As anyone who’s tried to figure out attribution modeling can attest, no marketing effort exists in a vacuum. This is true especially for Paid Search, where other advertising channels can and will have a significant impact on your results. Effective marketing teams must cross-communicate to understand how advertising in one media channel will affect performance in others.

Below are two real examples of how to anticipate impacts from other channels and strategize to take full SEM advantage of all marketing activities.

If you buy an ad spot in Times Square, prepare for a lot of eyes on your site! Image via Pexels.

If you buy an ad spot in Times Square, prepare for a lot of eyes on your site! Image via Pexels.

Catalog Releases

For ecommerce clients with strong mailing lists, a catalog drop can be a huge boon for the overall business. However, you risk missing out if your PPC strategy does not anticipate the impacts of the catalog’s release.

I work with one client who releases multiple catalogs during the year, especially around holidays and the debut of new collections. Well in advance of the catalog launch, we discuss what products it will feature, the timeline for when it lands in mailboxes, when we expect traffic to climb, and if we want to change any ROI goals during that period. I then plan my budgets and bids and create campaigns for new products before they launch.

catalog_release

In the above example, I knew in advance that the catalogs would hit mailboxes at the end of April, two weeks before Mother’s Day. I analyzed performance before and after previous catalog drops, and increased bids and budgets where I had previously seen strong performance. I also added new text ads for featured products. As soon as the catalogs hit doors, the conversion rate increased 20%, and the account was ready to capture extra clicks and revenue.

Excluded Promotions

The flip side of a catalog launch is an excluded promotion, when paid search spend should drop to avoid spending on unprofitable terms. For example, a manufacturer might exclude online resellers from a promotion that the manufacturer is running exclusively through its main site. When this happens, your strategy should shift to maintaining ROI during an expected decline in conversion rates and revenue.

promo

The above example shows performance for an online retailer and reseller of several popular clothing brands. In mid-May, one of their top-selling brands launched a promo applied only to items sold directly through the manufacturer’s site. During this time, we correctly anticipated severe drops in conversion rate, as many searchers would opt to buy the discounted products directly from the manufacturer.

I had been pacing just over my goal of a 2.0 ROI in the weeks prior to the promotion’s mid-May launch. We knew that my retailer would be excluded from the promotion, but did not know the expected impact on the account. So as soon as the manufacturer began to advertise the promo, I drew back the budget more than 50% to adjust for the impact we expected.

For the next two weeks, I shifted budget away from the products affected by the manufacturer promo and toward products where I expected a higher rate of return. This allowed me to maintain ROAS even when revenue declined nearly 80%.

Knowledge is one of the greatest tools in the PPC toolbox. Advance warning of either upcoming challenges or potential opportunities allows you to pivot your PPC strategies ahead of time to drive better results.

Share: