Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Transcript

Welcome to the ecommerce marking podcast today’s guest is Dennis Moons, Dennis started his own marketing agencies 5 years ago and he has been focused on helping align stores on trafficking sales he shares a lot of his lessons on his blogs where he writes about his ecommerce marketing topics like Google analytics and how you can advertise successfully with Google Ad Words.

Today we are going to be focusing on Ad Words and how ecommerce business can use Ad Words, welcome to the ecommerce podcast Dennis how are you doing?

DENNIS: Hi Robert thanks for having me.

ROBERT: Thank you for being here if you can just give us a quick background on yourself how you started the marketing why you focused on Ad Words and just your whole websites and blogs.

DENNIS: Yeah, sure about 5 years ago I was doing an internship and in a company and basically I was the only one in charge of online marketing and I started experimenting trying to grow this business and with all kinds of online marketing anything from SEO to Paper click to actually going to email campaigns and everything, and afterwards when I was finished like about after a year, I was trying to figure out like what to do next and the more I was talking to companies the more I saw their own marketing department they were still looking at marketing from an old school perspective and the online part was really developed well.

And so I saw this opportunity to really go and help all kinds of businesses to get on line and to figure out what to do and how to use it and how to use the digital channels and by doing that for a couple of years I came across Ad Words and Paper Click marketing and I saw that was really like that was a really something that good driver for new business.

Because could see the money they put in and actually they could see exactly what came out so they there is no guess to did this contribute to the revenue or is this actually of any benefits to the business. They could really see that’s what’s happening money in and money out, and I have been doing that for all kinds of business more and more it has gone to online stores and helping them figure out what to do with online advertising because there are so many options and things to learn.

That as a store owner you don’t really have time to stay up to date on all those changes and all those platforms and that’s really to be successful and to really be on the edge of those campaigns is like staying up to date is one of the big things you need to do.

ROBERT: So it is like, it is really a challenge to stay up to date with all these marketing challenge and strategies and I guess with you since you focused a lot on Google Ad Words that has always been a challenge to a lot of ecommerce stores because a lot of them just don’t have the time they need to take to learn how to set up everything an hopefully today with what we are going to be talking about, hopefully you will give us some tips and strategies on how they can successfully set that up.

With, actually just quickly why should stores and ecommerce business give Google Ad Words a shot, or why is it important for them to try it as a channel for bringing customers.

DENNIS: Yes sure good question, I find it is one of the few marketing channels that with it you can drive targeted traffic and immediately to your stores and what I mean with targeted traffic is that it is traffic with intent and people that comes from Google Ad Words they are searching in Google for a specific answer to their problem and or they are looking for a specific product.

So actually they are already in their mind set of figuring something out and if you compare that with something with a banner ad or advertising on face book where somebody is actually, they are on face book to see to stay up to date with what their family and friends are doing and then as an advertiser if you are on that platform, you goal is to interrupt what they are doing and to take them back to your site.

In other words it is completely different, like these people they already searching for key word for, searching for things that are really related to your business so that’s the first really important with any other kind of marketing channel.

The second one is that it gives you complete control over your ads and you as an advertiser you choose for which search words you want to appear and for which you don’t want to appear you control your message and also the destination where you will send people, meaning that you will get traffic to your product pages which is traffic that matters because often times you see people doing interesting things with content marketing or with social media.

But then usually the result of a click on one of those platforms or if the comfort is being shared it goes to a blog or it goes to some other place than actually the product page which is where most of the magic happens, and then the third like last big reason why people should get into it is that you are able to track everything from the click to the order.

So it is really like, you really see what you are putting in and what you are getting out to making it really transparent to see if it is actually of any value to your business.

ROBERT: Okay so it makes it just easier to track their ROY.

DENNIS: Yes exactly.

ROBERT: And how can stores get started using Ad Words and how do they use it effectively.

DENNIS: So you can see immediately if Ad Words is something for your store if it is right for your store and if right now your customers are actively searching for what you have to offer and so if you already getting all of the traffic organic free traffic from Google, that means that it can also be interesting to use Ad Words.

If no one is looking for your products or your products are hard to describe that might be indicate that it might be more of a challenge, because there is not going to be like people really looking for your products so it is going to be hard to use with Ad Words.

Another way to use Ad Words effectively is that you can the more specific you are the better it is working, if someone is looking for let’s say a specific type of T Shirt because let’s say they want to go running and need something that will dry quickly, so if you are selling that as a store and you are advertisement is around all kinds of fitness gear it is not going to be that effective.

So the more specific you are the more effective it is going to be and apart from that like up till know I have been talking mainly about text advertisement these are the ads you see in the Google search results. A second or another part of Google Ad Words and one that is growing is Google shopping and Google Shopping is actually the type of advertisement that is like a product ad and it will show you an image of the product that you are searching for a price and a couple of details and I have seen that especially with new stores to be really effective.

Because like people who are searching for products they want to see products so if you can show them an image of something that they are looking for it will get a lot more clicks versus a ad that describes what they are looking for so if you get a lot of people searching for your products it would be a value like Google shopping it really adds another dimension to the ads.

ROBERT: Okay so where do you go I guess this question I guess might be a beginner question but where do you go to set up all of this, where do you go to set up the Google shopping and Google Ad Words.

DENNIS: Well it’s if you sign up, you can sign up for free and for Google Ad Words account and from there you can do everything on the actual website. You enter the key words you want to appear for some you enter for advertisements for photo specific key words and you will go on creating it like that and it might be a bit overwhelming and if you are first logging into to it, but Google has a lot especially for beginners a lot of good guides that are actually takes you through the process of what to click and which information to enter where.

So usually you can get your feet wet and by using that and by just trying it and then using the free materials provided by Google.

ROBERT: Do you have, have you created any guides since you talk a lot you give a lot of tips on Google Ad do you have any resources that people can go to.

DENNIS: Certainly, since I mentioned that Google has created a lot of stuff for you to get started easily and that’s really what I see like they teach you what to click and which information to find where, but what is more important once you get running its not which menu you can’t find to report in and its more you want to know.

Okay I am spending all this money and I am seeing something come out or nothing come out yet how can I improve that so all of the work that I have been doing on my blog is writing about that specifically is that how do you optimize your campaigns and actually I created an EBook called ALL MY ADVERTISING SUCCESS it is a free EBook you can download it on my website and it talks about the exact strategies that I used to get campaign up and running to improve that and it will give you a lot of tweaks and insights to show you how to take that campaign to the next level.

ROBERT: Okay and for the listeners you can get that EBook by going stockgrowers.com/online-advertising-success-EBook, that’s stockgrowers.com if you go to the website you will find it there, so why is it always so hard to Google Ad Words or for business.

DENNIS: That’s a good question and the reason for that is, it is a pretty old platform and it has been around for a while and that mean that there is all of a competition on the platform and the rule of competition means that there is not a lot of room for mistakes.

The cost per click is high so for new advertisers that don’t add that don’t know what’s going on or don’t know how to optimise their campaign right from the start they can lose a lot of money. At first it is all about making the right settings and tweaks and as soon as you got that in place it is all about discovering what works for your store.

Because I can be saying okay try are a lot of things that are true for any campaign but most of the specifics and it really depends on your store and what you are selling and who you are selling it to, of course your margins so you are going to have to play with that and that really requires continued effort for you to learn the things and to also take the time to go in and actually see what’s going on.

So that’s something I really see, people that really take the time people that know up front to take the time to learn and to see what’s really going on and try to understand it those are really the advertisers and the stores that really prevail in the end.

ROBERT: Okay so once you set it up will be an ongoing process all those modified and optimised as you are watching the results or can you just set it and forget it.

DENNIS: No, actually the set it and forget it, it will work for a little bit but you will soon see the effectiveness of your campaigns going and falling back because the way you get to better results it is always to improve on what is going on so if you are not looking at your campaigns for let’s say a couple of months you won’t have that edge to compare to the store that is like looking for which is the best advertisement to write.

Because that’s one of the keys to getting Ad Words to work is to finding, to constantly be on the lookout for better key words. Constantly refining your advertisements that are appearing for specific key words making them better making them more relevant to what the user is searching for so that’s really an ongoing effort.

ROBERT: What are some mistakes people make when they are running a Google Ad Word campaign.

DENNIS: One of the biggest mistakes it might sound a bit weird to your listeners but its trusting people too much especially when you are going through the set up as a new advertiser as you are setting everything up Google will make some suggestions and since it is the first time that you are using the platform you don’t really know like what they are suggesting or like what the different options are so you are going to trust them right. It is a big company they know what they are doing but actually there are a couple of things that they are a bit sneaky with and those are mistakes that are actually will make it harder for you to turn a profit.

One of the biggest ones is the difference between the different net works they have. Basically they have two places where you can advertise one is in the search results and is on a third party websites so these are websites that Google has an agreement with to display their advertisements on their site any kind of blog or news website or something.

Most people when they come to Ad Words their goal is to be search results but actually when you are setting up a campaign by default you are optin in to not only being visible in the search results but also on all these other websites and actually that’s a really, it might seems like a small thing but I have seen companies that though they were only advertising in the search net work and not only seeing any results from it and we went into their account and we discovered that 70% of what they are spending on advertisement is actually being spent on website that have nothing to do with their business.

So that’s really important distinction to be made and one that Google’s continues to be like a bit hiding from the advertisement, new advertisers. A second very similar problem is one of negative key words.

Negative key words we are creating a campaign you are actually looking for, you are trying to imagine, okay if I was a user if I was my own customer what key words would I be using to find my products and you are going to be creating a whole list of those key words.

A negative key words are actually the complete opposite, it would be the equivalent would be like what searches if somebody searches for that term what searches would you not want to appear for, this can be products that you don’t sell or it can be brands that you don’t sell or irrelevant search parties, and actually Google will give you the exact search word that people use.

So it is really valuable to go through that list and discover if you are appearing for certain searches you won’t make a sale anyway so you take those key words and excludes them from your campaigns so that’s also next to the display for search net works that’s the second big mistake that I see is not using negative keywords in your campaign.

And then it’s a bit more global mistake is not knowing your numbers and that meaning not only not having any idea of if there us sales coming but it also means like which point can you spend to get a customer, unto which point it makes sense to continue using advertisements because some because some people they, some stores it depends of your strategy but some stores they will never get profitable and spend and they will be close to profitability on their ads, so that is something to really take into account if you know who much your campaigns are bringing in.

Google gives all the tools for you to know it to set up conversion tracking so you can see exactly which click resulted in which revenue so as an advertiser it is or as a storage if you are interested in running these campaigns it is essentials so for you to also set this up so you can track these numbers.

ROBERT: Okay, Dennis thanks a lot for coming on the show and just breaking down Google Ad Words it is usually very challenging for store owners we have had request for this type of episode so I really appreciate you coming on this show and just breaking down everything.

DENNIS:   Oh great it was nice talking to you about it.

ROBERT: So if people want to reach you how can they find you?

DENNIS: Well the easiest would be to check out my site storegrowers.com that’s where I write most about ecommerce they can also find me on twitter but that’s all through the website they can find all the links and all the social and profiles through that.

ROBERT: Any final thoughts on what we have talked about today.

DENNIS: It can feel like pretty overwhelming to get started and especially at the end I talked about everything that could go wrong and how Google is secretly trying to screw you a little bit as well, but if you feel that Ad Words could be something for you I would commit some money and time to really try it out and to see if it can work for you don’t expect it to be profitable from day one, but know that if you spend some time understanding it and learning it that it can really benefit your business.

ROBERT: Okay and lastly I usually asked all of the guests this question. What is the one thing an ecommerce business can do right now to help the business grow and get traffic get sales?

DENNIS: That’s an interesting one thing that is also related to Ad Words is that Google as part of Ad Words has a free tool called the key word planner and actually it allows you to tap into all the searches that are happening on Google.com and if you put in some of the key words for your business for some of the products that you sell or some of the categories.

You will be able to see you will be able to select some of the location and language of people searching and you will be able to see how many people are searching for those exact key words and Google will also give you a couple of related searches so you can use this tool and information to first see if you are using those exact key words on your product pages and you can see also those volumes to see if it would make sense and see the potential of using something Ad Words for your business.

ROBERT: Okay Dennis, again thank you for coming to the ecommerce marketing podcast.

DENNIS: Thanks for having me.

ROBERT: Okay take care.