LionShark Digital Marketing Blog

9 Things You’ve Never Thought to Include in Your PPC Ads

8/22/2018

PPC ads and keywords are the essence of a paid search account. Without persuasive ads and comprehensive keywords, PPC efforts are doomed to fail. But as paid search has become more competitive, it’s gotten harder to create ads that stand out. The old tricks of including keywords and dynamic keyword insertion in ad text have begun to feel passé, and simply sprinkling in juicy offers and promotional coupon codes won’t cut it anymore either.

These out-of-the-box suggestions will get your ads noticed, attracting better targeted traffic and increasing conversion rates:

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The Ultimate Guide to PPC for Service Providers

2/1/2018

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Utilizing online advertising for services instead of products poses its own unique set of challenges.

Unlike products, which typically have SKUs and easily distinguishable characteristics, services can be more ambiguous. The nuances between service offerings and providers often requires more explanation that a short text ad will allow. Furthermore, restrictions, in the form of geographic service areas and technical project requirements, complicate matters even further. For these reasons, many local service providers opt to forgo online advertising and rely primarily on word of mouth referrals and offline advertising to increase brand recognition.

However, national service providers understand the value in paid search (PPC) advertising and often invest heavily in building and maintaining online advertising campaigns tailored for different markets.

The result is that national providers typically dominate markets where local providers should be thriving.

For instance, one of our local clients provides specialized equipment rentals across the state of Michigan. Their prices are reasonable, their service is impeccable, and they know the local community far better than their national competitors. However, the big national companies they’re competing with were running sizeable online advertising campaigns and taking business away from them (despite charging a premium for doing nothing more than contracting with the local company for their equipment). We were able to catapult this local provider to the front of the industry using strategic local advertising at a cost far lower than they had anticipated.

How do you find the same success for your service-based business? A three-pronged approach to online advertising will give your business an advantage!

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The Ins and Outs of Using AdWords Ad Extensions

6/20/2017

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Ad extensions used to be the “special sauce” of an AdWords account. When they were newly released, industry leaders started using them to gain a competitive advantage over other advertisers that were slower to adopt this new option. The result was that even moderately okay-ish ad extensions could single-handedly increase engagement, conversions, and return on ad spend. It was as if overnight Google had handed out skip the line passes and some advertisers were using them to leapfrog competitors in ways that they’d only dreamed of before.

Fast forward to today and now ad extensions are simply expected to be a part of any coherent PPC strategy. Not using ad extensions feels a little bit like turning down an offer for free real estate – like someone knocked on your front door and offered to quadruple the size of your yard and you said no thank you because you didn’t want to maintain it. Essentially, using ad extensions these days isn’t going to give you a huge competitive advantage anymore, but not using them will certainly put you at a substantial disadvantage. That being said, let’s look at which ad extensions are going to the most beneficial for your business and how you go about setting them up!

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How to Run PPC When No One is Searching for You

5/23/2017

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Paid search advertising (PPC) is an incredibly effective strategy when it comes to generating leads and driving conversions. However, PPC sort of relies on one premise – that people are looking for what you’re selling. That means that if you’re trying to market an industry-changing invention or a product that’s radically different than the competition, you can find yourself in an uphill battle. It doesn’t mean that you can’t do PPC though, it just means that you must be more creative.

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Analyzing the Results of Expanded Text Ads – What We Found

2/2/2017

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Expanded text ads were one of the biggest changes that Google rolled out to PPC advertisers in the last decade, which meant that their unveiling was met with both excitement and trepidation. Advertisers speculated that expanded text ads would result in dramatically higher click-through rates and conversion rates due to their much larger size. Industry insiders speculated that with approximately twice the characters to work with, businesses would find it easier to convey value propositions and engage with shoppers, making their lives easier and consumer experiences richer.

So, now that they’ve gone live, you might be asking yourself whether all the hoopla about expanded text ads was justified. Well, we analyzed the results that our PPC clients saw and put together our findings:

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Is Your PPC Account Ready for the Post-Holiday Rush?

12/7/2016

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A lot of business owners assume that the most lucrative time of the year to do online advertising is in the months leading up to Christmas. They increase their budgets and roll out all the stops to try to appeal to holiday shoppers and then when December 26th rolls around they turn their ads off (or scale them back substantially) and start strategizing for next year. This is especially common with small businesses. However, it may surprise you to learn that the post-holiday shopping surge is almost as big as the rush leading up to Christmas.

Many consumers receive money for the holidays that they then turnaround and spend immediately thereafter. Many people have New Year’s Day off, which makes it a particularly busy time for retail and online shopping. This means that if your ads go dormant after Christmas, you could be missing substantial revenue. The first step in making sure that you’re ready for these shoppers is just simply to keep your PPC ads running, but the second step is to modify your current holiday efforts.

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Quiz: Is Your AdWords Account Haunted?

10/6/2016

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Halloween is right around the corner, but this year cute kids going door-to-door might not be the only ghosts and goblins in your life. That’s right! We’re talking about your AdWords account. There may be skeletons hiding in there as well! Take this quiz now to find out if your AdWords account is being haunted by outdated elements or bad practices!

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PPC Bootcamp – Getting A Leaner AdWords Account in 3 Steps

5/12/2016

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The spring is here and a lot of people are dusting off their running sneakers and getting out to shed those extra pounds. Maybe you should be doing that too… for your PPC account! If your PPC account could benefit from getting rid of some dead weight, you’ve come to the right place. This quick tutorial will help you figure out what to focus on to achieve a leaner PPC account. A slimmed down AdWords account is easier to manage and, ultimately, more effective in the long run!

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The Similarities between Delicious Cookies and Well-Executed PPC

12/15/2015

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The holidays are here, which means that it’s officially baking season! If you’re like me, baking Christmas cookies is an annual tradition that simply can’t be skipped – their delicious sugary flavors and iconic appearance are just a holiday staple. But as I was baking recently I began to wonder, “Can cookies teach us anything?” Okay, so maybe that should have been a sign to stop eating them at that point, but fueled by powdered sugar and chocolate, I started to see parallels between cookies and PPC. Indulge me here…

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11 Actionable Christmas PPC Tips

12/8/2015

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Running paid search around Christmas is a great strategy to boost site traffic and encourage sales, even when started at the very last minute. The ability to start PPC late in the season and get real-time data to use in decision-making sets it apart from many other marketing channels. So if you’re going to run PPC leading up to and after Christmas, here are some actionable tips to help you get the most of the remaining holiday shopping season:

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<<Previous

9 Things You’ve Never Thought to Include in Your PPC Ads

The Ultimate Guide to PPC for Service Providers

The Ins and Outs of Using AdWords Ad Extensions

How to Run PPC When No One is Searching for You

Analyzing the Results of Expanded Text Ads – What We Found

Is Your PPC Account Ready for the Post-Holiday Rush?

Quiz: Is Your AdWords Account Haunted?

PPC Bootcamp – Getting A Leaner AdWords Account in 3 Steps

The Similarities between Delicious Cookies and Well-Executed PPC

11 Actionable Christmas PPC Tips

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