Achieve Online Advertising Greatness

(Part 2 of 4)

One of the best ways I’ve seen of articulating why brands fail in the online advertising (paid search) arena, has been the idea of 10 main blockers.

These blockers inhibit client progress and get in the way of getting the most out of their online advertising, these aren’t tactical; they stem from executive-level decision-making and habits.

We started the series with blocks 1 and 2. Advertising but not marketing, and not knowing your ROI 

The WSI Paid Search team sought to understand why failure occurred… in the beginning, it was a seriously long list of reasons and issues. Through analysis, they’ve been merged, deduplicated and trimmed this list down to ten core reasons – tied back to the root cause, rather the symptoms.

We’re sharing the list to encourage you to read this list with an open mind and take appropriate action if you are presently inadvertently making any of these mistakes.

We hope you find the next three blocks useful …

Blocker #3 – You’re Not Watching Your Competition

When’s the time to change what you’re doing?

When your environment changes, as the saying goes.

In the PPC world, your environment changes every millisecond because almost all PPC is live-auction format. So why do so many businesses spend all of their time analysing their own data? That’s too much time spent looking in the mirror to justify your actions and not enough looking around.

The majority of our best breakthroughs, innovations and course-changes have come from analysing competitor data and trends.

No great idea is ever truly original, it is inspired by something else. Plus – you need to know when you’re being attacked, when the competition has backed-off, and keep an eye on their messaging and techniques.

So, spend more time

• analysing auction insight reports (Google Ads),
• reviewing competitor data
• looking for meaningful tests you can implement based on your learnings.

Blocker #4 – You Lack Innovation

Mastering your PPC campaigns is a tricky thing, and often businesses will work to the point where “mastery is achieved” and then put the campaigns on auto-pilot.

BUT, what worked yesterday is no guarantee it will work tomorrow.

So, when was the last time you refreshed your ad creative, landing pages or budgeting? Or at least A/B tested them? ….Or have they been the same for the past 12 months?

When was the last time you launched a totally new experiment based on competitor analysis or some other insight?

Are your campaigns muddling along, same old, same old, or are you doing things that get your heart racing and your competitors trembling?

Are you pushing the boundaries to find out what is possible, willing to fail in pursuit of a win?

Innovation doesn’t have to mean doing lots of new things for the sake of it, it can mean doing the basics very well and keeping things up to date, but it also means don’t be afraid to fail with an idea – just know when to stop!

Reflect on this and challenge yourself to innovate consciously.

Blocker #5 – You’ve Got The Wrong Team

The fifth in our list of 10 blockers to advertising greatness is … working with the wrong team.

There are millions of Google Ads professionals on the planet, along with professionals of other PPC disciplines (Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Microsoft Ads, landing page development, etc…).

Any Google Ads professional can become a Google Partner, yet Google only recognises the top 3% of its partners as ‘Premier Partners’- meaning they are best-in-class based on a number of factors.

So, all opinions aside, it’s statistically likely that you have a B-grade or worse operator at the helm of your advertising campaigns.

Typical signs of a sub-par operator include lack of proactivity, failure to deliver on promises, tactical thinking rather than strategic thinking, lack of analytical skills, long contract terms (because they can’t rely on their ‘work’ for continuity), etc. We are not belittling anybody here, as everyone has to work their way up to being a best-in-class professional if they pursue it.

The right team should blow your mind, doing things you thought impossible and get you excited about advertising again.

Please carefully evaluate if you truly have the best possible professionals at the helm of your campaigns. Without them, you could get everything else right and still fail.

Tip: if you won your negotiation with your PPC professional, team or agency – you’ve already lost.

Source: WSI Paid Search

Keep watching you’ll see the next set of Blocks to Success shortly.

Find out more about WSI Paid Search at https://wsidigitaladvisors.uk/wsipaidsearch/