, book a demo and see by yourself how we’ll help you boost your business outlook