Search intent isn’t just a PPC tool; it’s a gateway to connecting with your audience across multiple channels. Here’s how you can unlock its potential and reach your customers beyond traditional search ads.

What is Search Intent?

Search intent is the reason behind a user’s query. Are they looking for information? Comparing options? Ready to make a purchase? Understanding intent allows you to craft highly relevant ads and marketing experiences.

For example:

• Informational Intent: A user searches for “benefits of protein powder.”
• Transactional Intent: They later search for “buy protein powder online.”

PPC campaigns are great at capturing transactional intent, but what about users who are still in the research phase? That’s where expanding beyond PPC can give you an edge.

Why Stop at PPC?

PPC campaigns are powerful, but they’re only part of the equation. Search intent doesn’t disappear once a user types their query—it influences their decisions as they browse websites, watch videos, and interact with content across the web.

By extending your strategy beyond PPC, you can:

• Expand Your Reach: Capture the attention of users who don’t click on your search ads but are still interested in your brand.
• Stay Top of Mind: Keep your brand visible as users continue their research and decision-making process.
• Increase Conversions: Engage users with display ads, video content, and connected TV ads to reinforce your message and drive action.

Search intent provides a roadmap to your audience. Following it beyond search ads allows you to engage users at different touchpoints and improve overall marketing performance.

How to Leverage Search Intent Beyond PPC

Expanding beyond PPC requires a strategic shift. Here are three key steps to get started:

1. Retarget Based on Search Intent

Advanced tools allow you to identify users who searched for specific keywords but didn’t click on your ads. For example, someone searching for “cheap flights to Paris” may not click a PPC ad but could later see a display ad for a travel deal.

Tactics to implement:

• Display Advertising: Serve banner ads to users as they browse other websites.
• Video Advertising: Retarget search-intent audiences with engaging video content on platforms like YouTube.
• Connected TV Ads: Reach high-intent users while they stream their favourite shows.

Retargeting based on search intent ensures your brand remains in front of potential customers, reminding them of their initial interest and nudging them toward conversion.

2. Use Keyword-Specific Targeting in Programmatic Ads

Programmatic advertising takes search intent targeting to the next level. By analysing billions of search events, you can serve ads to users based on their online behaviours and interests.

For example, if you sell eco-friendly cleaning products, you can target users who searched for “natural home cleaners” and display ads promoting your brand.

Benefits of programmatic keyword targeting:

• Granular Control: Bid on specific keywords to maximize relevance.
• Negative Keywords: Exclude irrelevant terms to refine your targeting.
• Dynamic Timing: Serve ads at optimal moments—whether seconds after a search or weeks later.

This precision ensures your ads align with user intent, leading to better engagement and conversions.

3. Build a Multi-Channel Strategy

To fully leverage search intent, adopt a multi-channel approach that combines search, display, video, and social ads.

Example campaign structure:

• Start with PPC: Capture transactional intent with targeted search ads.
• Follow with Display Ads: Retarget informational searches with banners that educate and build interest.
• Engage with Video: Use storytelling to nurture users during the consideration phase.
• Close with Social Ads: Reinforce messaging on platforms like Facebook and TikTok.

This strategy ensures that users see your brand at multiple stages of their journey, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

The Benefits of Expanding Beyond PPC

Taking search intent beyond PPC delivers significant advantages:

• Stronger Brand Awareness: Stay visible across multiple channels so your brand is top of mind when users are ready to act.
• Higher Engagement Rates: Retargeted ads are more relevant, leading to better click-through and conversion rates.
• Improved ROI: Targeting users based on intent ensures ad spend is focused on audiences most likely to convert.

Reconnect with High-Intent Users Through Keyword Search Retargeting

With ClickAds, our managed programmatic advertising service, you can retarget users based on the keywords they’ve searched- keeping your brand in front of them at the right moment.

How It Works:

1. A user searches for something your business offers.
2. ClickAds captures keyword data from their search.
3. We serve them a personalised ad, bringing them back to your site.

Why Use Keyword Search Retargeting?

• Granular Keyword Control – Target the most relevant search terms while excluding irrelevant ones to refine your audience.
• Dynamic Recency Targeting – Choose when your ads appear—seconds, minutes, or weeks after a search—to stay top of mind.
• Fully Managed Campaigns – We handle strategy, optimisation, and performance tracking so you can focus on results.

Stay visible when it matters most. With ClickAds, your brand doesn’t just appear in search – it follows the right users throughout their journey.

Conclusion

Search intent is a powerful signal, but its value goes far beyond PPC. By leveraging retargeting, programmatic keyword-specific ads, and a multi-channel strategy, you can engage users at every stage of their journey. The result? More touchpoints, higher engagement, and increased conversions.Want to make search intent work harder for you? Get started with ClickAds today.

Together, they shared actionable insights and a preview into the future of Microsoft Advertising. Here are the key takeaways to help you stay ahead in 2025.

1. Performance Max (PMAX): Beyond “Set and Forget”

Joe kicked things off by busting a common myth about PMAX campaigns: “We see it quite a lot that people still think of PMAX as a ‘set it and forget it’ solution, but there are levers in there,” he explained. PMAX uses Microsoft’s AI to deliver results across multiple ad formats and channels, but it works best when paired with thoughtful strategy.

Joe emphasised the importance of fine-tuning budgets, bid strategies, and audience targeting to align with campaign goals. For troubleshooting, he encouraged advertisers to consider factors like budget constraints or underperforming assets. “Have you thought about excluding non-peak hours or adjusting your autobidding targets?” he suggested.

He also introduced brand exclusion lists, allowing advertisers to filter out irrelevant brands to maintain focus on their ideal audience. With upcoming enhancements like multimedia ads and additional AI-driven tools, PMAX is set to become even more powerful in 2025.

Pro Tip: If you’ve set up a PMAX campaign and find yourself struggling with performance, there are several troubleshooting steps you can take. Adjusting budgets, refining bid strategies, or tweaking asset selection can often lead to significant improvements. For personalised support, reach out to the ClickTech team at hello@clicktech.com to access a detailed troubleshooting guide and address any common issues effectively.

2. Brand Spotlight Ads: Captivating SERP Presence

Next, Joe unveiled Brand Spotlight Ads, a premium format designed to dominate the search results page (SERP) with rich storytelling visuals. “It allows advertisers to create a really rich storytelling experience,” he explained. Here are subtle differences with multimedia ads in that there’s a collection of up to four images, making this format an immersive and engaging way to showcase your brand.

Currently available as a closed beta in the U.S., Brand Spotlight is an exciting opportunity for advertisers looking to stand out in a crowded digital space.

Actionable Insight: Interested in early access to Brand Spotlight? Reach out to ClickTech for details on how to participate in the beta.

3. Impression-Based Remarketing: Building Audiences Without Clicks

Lucas shared one of Microsoft’s most innovative offerings: Impression-Based Remarketing. “You don’t need people to click on your ads to start building your own audience,” he said. This feature allows advertisers to create audiences from users who see their ads—whether on search, display, native, or connected TV formats.

This approach is ideal for staying top-of-mind during a customer’s decision journey. Lucas encouraged advertisers to experiment with sequential messaging, for example, combining video ads for awareness with native ads for product-specific follow-ups.

Experimentation Tip: Use Impression-Based Remarketing to connect with audiences across formats, ensuring consistent and relevant messaging.

4. Video and Connected TV (CTV): Reaching Audiences Everywhere

With video consumption averaging nearly four hours daily, Lucas highlighted the value of Connected TV (CTV) as a key advertising channel. “We can find audiences through a lot of different networks,” he noted, including premium platforms like Hulu, Max, and Netflix.

Microsoft’s unique advantage lies in combining intent-based targeting with CTV inventory. Advertisers can reach high-value audiences based on browsing and search behaviour, a feature Lucas described as “something our competitors don’t have.”

Joe added that dual-screen usage is becoming the norm: “It’s getting harder to catch people’s attention.” CTV campaigns, paired with Impression-Based Remarketing, can ensure your brand remains visible and relevant across devices.

Quick Start Tip: Don’t overthink it – repurpose your existing short-format videos from YouTube or social media for CTV campaigns.

5. Copilot: Your AI-Powered Advertising Assistant

Joe wrapped up the session by introducing Copilot, Microsoft’s groundbreaking AI tool built directly into its advertising platform. “Copilot is like having your own advertising assistant available 24/7,” he explained. Whether it’s generating headline suggestions, optimising images, or offering performance insights, Copilot simplifies campaign management.

“You can ask Copilot, ‘Why is this campaign not doing as well?’ or ‘Can I have a few suggestions to improve my CTR?’” Joe shared, highlighting its ability to assist both beginners and seasoned marketers alike.

Why It Matters: Copilot’s AI-powered tools make it easier to experiment, refine, and scale campaigns – helping advertisers achieve better results faster.

Final Thoughts

This webinar was packed with insights into how Microsoft Advertising is evolving. From AI-driven tools like Copilot to innovative formats like Brand Spotlight and Impression-Based Remarketing, the opportunities are vast. Whether you’re exploring new channels like Connected TV or optimising existing campaigns, now is the time to experiment and innovate.

Next Steps: If you have any questions around any of the topics discussed, you can reach out to the ClickTech team at hello@clicktech.com. We’re here to help you make the most of these tools and drive success in 2025 and beyond.

Further research into the type of content searched for suggests that “how to” queries are favoured, with search volumes up to 10 times larger than Google’s. However it’s used, there’s no doubting the inexorable influence of TikTok – surpassing 1.5 billion users in 2024.

So, how can your brand use TikTok search to reach its target audience? Learn more about the famous algorithm and how to get more views on TikTok.

What is SEO on TikTok?

Just like search engine optimisation for Bing or Google, your TikTok SEO strategy should always have your users’ search intent in mind. Rather than the traditional SERPs (search engine results pages), TikTok videos are displayed on the ‘For You page’ (also known as FYP). 

The TikTok ranking algorithm measures user interactions on these videos, including number of views and time spent watching. There are multiple ranking factors that will help to push your content in front of the right people – including trending hashtags, high-quality video content and influencer partnerships.

What counts as a TikTok view?

The fundamental difference between TikTok content views and other platforms is how it’s measured. For example, on a YouTube video, a single ‘view’ is only logged if somebody has viewed it for 30 seconds or more. On Facebook, this value is lower at just three seconds.

Appealing to the short-term nature of its content, the TikTok search engine counts all views. This means that your viewing figures will go up the second somebody lands on your content. It also means that ‘dwell time’ is not the only thing that makes your videos rank. As such, TikTok users need to think about other ways to persuade the algorithm that their videos offer relevant content.

How TikTok SEO works

The TikTok algorithm works in mysterious ways. Views in isolation won’t make your content go viral. Instead, you’ll need to consider positive user interactions such as likes, comments, shares and account follows. 

Dwell time is indeed a factor – the platform will take note if your videos are watched to the end and even re-watched. It will then serve similar content on a user’s ‘FYP’. This gives your TikTok account more chance of showing up, though it could also rank your competitors.

The difference between search engine optimisation and TikTok SEO

Your marketing strategy should follow some of the same principles as traditional SEO. For example, informational search queries are more likely to return ‘how-to’ videos. You’ll need to carry out TikTok keyword research, thinking about how long-tail keywords could translate into popular hashtags.

Transactional searches, meanwhile, may be more reliant on trending topics – for example, if a key influencer has just launched a new product range.

Fundamentally, while there are overlaps between Google and TikTok, there are differences. SEO ranking factors for TikTok include:

• Optimised, relevant hashtags
• User interactions such as follows and shares
• Audio and video quality considerations
• Content length and scheduling regularity.

Why optimise content for TikTok?

Producing relevant, engaging content for TikTok will not only grow your brand; it also offers monetisation opportunities. In August 2020, the TikTok Creator Fund was launched. According to the TikTok app, the fund helps creators “realise additional earnings that help reward the care and dedication they put into creatively connecting with an audience that’s inspired by their ideas.”

In monetary terms, you can expect to make between $0.02 and $0.04 (£0.016 and £0.032) per thousand views, or CPM. With these TikTok SEO tips, you can get more eyeballs on your content and grow your brand. Monetising your content is just a bonus.

How to get more views on TikTok

The algorithm made some interesting updates in 2022, namely to its search bar features. Users can now highlight on-screen text or caption content when they see a relevant keyword. TikTok will automatically create a clickable link, taking viewers through to related topics.

This puts more emphasis on creators to use relevant keywords in their captions and content. But it’s not the only way:

Think about your audience – what’s on their ‘For You’ page?

This method follows the fundamentals of all marketing, particularly SEO. Think about exactly who your user is – let’s say they’re an avid female gym-goer in their mid-20s. Transactional keywords might be shorter, such as the products they’re buying. Use hashtags like #gymleggings #yogapants #sportsbra etc.

Then consider the questions they might ask. “How can I gain muscle?” “How often do I need to stretch?” This can inform your hashtag strategy and your video content. TikTok video series work well, keeping users engaged with a single topic and then following it up with further answers to questions.

Jump on trending TikTok hashtags

Short-term boosts in sales based on trends are not to be sniffed at. You can use the ‘Discover’ page to browse videos and identify popular topics and hashtags. Include these in your video information to help your content show up in the search bar.

Don’t forget that hashtags aren’t the only thing that can trend. Phrases like #TikTokMadeMeDoIt showcase what products, movies or celebrities are hot in popular culture. These may inform memes, which you can recreate to align with your product or service. There are also TikTok challenges – a fun, light-hearted way to jump on whatever’s got users creating, contributing and interacting.

Keep your content under 30 seconds

There’s no hard and fast rule for optimum TikTok video content length – though the upper limit has now been extended to 10 minutes. This has come a long way since the early days of the platform when clips were limited to just 15 seconds. 

While you’ve got the freedom to make almost mini-movies with 10-minute content, you’re likely to see users dropping off. Between March and August 2023, the most popular TikTok videos averaged 34 seconds – suggesting that users are ready to move on long before 10 minutes.

The secret is to get your message across within this time and keep viewers hooked. How? Pique their curiosity by presenting the problem quickly. (Even better if this ties into what they’re searching for!) Use a storytelling format – problem, method, resolution – ideally with humour and trending content.

Post your content at the right times

It’s not only a case of what content you create, but when. Of course, you don’t need to hit publish as soon as you create it. You can even use scheduling tools to make content in bulk. You will find hundreds of articles on what the best times to publish on TikTok are, but the reality is more nuanced. 

For example, perhaps you’re an online retailer that ships globally. (If so, it’s also wise to look at language preferences and your account settings!) Some users may interact in different time zones. Another factor to think about is your industry. If you’re in B2B, for example, are your customers more likely to buy during the 9 to 5, or if you’re in B2C, are they more likely to engage on a weekend?

You can look at your analytics dashboard to find out more. This will give you three things:

1. A broad overview of your general video views, profile views, follower growth and overall user interactions
2. Content information such as total likes, average watch time, comments and shares
3. Follower insights such as where your audiences are based and what time of day they interact. This one is particularly important for scheduling.

Use trending sounds and audio effects

TikTok challenges and memes are one thing, but there are also sound effects. Again, head to the ‘Discover’ page to look for trending sounds. You can add these to your video by selecting the sound from the library. 

If a user likes a particular song or sound, they can click through to it on the video. This will show them other videos that are using this audio, including yours.

Capitalise on the ‘how to’ using the comment section

More and more users are turning to TikTok to find quick, accessible information on how to do things. If you’re stuck for content ideas, head to your comment section. Here, users may ask questions about your videos. You can answer their queries directly – which may prompt a follow – or you can go the extra mile.

Think about making a video that answers the user’s question. You can respond to their query right there in the comment section with a video. This will link the user through to your new content, keeping them informed and those algorithms happy. After all, TikTok rewards quality, but it also rewards quantity.

Merge your videos by ‘stitching’

‘Stitching’ video content is ideal for collaborating with others or even promoting your existing content. It involves playing two videos side by side in a split-screen fashion. You can use it to compare two of your posts or work with a partner to make fun and interactive content.

For example, some people might sing along to another clip or dub over pre-existing videos with their own dialogue. Others might use this tool to compare two products. It’s essentially twice the content in the same viewing pane – great for those time-poor users.

Cross-promote your TikTok content on other platforms

Who says your videos have to exist on one platform only? While TikTok may be separate from other social networks like Meta, its content can still be shared. You can take your TikTok content and share it again on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. (Don’t forget, YouTube is still considered a highly influential search engine.)

It will feature the TikTok logo and your username, inviting viewers to follow you on your account. This essentially gives your videos more longevity – reaching new users on different platforms. You can even branch out into others like LinkedIn or X. Simply share a link and watch your views grow.

Partner with influencers

Influencers are ideal for keeping your ‘dwell time’ high – ensuring more users reach the end of your video. Today, TikTok influencers are stars in their own right, with high followings that encourage more users to interact and convert. 

To find the right influencers, follow these steps:

1. Look at your current followers. Analyse their user activity and find out more about the kind of accounts they’re following. To make this faster, you can also use the influencer management platform Heepsy.
2. Engage with your influencers. Once you’ve found a relevant TikTok star, reach out to them. Ask them what they think of your product. If they would have bought it anyway, they’re far more likely to promote it authentically.
3. Negotiate achievable goals. This starts with ensuring your chosen influencer’s followers are real and not just bots. Once you’ve confirmed this, discuss how they could help. Is it a how-to video, product demo or channel takeover?

Like all marketing, there may be some trial and error with this – which it’s why it’s so important to do your research. Make sure your influencer has the same values you do and watch out for shady tactics, such as promoting unethical products.

Don’t compromise on video quality

You may feel under pressure to create often, but this should not be at the expense of quality! Modern devices mean we have more access than ever to user-friendly content creation tools. The TikTok algorithm prioritises high-quality content – that is, using good lighting and crisp audio.

You should also follow the right framing conventions. TikTok recommends video dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels with an aspect ratio of 9:16. Remember that most people will be viewing these portrait-mode on a mobile, so ensure there’s no way that content can be clipped or captions missing.

Speaking of captions, never scrimp on these. Keep them below 125 characters (essential for scheduling tools) and use up to three relevant hashtags, leading with the most important information first.

Get started with TikTok Advertising

While TikTok’s algorithm opens up exciting ways for brands to reach younger audiences, maximizing visibility on the platform still requires a strong strategy. That’s where Adzooma’s parent company, ClickTech, can make a difference. With industry-leading expertise, ClickTech is now a TikTok Partner, offering brands resources to leverage TikTok’s unique advertising potential. Visit our partner page to find out more and get in touch, to start your TikTok advertising journey!

This article was written for Adzooma by CTI Digitial.

This article will guide you through optimising your product titles, descriptions, and images, avoiding duplicates, and making sure all product attributes are correctly populated to maximise your campaign performance.

1. Product Titles

Product titles are one of the most critical factors in determining the relevance of your ads. For instance, if you’re selling men’s lightweight black running shoes and only label them “black shoes,” your ad won’t appear in many relevant searches. Shoppers search for specifics, like “red trail-running shoes” or “road racing trainers,” so including as much detail as possible is essential.

Even though you don’t bid on keywords in shopping campaigns, you can still run a search terms report to see which queries triggered your ads. For example, if someone searches for “men’s green parka” and your product title is simply “down parka,” your ad is unlikely to perform well. To optimise titles, follow a format like brand + product name + product type + gender + size + colour, as this reflects buyer behaviour and priorities when searching. 

Avoid using promotional text like “free shipping” in titles, as this can be added through extensions and labels rather than in your product titles. As your product feed takes the place of target keywords, ensure your product titles are detailed enough to clearly indicate the exact product you are promoting, in the same way you’d ensure target keywords are tightly themed.  

2. Product Descriptions

Product descriptions should expand on the information in the title and reinforce the details most relevant to users. For example, if you’re selling yellow spotty hats, place “yellow spotty hat” at the start of the description, rather than generic terms like “hat, cute, outdoor.” People are searching for specifics, so front-load the description with key details to improve ad relevance.

It’s also important to ensure descriptions match the product details on your landing page. For example, for women’s shoes, the description should include features such as material, size, and colour. Make sure there are no errors like HTML tags or duplicate words, as these can reduce the quality of your ad.

Descriptions should avoid things like capital letters or excessive punctuation, as these can make your ad appear unprofessional and may violate ad policies.

3. Avoid Duplicate Titles

Duplicate titles can hurt your campaign performance just like duplicate keywords. If two products with the same title and price appear in your feed, Microsoft may only serve one ad, meaning variations in colour, size, or style won’t be shown. To avoid this, expand the titles of variants by including attributes like colour, size, material, or pattern to highlight the differences.

Also, use the Item Group ID attribute for products that have variations. This ensures that all versions of a product – such as different sizes or colours – are correctly grouped and displayed.

4. Shopping Image Considerations

Images play a vital role in showing customers a visual of the product as if they are in the store. Use high-resolution images, and if possible, show the product in multiple colours and in use to give shoppers a better idea of how it looks.

Here are some essential guidelines for images:

• Minimum image size: 220px by 220px
• Maximum image size: 3.9MB
• Acceptable formats: .bmp, .gif, .exif, .jpg, .png
• Prefer images with a white background and avoid adding text like “free shipping” or watermarks

Ensure the image link is case-sensitive, and if you update the image, also update the URL in the feed to reflect the new image in the ad. Microsoft’s bots will crawl your site in order to reference the image you’ve provided via a URL; ensure your website’s robots.text file is configured to allow Bingbot to crawl your site and retrieve product images. 

5. Ensure Attribute Columns Are Populated

The shopping tab allows users to filter products by attributes like colour, size, material, and gender. To maximise your product’s visibility in these filters, it’s essential to populate your feed with attributes that help to surface your products to in-market searchers. For example, if a customer searches for “womens brown leather satchel with buckle,” and your feed includes these details, your product will appear more prominently in the filtered results. Ensure to populate feed columns including words or attributes that a shopper might search, rather than small details that wouldn’t sway a purchase decision either way.

6. Additional Feed Optimizations 

Product URLs

Your feed includes both an image URL and a product URL (the destination) and it’s essential that redirects are not applied to these URLs, as redirects can cause issues with ad serving. In cases where both the link and ads_redirect attributes are used, they should resolve to the same product landing page.

Product Pricing

Price is another critical factor in feed optimisation. Ensure that the price listed in the feed represents the price for a single unit. If you’re selling a bundle or multipack, ensure that the total price is listed (not the unit price), as listing only the unit price can lead to rejection.

If your product uses instalment pricing (e.g., mobile carrier plans), be sure to specify this in your feed. Additionally, attributes like sale price and sale price effective dates can be used to highlight discount pricing, adding further appeal to your shopping ads.

Conclusion

Given product feeds replace keywords and ad copy usually found in Search campaigns, the attributes within your feed act as levers to improve the searches your ad is serving against, as well as increasing CTRs and conversion rates. By optimising your feed to appeal to search behaviours and purchase preferences, your ad is more likely to gain visibility within beneficial searches. Think of your feed not as a stockroom, but as a storefront – every detail matters in attracting and converting potential buyers.

Programmatic advertising, however, is transforming the way advertisers navigate this landscape. By automating the buying process and leveraging advanced data analytics, programmatic advertising enables advertisers to optimize their campaigns efficiently, reduce costs, and enhance targeting precision. This makes it a compelling choice for businesses looking to make the most of their advertising budgets.

In this article, we’ll uncover the common challenges associated with high CPMs and demonstrate how programmatic advertising can not only address these issues but also empower you to maximize your advertising potential – ultimately helping you decide if it’s the right strategy for your business.

1. Audience Fragmentation

Reaching your target audience is getting tougher. The digital landscape is highly fragmented, with users spread across multiple platforms, devices, and content types. This fragmentation leads to higher CPMs as advertisers pay premium rates to ensure their ads appear in the right places.

How programmatic helps:

Programmatic advertising uses advanced data to precisely target your audience wherever they are. It integrates data from multiple sources—social media, websites, and apps—to ensure ads are placed in front of the right people at the right time, reducing wasted impressions and lowering your CPMs.

2. Low Ad Inventory Supply

As competition for digital ad space grows, the supply of premium ad inventory can’t always keep up with demand, causing CPMs to spike. Advertisers are often forced to pay more to secure placements on high-quality websites or platforms.

How programmatic helps:

Programmatic advertising gives you access to a broader and more diversified inventory pool. Instead of being limited to a few high-traffic websites, you can bid on impressions across a vast network of publishers, increasing the likelihood of securing premium placements at lower CPMs.

3. Manual Campaign Management

Running traditional ad campaigns involves a lot of manual processes—researching placements, negotiating deals, and adjusting bids. This labor-intensive approach increases operational costs, which can drive up CPMs.

How programmatic helps:

Programmatic automates the entire ad-buying process. With real-time bidding (RTB), campaigns can dynamically adjust bids and placements based on performance, reducing inefficiencies and helping keep CPMs in check.

4. Ad Fraud and Invalid Traffic

Fraudulent clicks, bots, and other forms of invalid traffic can inflate your CPMs without delivering real value. Paying for impressions or clicks that don’t come from actual users results in wasted spend and increases your overall cost per acquisition (CPA).

How programmatic helps:

Programmatic platforms employ sophisticated fraud detection and prevention tools. By leveraging AI and machine learning, these systems can filter out invalid traffic, ensuring you’re only paying for genuine impressions and engagements.

5. Poor Ad Targeting

If your ads aren’t properly targeted, they end up in front of audiences that aren’t relevant to your business. This leads to low engagement rates and higher CPMs as you try to compensate for poor performance.

How programmatic helps:

Programmatic platforms use granular targeting capabilities, from demographic and geographic data to browsing behavior and interests. 

This precision ensures your ads are seen by the people most likely to engage, improving ad relevance and lowering your CPM.

In conclusion, while high CPMs present ongoing challenges in digital advertising, programmatic advertising offers powerful solutions. By automating processes, improving targeting, and expanding inventory access, you can achieve more effective ad campaigns at lower costs.

Interested in enhancing your advertising strategy? ClickAds.ai provides a straightforward way to tap into the benefits of programmatic advertising. Our self-serve platform simplifies campaign management across various formats, including display, audio, video, and CTV. This enables you to focus more on your business objectives while efficiently optimising your ad efforts.

Consider giving ClickAds.ai a try to see how programmatic advertising can work for you.

1. Use High-Quality, Relevant Images

• Why: High-quality images are essential to catching users’ attention and conveying professionalism. Blurry or irrelevant images can hurt your ad’s performance.
• How to use: Always choose clear, high-resolution images that directly relate to the product or service you’re promoting. Ensure the images are visually appealing and resonate with your target audience.
• Example: For a travel company, use images of beautiful destinations like beaches or mountains to entice potential customers to explore vacation options.

2. Showcase Product Features or Benefits

• Why: Images that highlight key product features or benefits make it easier for users to visualize what they will gain from your offer.
• How to use: If your product has unique features, use close-up shots or lifestyle images that emphasize those benefits. Pair them with concise, benefit-driven ad copy.
• Example: A tech company can display an image showing the sleek design of a new laptop, paired with ad copy that highlights its lightweight portability and long battery life.

3. Align Images with Seasonal or Event-Based Campaigns

• Why: Seasonal or event-based campaigns can drive urgency, and relevant images can amplify that message, making the ad more timely and engaging.
• How to use: Use images that reflect current events, seasons, or holidays to make your ads more relevant to the time of year. For instance, showcase holiday decor or seasonal colors to reflect festive themes.
• Example: A fashion retailer might use images of cozy sweaters or winter coats for a fall/winter campaign, emphasizing seasonal relevance.

4. Create Visual Consistency with Your Brand

• Why: Consistency in branding helps users quickly identify your ads and reinforces brand recognition, especially if you use consistent colors, tones, and imagery across platforms.
• How to use: Choose images that align with your overall brand identity. If your brand has a specific color scheme or style, ensure the images used in your extensions reflect that to build a cohesive brand experience.
• Example: A luxury cosmetics brand should use clean, sophisticated images with soft lighting to match the premium feel of their other marketing materials.

5. Focus on Lifestyle Images to Evoke Emotion

• Why: Lifestyle images that show your product or service being used by real people can create an emotional connection with the viewer, increasing engagement and click-through rates.
• How to use: Use images that show people enjoying or benefiting from your product, creating a relatable and aspirational appeal.
• Example: A fitness brand could use images of people working out in a gym, smiling, or achieving fitness goals to motivate potential customers.

6. Test Multiple Images for A/B Testing

• Why: Different images resonate with different audiences, and testing multiple options allows you to identify the most effective visuals for driving clicks and conversions.
• How to use: Create a few variations of your image extensions and test them across different campaigns. Track performance to determine which images drive the best results, and optimize accordingly.
• Example: An online retailer can test images of individual products versus lifestyle shots of those products in use to see which one leads to higher CTR.

7. Use Images to Highlight Promotions or Offers

• Why: Promotions and discounts can drive immediate action, and adding a relevant image makes the promotion stand out even more.
• How to use: Use image extensions to visually emphasize special offers, such as sale banners, percentage-off labels, or free shipping icons. The image should complement the ad copy, reinforcing the urgency of the offer.
• Example: An e-commerce store could display an image showing “50% Off Sale” alongside the promotional text in the ad.

8. Optimize Images for Mobile

• Why: Mobile users have different browsing behavior, and visuals play a crucial role in quickly capturing their attention. Image extensions optimized for mobile can help you drive more mobile traffic.
• How to use: Ensure that the images you use are mobile-friendly, with clear and simple visuals that are easily viewable on small screens. Test how the image appears on different devices to ensure clarity and relevance.
• Example: A restaurant could display close-up images of popular dishes that look delicious even on smaller smartphone screens, enticing mobile users to click.

9. Match Images with Specific Audience Segments

• Why: Different audience segments respond to different imagery. Tailoring images to specific groups allows for more personalized and relevant ads.
• How to use: If you have multiple target audiences, use images that align with the interests or demographics of each segment. You can adjust the image style, tone, or content to match the preferences of your ideal customer.
• Example: A car dealership could use images of family-friendly SUVs for ads targeting families, and sleek sports cars for ads targeting younger professionals.

10. Drive Traffic to Product-Specific Pages

• Why: Image extensions can be used to guide users to specific landing pages that match the product shown in the image, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
• How to use: Ensure that the image used in the extension reflects the product or service that users will find on the landing page. This creates a seamless experience from ad to landing page and improves relevancy.
• Example: If you’re advertising a specific clothing item like a jacket, use an image of the jacket and ensure the ad links to that product page rather than the homepage.

Conclusion

Microsoft Image Extensions offer an effective way to enhance your text ads by providing users with visual cues that make your ad more engaging and informative. By following these 10 best practices—using high-quality images, focusing on branding, testing different visuals, and aligning with specific audiences—you can significantly improve your ad performance and achieve better click-through and conversion rates across the Microsoft Advertising network.

In this blog post, we’ll look into how to identify and avoid some of the most common pitfalls. Soon, successful Google Ads optimisation will become second nature. 

Mistake 1. You’re not using negative keywords

Negative keywords are a crucial part of search campaigns. Using negative keywords effectively will help prevent your ads showing up in irrelevant searches. Plus, using certain words and phrases can result in you spending money for no reason. 

The Solution:

When using Google Ads, it’s so important to continue to expand your negative keywords list. You should action this on a weekly basis at the very least. And you need to base it on your search term reports. 

Begin with a standard list of negative keywords. You can source these by using online tools or sites that provide lists that are ready to use as soon as you need them. Your list of negative keywords will save you money on Google Ads with minimal effort. Plus, you’ll also be able to attract more qualified leads and discredit searches that are unlikely to convert. 

Once your initial list has been uploaded, you can discover the exact search terms that people are using to find your ads. At this stage, you’ll probably see some keywords that have nothing to do with your campaign. If you do, add them to your negative keywords list right away.

Helpful Hint:

Aim for a minimum of 50-100 negative keywords when you start out. Then, keep refining the list based on actual search term data in your Google Ads account. 

Mistake 2. Not optimising for conversion rate testing

A worrying amount of decisions around campaign settings are made without considering conversion testing. 

If you don’t set up any form of conversion testing, it’s impossible to have a clear picture of your campaign. For example, you can’t see how much it costs to obtain a lead or sale from your campaigns. Or even which keywords are driving sales or which keywords are no help at all. 

The Solution: 

By optimising your ads for conversions, you can boost your ROI and get more for your money. Imagine a successful conversion is a customer making a phone call. Google Ads will optimise your campaign to drive more phone calls based on the historical data linked to your campaign.

Make sure you have set up every possible conversion action depending on your product or service. 

Helpful Hint:

Set up as many conversion actions as possible. Make sure you always optimise your campaigns towards achieving specific goals.

Mistake 3. Not testing your bidding strategies

There are many bidding strategies available and choosing the right one may feel like a daunting task. If you use the wrong bidding strategy you risk overbidding on keywords. Overbidding leads to wasted ad spend and a severely drained campaign budget. 

Automated bidding strategies can seem like a big help at first. Especially as they remove the pressure of decision making. However, you should always be testing a few different strategies to find the one which best suits your campaign needs. 

The Solution: 

Choose the right strategy for you. If you need more control over your bids in the long term, opt for manual CPC. But, if you’re planning on testing out a campaign in just a couple of weeks, enhanced CPC could work best. These bid strategies allow Google to get the most clicks at the best price possible.

Ideally the strategies you want to focus on are targeting CPA and also targeting ROAS. These will allow you to bid in line with your established Cost Per Action or Return On Ad Spend. You will be able to spend the right amount on ad targeting to reach your ROI and get the most out of your investment. 

Helpful Hint: 

Always monitor your campaigns’ ad performance. You can easily achieve this by adjusting bidding strategies to ensure optimal results. Adjustments can include changing or pausing keywords or match types that aren’t performing. 

Mistake 4. You’re only creating one ad variation

When compiling your own Google Ads best practices, creating several ad variations per ad group should be high on your list.  If you want to boost your conversion rate and keep costs low, it is important to create several ad variations per ad group.

Creating one ad per ad group or one ad with one variation is a common mistake. This limits the amount of data you can collect and reduces the optimisation of your ad copy. 

The Solution:

It is important to get several ad variations and test them out to discover which one converts better. Even if you are using the same headline or the same description.

Once you find a winning ad, you can pause the rest and create a slightly different version of the winner. Then you can continue split testing.

Helpful Hint:

You should carry out a lot of testing and fine-tuning your campaign. Testing will help you to find the ROI sweet-spot. 

It’s extremely rare for a campaign that hits the ground running to generate significant leads or sales from day one.

Mistake 4. Not adding ad extensions (now called assets)

Google Ads extensions (now called ‘assets’) are optional bits of content that can provide searchers with more information. They can make your ads more compelling and help them stand out from the crowd. 

Assets such as sitelinks or phone numbers also take up valuable visual real estate in SERPs. They are an easy way to create properly optimised ads that drive more qualified traffic to your site and boost your CTR. 

Assets can be an extremely effective way to increase your clicks. Ignoring them would be a huge wasted opportunity.

The Solution:

Take advantage of assets when running Google Ads. You can add sitelink extensions, which show different links to your website and send people to relevant pages. You can add callout extensions, which enable you to show some of the unique selling points you have. Structured snippet extensions, message extensions, location extensions, and price extensions are other types of useful extensions you can use.

Helpful Hint:

You can’t control how assets will appear. Google actually decides what assets appear and for which ads. It is worth checking the extension (asset) tab occasionally. Then, you can pause the ones that don’t convert or replace them with something better. 

Google is the one that decides what extensions appear and for which ads. Your ultimate goal is to look at the extension tab from time to time and see which extensions convert better. Then you can pause the ones that do not convert or replace them with a better version.

Mistake 5. Choosing to ignore regional trends

Make sure your ads target your customers’ locations. By using the default location settings, you could be wasting ad spend by not reaching your intended audience. 

For example, if you own a restaurant in Manchester, you don’t want your ads showing up for people who can’t eat there. But if you don’t tweak your geo-targeting settings, there’s a good chance that this will happen. 

The Solution:

Define the specific locations where your ads should appear to maximise relevance.

First, you need to consider the area you want to cover. If you are a local business, you’ll only want to run ads in the immediate area. On the other hand, businesses that don’t have this limitation can test a wider geographic area. 

The benefit of this approach is that once you have some data to work with, you can examine your ad performance. For example, you may find the cost/conversion from one city is lower than another. This could be a reason you turn down the budgeting for the more expensive city and turn it up for the other.

Or, you may find that sales or leads from a service are only coming from a few key cities. If so, it could be a cue to adjust your bids and campaigns accordingly.

Helpful Hint:

Test out different locations to find where you can get the most cost-effective leads and sales.

Mistake 6. Not testing out keyword match types 

Google Ads has three types of keyword match available. These are exact, phrase and broad:

• Broad match: These push your ads to a variation of your target keywords. These can include synonyms, related searches, and misspellings. Broad match keywords help you find new opportunities but can show your ads to irrelevant search queries. 
• Exact match: These allow your ads to show for searches that include the exact phrase you’ve targeted
• Phrase keywords: Similar to an exact match, but they can also include additional words before or after phrases. Combining these can help narrow down the audience to be more specific.

By testing out these different types, you can discover the relevant keywords that will be most effective for your campaigns. 

Using only broad match keywords will make your ads eligible to show on a larger range of queries than either exact or phrase keywords. By not focusing your broad match keywords with past performances or conversion data, you risk matching to queries that are irrelevant. 

The Solution:

Choose one keyword match type per ad group and review performance on a regular basis. Ideally, every two weeks. Then, test other types to see if you can improve performance. 

Helpful Hint:

If you are a large budget advertiser, broad match keywords can actually lower the cost per conversion in the long run. 

Mistake 7. You’re not using Experiments

The Experiments tool in Google Ads can help you to run split tests to find a better way of working. 

In one safe environment, you can test different landing pages, ad copy, keyword match types, keywords, and more. 

It also lets you decide on the specific amount of traffic you want to direct to each of your experiments. This means you can limit the risks, and even better, the potential for rewards is much higher.

The Solution:

Give it a try. By taking time to use and understand Experiments, you may find a new approach that your bottom line will thank you for.

In summary: avoid common Google Ad mistakes and achieve campaign success

With so many variables within Google Ads it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Especially if you’re just starting out with PPC campaigns. It can feel tough to keep up. But, this list of common mistakes should help you to spot any quick wins and make sure your funds are making the biggest impact. 

Looking for more tips on optimising your campaigns? Check out Adzooma’s resources.

Despite this knowledge, though, many marketers still struggle to put together a comprehensive marketing strategy that really delivers them results.

It’s fair to say that this is likely due more in part to a lack of education than a lack of effort, so we’re going to help our fellow marketers out by providing 11 of the most effective content marketing strategies to help boost your organic traffic.

Did you know? Chatbots can revamp your content marketing strategy through your advertising by delivering a 100% conversion rate. That’s right, everyone who clicks from the ad to interact with your bot becomes a contact in your database that you can send follow-up messaging to.

Let’s start by looking at five of the best kinds of content you can and should be creating.

Types of content that can increase your traffic

1. How-to guides

Consider this scenario:

You’re considering launching a podcast as part of your content marketing strategy, but you have no idea where to start.

So, what do you do?

“Hey, Siri, how do I start a podcast?”

What you’ll get back is something like this post from Buzzsprout, packed with helpful tips on launching a podcast, relevant and inspiring podcasting stats, exploring different platforms such as Spotify’s video podcasts and recommendations for equipment to help you get started.

How-to guides are incredibly powerful content, both because people are regularly seeking out this kind of information and because they are (or at least, should be) packed with detail.

When you’re putting together how-to guides as part of your marketing strategy, make sure that they are:

• Long-form: Don’t be afraid to write 3,000 words or more, as long as it’s relevant and helpful.
• Not too ‘salesy’: This isn’t the time to tell the world why you’re so great; it’s the time to help.
• Related to other posts you’ve written: That way, you can build up your internal linking strategy.
• Design an infographic: A timeline infographic is a great tool to visualize how-to guides and improve audience retention.
• Create a video as an alternative: You can also deliver your how-to guides through short and straightforward videos, such as explainer videos. It helps audiences retain and understand information better.

2. Comparison lists

Publishing well-written, valuable blog posts is an incredibly effective content marketing strategy. Companies that do this see 97% more backlinks to their site than those who don’t.

Of course, there are so many different kinds of blog posts you might write. For example:

• Listicles
• Checklists
• Explainers (answering questions like why and how)
• Interview
• Personal anecdotes

One of the most powerful blog posts you can create is the comparison post. In this type of content, you’re actively comparing your product to competitors.

But wait, you say, don’t I want to steer my prospects away from my competition?

Well, yes, that may be the case, but the truth of the matter is that they’re going to be comparing you regardless.

More than half of buyers choose to buy online simply because it allows them to compare with ease. So you can bet your bottom dollar that your customers will be conducting at least some form of ‘X vs. Y’ search.

And if that’s the case, wouldn’t you rather they come across a blog post that details the pros and cons of all of your competitors and paints your product in the best light possible?

Take this list of the best credit repair companies, for example, which helps readers decide between different products and services in one place. It’s an excellent example of the comparison post in action.

What’s more, you can target keywords that include your competitors to divert some of that valuable search traffic.

For example, check out this blog post on DocuSign competitors by PandaDoc (a DocuSign competitor).

Look who they’ve oh so subtly listed as the number one service:

Those comparison lists can be as long as you wish, but a good strategy is to position yourself as the first best option. Another example is Monday.com who compared themselves with more than 289 other project management softwares. 

3. Comprehensive guides

For search engine rankings and lead generation, you want your written content to be around 2,500 words.

This kind of ground can be covered fairly easily when you’re writing a comparison blog post of 10 different competitors. For narrower topics, you’re going to need to dive deep.

The way to do this is by creating a comprehensive guide. You’ll have no doubt seen titles like these before:

• The ultimate guide to X
• The definitive guide to Y
• The complete guide to Z

That’s what we’re talking about.

Take this example from Propel: The complete guide to value chains.

This post clocks in at 2,748 words, the ideal length for a comprehensive guide of its kind.

It manages to pack in a ton of different keywords and search phrases, maximizing organic traffic reach by allowing customers to find the answers they need in a single post.

Here’s an example of an ultimate guide written on the topic of appointment scheduling software by Genbook. With over 30,000 words this guide is broken into various chapters and also has both audios, graphs and examples, making it an ideal resource on the topic. 

4. Case Studies

Case studies are a great way to showcase your expertise and also give prospective clients a real-life example of how your product helped a company scale (if you’re in the B2B world).

They’re also great opportunities for both internal and external links.

Check out this article on how to write a case study for more details.

5. On-page SEO

Okay, so this one is not so much a type of content. However, it’s something that should be flowing throughout all aspects of your content marketing strategy.

We’re talking about search engine optimization, the backbone of modern marketing. More specifically, we’re referring to the on-page aspect of SEO.

In a nutshell, on-page SEO is about ensuring each page or post you have on your site is best positioned to target a given keyword.

This might include targeted use of that specific keyword verbatim, as well as semantically related words and alternate keywords that tell search engines exactly what you’re writing about.

Take this Swagbucks page for Old Navy coupons, for example.

This could be a pretty bare-bones page, with not much room for content that could house a decent volume of relevant keywords.

However, they’ve craftily added in a ‘How to Save Money at Old Navy’ section, allowing for a description of the store, which, you guessed it, maximizes their ability to write on-topic and boost keyword density.

Analyze your pages for improvements, make the edits, and monitor the results using a rank tracking software to see the impact. 

6 tips to supercharge your content marketing strategy 

So, you’ve got your head around some of the most popular content marketing strategies around, and you have a bit of an idea concerning what types of content you might create.

Before you go diving into content creation, though, let’s look at a few quick tips to really get the most out of your content and boost your organic traffic numbers.

1. Create customer personas

Start by creating customer personas, which are fictional representations of your ideal customer, and include details such as:

• Demographics
• Occupation
• Shopping preferences
• Recreational preferences
• Family situation
• Challenges in the workplace
• Career/workplace goals

Here’s what a simple example might look like:

Creating personas such as these not only allows you to craft content that is more targeted, but it also helps you identify relevant keywords and weed out those that don’t fit.

For example, if you’re selling an online course for entry-level English lessons, then the search phrase ‘English courses for beginners’ would be a good fit, whereas ‘Advanced English course’ probably won’t be.

2. Segment your audience

Larger companies with a more varied service offering (for example, a SaaS product with three or four different solutions) might have more than one customer persona. When this is the case, it’s unwise to assume that a piece of content you create would be suitable for all audiences.

Segment your audience types, then create different content for each that is relevant to that narrow subset of people. Once that’s done, distribute the content accordingly.

3. Make your content adaptive

This is especially important if you’re dealing with millennials or Gen Z buyers.

Customers should be able to browse your content (blog posts and ecommerce platforms alike) on their phone, then switch over to a desktop or iPad and have the exact same experience.

Ensuring your content adapts easily to all devices is a major aspect of this consistent experience.

4. A/B test consistently

Regardless of how well-researched your customer personas are and how well-crafted your content is, you can never be sure that even something as subtle as a color change on a CTA button might result in a significant uplift in conversion rates.

Make A/B testing a regular part of your content marketing strategy. Whenever you release a new piece of content, such as a new landing page, you should run two or more variants side by side until you have a verdict on the best-performing option.

Doing so will also help you create better content in the future, as you’ll start to notice trends in your A/B test results.

5. Create a content calendar

Your content marketing strategy should feed into a more detailed content calendar, which documents all of the content you’re going to create over the next three, six, or 12 months.

You should include:

• Who is responsible for each content piece
• Due dates
• Required assets
• Stakeholders
• Methods of distribution

There are lots of ways to create a content calendar online, but one way to do it is with a project management tool. For example, Hive has lets you display any of your projects in a Calendar view. So if you already use a project or task management tool to keep track of your upcoming content assignments, this will save you from duplicating the work and making a totally new calendar in another tool.

6. Repurpose your content

You’re going to create a ton of content, so why just use it once and be done with it?

There are a number of ways you can repurpose content, which can also boost your ROI.

For example, you might bring a series of blog posts together into a mega-guide or take some learnings from a recent webinar or podcast episode and create a written blog post on the same topic.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a big beast, but it’s one you can tackle easily if you keep the tips we’ve discussed here in the front of your mind.

Let’s recap:

1. Create how-to guides to deliver unparalleled value
2. Build comparison lists to demonstrate your point of difference
3. Write a comprehensive guide to maximize search ranking abilities
4. Develop case studies to prove your experience
5. Make SEO a part of everything you create
6. Create customer personas to better identify relevant key search phrases
7. Segment your audience for maximum impact
8. Make your content adaptive for a better customer experience
9. A/B test consistently to lift conversion rates
10. Create a content calendar to stay on track
11. Repurpose your content to improve ROI
12. Build backlinks to targeted pages

And, don’t forget, you’ll need to promote your content as well!

That’s where we come in. Check out how our AI-driven suggestions can help optimize your ad campaigns.

But not every PPC metric is important for what you want to achieve and it isn’t as daunting as you may think.

So much of it comes down to intent. For example, you may hear people in the PPC community say, “Impressions don’t matter one jot!” But that’s not the case at all. If you’re running a brand campaign for example, one of the most important metrics you should be looking at is impressions.

So in this article, I’m going to lay out all the PPC metrics you should be keeping an eye on (as you may have guessed from the title), but I’m also going to lay out for what reason you should be keeping an eye on them.

That way, when you next head into your PPC campaigns and you’re looking at the performance of your brand campaigns for example, you can start to prioritise some metrics more than others.

Intent Is Key

Aligning your campaigns with intent is crucial to PPC success. Before you start any campaign you need to ask yourself the question, “What do I want out of this?”

This can be just something as simple as: 

• more customers (sales campaign)
• more eyes on my brand (brand campaign)
• more users on my website (traffic campaign)
• more sign ups for my free webinar (lead campaign)

Those are the campaigns we’re going to concentrate on today. You could go more granular if you wanted, but for the vast majority of PPC users, your campaigns will fit into one of the four buckets above.

Therefore, once you’ve made your decision regarding which campaign you want to proceed with, you then need to ask the question, “What metrics do I need to keep an eye on to measure this campaign’s success?”

That’s what this article is for. Here I’m going to go through each metric you’d see in your Adzooma, Microsoft or Google ads account, then tell you which type of campaign this metric is most useful for.

Cost – Everything

Let’s start with a super easy one, cost: how much your campaign has spent.

Unless you’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, you’re probably going to want to keep an eye on this one so you’re not bankrupting yourself.

Verdict: Keep an eye on it unless you’re a billionaire

Want to save more money on your campaigns? Have a read of our article on 4 simple ways to save money on your PPC campaigns right now

Clicks – Everything

Clicks aren’t the be all and end all, but they’re an important measurement stick for every kind of campaign you’re running.

Every sale and every lead has to start with a click first.

If you want your brand out there, aren’t crucial, but someone just noticing your brand’s name in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) isn’t likely to do that much – even if you’re running a brand campaign you still want someone to click your ads.

Verdict: Always be measuring those clicks no matter what campaign you’re running

Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Everything

Click through rate is the percentage of people who see your ad  and click it. So if 100 people see your ad, but only 5 people click it, your CTR will be 5%. 

Typically, if you’re connected to the Adzooma platform you’ll see a CTR of 6% on Google Ads and 3.7% on Microsoft, which is about 4% and 1% higher than industry average.

You always want to keep an eye on this one, for every kind of campaign you run. If that CTR is dropping to below 2% then you probably need to take action and revise your ad copy or ad relevancy to try and get people clicking on your ads.

This isn’t a cut and dry rule, though. You could have thousands of clicks and hundreds of conversions while your CTR might be at 1%. Then you’d say to me, “Tom, stop telling me I need my CTR above 2% because I’m here raking in the dollar.”

Your own judgement is key afterall. PPC isn’t always a science, sometimes it’s an art.

Verdict: You don’t always have to be concerned if it drops too low, but it’s something to always keep an eye on

Adzooma users see an uptick in CTR rates due to the easy to implement Opportunities that are a part of the free platform.  Learn More

Cost Per Click (CPC) – Everything

Staying on the theme of clicks, staying on the theme of metrics you need to measure for every kind of campaign, we approach the subject of CPC.

Now, whereas the two above you don’t always have to be concerned about, this one you very much do. Because if you’re paying way over the top for your clicks, then something is very wrong, and it’s going to hit you in the place that hurts most – your pocket.

How much you pay for clicks depends on what industry you’re in, but whatever they are, you need to keep an eye on them. Not doing so could destroy your campaigns.

Verdict: Always measure this. No ifs or buts.

Quality Score – Everything

Quality Score is another really important metric because if your Quality Score is low, then you’re going to pay more for your ads no matter what campaign you’re running.

Quality Score is a little bit tougher to understand than the other KPIs because it’s a little bit vaguer – it’s made up of different measurements like ad relevance, landing page experience, ad format, expected CTR etc.

It also has a scoring system out of 10. Anything 5 and below isn’t particularly great and therefore your ads should be revised (unless you’re running competitor campaigns, for example).

You can read our Quality Score explainer article to get more information on what it is, why it’s so important, and how you can improve it.

Verdict: Very important for all campaigns to save on unnecessary wasted spend

Conversions – Sales / Leads

You can discount this if you’re running brand or traffic campaigns, but for those running sales or lead campaigns, then stick around.

Conversions are simply what you define as a user completing an action which becomes a lead or a sale – that could be: 

• Signing up to your email newsletter
• Enquiring about your services
• Making a purchase.
• And so on

As you can imagine, this is something you will want to keep an eye on – especially if you have a target of getting 1,000 people signed up for your newsletter or something.

However, make sure you don’t measure this in isolation. You don’t want to look solely at conversion without cost too (spoiler: that’s what the next one’s about).

Verdict: Important for sales and lead campaigns, but make sure you don’t measure it in isolation

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – Sales / Leads

Here comes the context.

CPA is how much you pay per lead or customer (dependent on what you class as a conversion in Google Ads), so say 15 people click your ad for a total cost over £75 and you get two conversions, the CPA will be £37.50. 

You can see why this would be important. If your CPA is at £37.50 , but you’re only making a £20 sale, it’s likely you need to change your strategy up.

When you set up your campaigns in Adzooma, you will be able to set a Target CPA.  Using historical information and contextual signals, Adzooma automatically set your bids to try to get your conversions to remain at that Target CPA. 

This can’t be something you do straight away, though – you need to have had at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days for the algorithm to work.

Verdict: Super important metric to watch if you’re running sales or lead campaigns

Conversion Rate (CVR) – Sales / Leads

Another one that applies to the sales and lead campaigns, CVR is the percentage of people who convert from a click. So say you have 1 conversion and 10 clicks, your CVR will be 10%.

This metric is important to see how well you’re performing after the click, when a user is on your site and looking to make an action. If this metric is super low, maybe the audience you’re attracting isn’t right, maybe your site is too slow, maybe your landing page isn’t the best. 

Those are things you’ll have to dig into yourself, but CVR is a good indicator that either something’s going wrong after the click or something is going pretty darn well.

Verdict: A good indicating metric for sales and lead campaigns to help figure out your success after the click

Impressions – Brand 

Now, a lot of people would say impressions don’t matter at all, but that really isn’t true.

If you’re wanting eyes on your brand, then impressions do matter. For example, imagine if you’re a small cola brand and you’re beside Coca Cola and Pepsi with a quirky ad – that’s automatically going to get people thinking about you. Even if they don’t click on you, being in their mind is good enough.

That’s why impressions are important. Not for every campaign, sure. But don’t rule them out entirely.

Verdict: Important metric for brand campaigns. Not for anything else

Impression Share (CPM) – Everything

Now impression share is a little bit different to impressions. It’s actually the total impressions divided by the total eligible impressions.

Total eligible impressions take into account things like bid budget, targeting settings, quality score and approval statuses.

So if you’re really wanting to get those eyes on your brand, this is a really important metric for you, as if that CPM is low, then you may want to do something about that.

However, this also impacts sales and lead campaigns too, because again if your CPM is low, you could be losing out on clicks to your competitors because more often than not, your ads aren’t being seen.

Plus, on top of CPM, there is also Absolute Top Impression Share and Search Top Impression Share, which gives you a percentage run down of the location of your ads in the SERPs. 

This percentage indicates whether your ads have the possibility of reaching the top or absolute top. This how they’re worked out:

• Search top impression rate = Impressions on top/Impressions
• Search absolute top impression rate = Impressions on the absolute top/Impressions

Verdict: Important for all campaigns.

An Easier Way?

If you’re thinking, “That is a lot to remember, isn’t there an easier way?” 

Well, the answer to that is yes!

With the free Adzooma platform, the software can keep an eye on all these metrics for you and then notify you whenever they turn bad or there’s opportunity for something more.

If you’re starting out in PPC, then it’s the perfect sidekick to help you along in your learning journey.

Then when you’ve navigated your way to an added level of competency, it’ll be your trusty assistant who’ll be there to handle all the manual work so you don’t have to.

All you have to do is connect your Google, Microsoft or Facebook account to the Adzooma platform, then you’ll have access to one-click optimisations, a full reporting suite, extensive automation, and so much more, at no cost at all.

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Google announced the phasing out of third-party cookies in its Chrome browser platform by 2022 and members of the digital marketing community aren’t too happy since Chrome has an estimated 63.38% global browser market share on all devices. On 25th January, Google unveiled its new alternative to cookies called Federated Learning of Cohorts (or FLoC) but what does this all mean for PPC marketers and their strategies?

In this article, I’ll be examining cookies, why they’re getting culled, and what PPC marketers will need to do once they’re gone as well more information on Google’s Privacy Sandbox and the recently revealed FLoC.

What are cookies?

Cookies (also known as HTTP cookies, web cookies, Internet cookies, and browser cookies) are pieces of data stored on a user’s computer by their browser. They were created by Lou Montulli as a way for websites to remember things like the items you had in your shopping cart or login details. Cookies had helpful intentions but soon, e-commerce grew and cookies were used to aid online advertising and track users behaviour.

There are two main types of cookies:

First-party cookies

First-party cookies are created and stored by websites and allow site owners to collect data such as:

• User language settings
• Analytics data
• Shopping carts items
• Usernames and passwords

This is what cookies were initially designed to do and help to improve user experience.

Third-party cookies

Third-party cookies are created by third parties on behalf of websites who use them. Unlike first party cookies, they have more ad-focused uses such as:

• Cross-site tracking
• Serving ads
• Retargeting ads

The main differences between first-party and third-party cookies are the intentions behind the data collection, what they’re used for, and who manages the cookies.

Why are third-party cookies dying?

Privacy concerns

The user of tracking cookies grew in prevalence over time and they started to track long-term user behaviour. This activity posed a privacy threat and in 2011, European and U.S. lawmakers took action. For all websites involving EU traffic, site owners had to acquire “informed consent” from users before storing non-essential cookies on their devices.

Sketchy alternatives

With so many major browsers blocking third-party cookies, developers have created new ways to bypass the blocks such as ‘fingerprinting’, where setting changes are used to track users. On the plus side, Google is aware and continues to extinguish its use.

What will this mean for PPC strategies?

Google’s ban of third-party cookies is arguably a good idea but it will affect both digital advertisers and Google itself in terms of ad revenue for both sides. So what will PPC strategies look like once those cookies crumble? And is FLoC a good substitute?

I spoke with my colleague, Sophie Logan, a PPC manager at Adzooma.

“As marketers, we knew third-party cookies wouldn’t last forever and since the introduction of the new GDPR, it was only a matter of time until this came into force. I think off the back of this, a loss of data is the most powerful side effect for PPC strategies and technologies in 2021.

We will need to rely more heavily on first-party cookie platforms such as Facebook and Google. This will increase their control and power of user data, and provide them with data which is not available to other advertisers.”

In terms of next steps, Sophie suggested PPC marketers adapt to the new situation and “up their game”:

“Adapt and overcome. Advertisers have no choice but to up their game. But at least everyone (well almost everyone) is in the same boat.”

Privacy Sandbox and Federated Learning of Cohorts

Launched on 25th January 2021, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) provides an “effective replacement signal for third-party cookies” with early tests reaching in-market and affinity Google Audiences expected to see “at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising.”

However, the new technique hasn’t pleased everyone with some advertisers claiming it is anti-competitive. The CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) are currently investigating the Privacy Sandbox proposal after a group of companies in digital marketing, news media and tech complained that Google was abusing its position by phasing out third-party cookie support.

Speaking to Sophie, she understands marketers’ concerns:

“From what I’ve heard from marketers, it looks like the use of ‘sensitive’ data is a major concern. I think that opens up the whole issue of morals when it comes to advertising and how data is used. Currently, we don’t have access to universally determined ‘sensitive’ data, but this could open that up.”

As for the Privacy Sandbox project, Google says its project’s mission is to “create a thriving web ecosystem that is respectful of users and private by default”:

“The main challenge to overcome in that mission is the pervasive cross-site tracking that has become the norm on the web and on top of which much of the web’s ability to deliver and monetize content has been built.”

Google wants to combat those sketchy non-cookie techniques like fingerprinting, cache inspection, and link decoration to maintain users’ privacy and improve the Web experience for everyone. It’s early days regarding privacy issues with the project so we’ll see how it develops.

A remarketing redux is required

Sophie said it’d be impossible to run remarketing in its current state which means the technique will need to change in order to survive.

A loss in revenue

Without remarketing (at least in its current form) and with reduced user data, there will be a significant impact to revenue for advertisers and Google. Users will also get more irrelevant and repetitive ads and could tank important KPIs like click-through rate.

According to Google Ads, cookie-less traffic yielded an average of 52% percent less revenue for the ad publisher.

Conversion tracking will take a hit

If you can’t track user behaviour, you won’t be able to assess your ads’ effectiveness in the same way. That lack of conversion tracking will therefore impair value proposition which is an important part of PPC strategy.

People-based marketing

There’s also “people-based marketing”, introduced by Facebook, which uses first-party data and isn’t affected by cookies. It compares user IDs with customer data to help advertisers find targetable users for their ads. Google can also use first-party data for similar uses but with their ongoing anti-trust lawsuits, who knows how effective they’ll continue to be in their current state.

Outside of the tech giants, data management platforms are looking at alternative ways to help advertisers to track their data. Sophie recommends looking into alternatives now and to stay up to date with cookie news.

“Using customer data and offline data will allow advertisers to compare their quality and identify the best users to target. There will also be more reliance on contextual advertising, such a native ads, where the ad content is tailored to the content of the website rather than a specific user.”

Conclusion

It will be interesting to see how advertisers react to these changes and whether they’ll embrace FLoC or try more basic strategies but with more resources and consideration.

Online advertising worked before the use of third-party cookies, and they will be able to continue without them too. This will require advertisers to more manually ensure that they are targeting the right individuals with relevant messaging.

From Google’s perspective, it’s important that the company gets FLoC right and doesn’t alienate its customers further.