October 8, 2021
The Ideal QA Process in Digital Advertising
I hate to begin with a cheesy metaphor, but there is no better way to explain the role of keywords in PPC. Keywords are your billboards; not the advertisement that is pasted up there, but the physical apparatus.
Think about it…
If you are arduously grinding through San Francisco on the 101 (the stretch of highway separating the city proper from Silicon Valley), your eyes are drawn towards colorful, creative messaging for a variety of technology driven appliances and applications. Conversely, if you find yourself on I-80, skirting through a string of rural communities, you are more likely to see an advertisement for Bass Pro Shop or the latest Indian Casino. While there are some variances in size and surface area, the largest differentiator between a billboard in San Francisco and a billboard in rural California is the audience it serves. I’m not saying that San Francisco lacks a population that would benefit from a Bass Pro Shop advertisement, but the heavy concentration of cutting-edge tech companies defines a demographic more receptive to a tech-oriented advertisement.
In principle, PPC keywords are no different. Through keywords, you define your audience. The model of delivery is more advanced and enables real-time data, but the core principle is consistent: if you don’t target the right audience, you will not be successful.
As a company, you define your audience based on a need/demand from potential customers. Unfortunately, the way a potential customer expresses this need via a search engine isn’t always that intuitive. In order to help advertisers ensure they are displaying their messages to the appropriate audience, I have included several tips for PPC keyword research..
Tip #1: Avoid Assumptions, Data Doesn’t Lie
PPC is a form of direct-response advertising; meaning, users tell you what they want to see. However, assumptions that a certain search term is relevant can be detrimental to the performance of an account. There is no guidebook to defining consumer sentiment (as it is expressed on search engines); fortunately, there is the ability to test.
Whether it is CPA, ROI, revenue or leads, a keyword’s value is determined by its ability to impact the overall performance of the account. In an effort to avoid assumptions and eliminate guesswork, advertisers should use their accounts’ KPI as a baseline of evaluation. For example, made-up company, Tennis Clothes Direct recently added the keyword “tennis shoes.” You might assume that a keyword such as “tennis shoes” would target their desired market of tennis players; however, this assumption fails to acknowledge that a large portion of consumers still refer to day-to-day footwear as tennis shoes.
Tip #2: General & Vague Keywords Drive a Generally Vague Audience
As a PPC keyword becomes more descriptive and qualified, the available audience diminishes (the volume of searches is smaller). It’s an unfortunate reality that every advertiser faces, but if you wish to really dominate a market, you must consider the inclusion of general keywords to generate enough volume.
General keywords are high-volume head terms without the use of any qualifiers. For example, the keyword, “desktop virtualization,” would be a general keyword for a company that offers Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). The benefit of general keywords is the size of the audience. The downside of general keywords is the unpredictable sentiment of that audience in terms of where they are in the purchase funnel. To select the right general keywords without constraining traffic, advertisers need to ask themselves the following questions:
- Does this keyword directly define my product and/or service?
- Does this keyword define other products in the industry?
- Is this something you would search if you were in the market to purchase your solution?
Using the VDI advertiser, let’s compare “desktop virtualization” and “virtualization technology” as they relate to the above questions. This way we can see the differences between general and too general:
Tip #3: Consider Competitors for PPC Keyword Research
If someone is searching for a direct competitor, they are likely in your target market. It’s fair to assume that they have done enough industry research to be familiar with a specific vendor. In other words, they aren’t just doing introductory research about a product or technology, but rather they are actively referencing a specific vendor. This searcher has indicated they are deeper in the purchasing funnel.
An efficient account places a heavy investment on traffic that is more qualified/more likely to purchase. Since competitor traffic consists of “purchase ready” searchers, it would seem imperative to target this high-quality traffic.
Tip #4: Stay Away From Secondary Messaging
Anyone willing to stand behind their product will rattle off a seemingly endless list of benefits when asked, “how does your product benefit me?” The problem is that a large majority of those benefits are secondary to the core offering of their product. Moreover, most markets are so saturated that there are specialty products for every potential benefit. For example, there isn’t a brand in the shoe industry that offers a multi-purpose shoe made for work, the field, the trail, and the beach. Instead there are running shoes, comfort shoes, dress shoes, etc.
Of course, Nike running shoes are comfortable, may be appropriate in the workplace, and could be used on the trail, but given the implicit market segmentation it would be fruitless to advertise for Nike running shoes with keywords such as “comfortable shoes.” While certain benefits may be valuable for ad copy, they might not work as well for keyword selection.
Follow the steps above when conducting PPC keyword research, and you can ensure that you are advertising on the right billboards and managing your spend wisely.
