How to optimize PPC (pay-per-click) strategy in overseas promotion?

PPC is simply the abbreviation of Pay Per Click, which means pay-per-click advertising in Chinese. If you are a veteran of PPC, you can spend all your time on strategic planning and finding innovative ways to drive low-priced, easy-to-convert clicks.

PPC is playing out in an extremely complex and competitive environment for e-commerce businesses, with small businesses joining the pay-per-click bandwagon. According to a 2018 study, 45% of businesses under 50 invest in PPC. For small businesses with 50 or more employees, that number jumps to 74%.

Why is PPC so important for eCommerce businesses?

Online product searches on Google – are booming. More and more e-commerce businesses are taking notice and buying into PPC. In the fourth quarter of 2018, spending on Google Shopping ads grew 43%.

While Amazon is still the first stop for many customers searching for products, Google is not far behind. According to Wordstream, the average customer buys a product within 20 days of searching for it on Google and 26 days on Amazon. They also report that 35% of users purchase a product within 5 days of searching on Google.

Many domestic companies that do Baidu PPC simply set the keywords and hand them over to third-party companies to manage. Indeed, the PPC mentioned in this article is aimed at overseas markets, not at Baidu. Baidu has indeed ruined the reputation of PPC. In fact, PPC is still one of the effective and powerful promotion methods.

Listed below are some recommendations for PPC for eCommerce businesses:

Ecommerce PPC

1. Balance broad and specific keywords:

Let's say you sell tires and rims for a living. You just opened a location on the same street that works with a lot of different car dealers. You see customers every day who are still walking around in research mode and have no idea what brand they want or what size tire they even need.

You find that many people who walk into your store tend to talk to your staff to get advice and end up leaving you with ideas, but now they are better informed and therefore can look for a better deal elsewhere.

Now let's assume that you come across many customers who know exactly which tire they need down to a specific model.

These customers who are further along in the sales cycle are more likely to buy from you if they walk into your store in the first place.

For those bidding on competitive terms, there is a very similar scenario in the e-commerce space. For example, in this industry, those might be "cheap tires" or "online tire deals."

A user may click on 4 or 5 different ads, use your site to do some research, and then buy from whoever offers the lowest price.

While you may never escape the vicious cycle of paying expensive clicks for more general and competitive keywords, you can start to balance it out by targeting a specific end of the spectrum. To do this, you can try using keywords like model number, part name, or UPC code.

You will rarely see the same number of users entered at the same level of granularity. But there are a lot of potential customers out there who know exactly what they want and just need to figure out the easiest way to get it.

Since the model keyword has a lower level of competition, not only will the click volume be significantly lower, but the conversion rate will also be much higher. This will help lower your overall CPA.

Additionally, when someone clicks on your model ad, you can send them directly to the product page, giving them everything they need in one place.

2. Identify and expand long-tail keywords.

There may also be customers who know a lot about what they are looking for but haven’t quite entered a UPC code yet.

In the Google Ads interface, you can view the Search Query Report. This report will show you the exact search keywords and phrases that triggered your ad.

Sort by keywords that lead to conversions and try to identify long-tail keywords that might contain some specific product details.

For example, let’s say you bid on the term “new rims” but learn that someone purchased a product on your site after searching for the brand, size, and color of rims they wanted. From here, you can add that long-tail keyword to the corresponding ad group and bid aggressively on it because you know it converts well.

Think of your broad keywords as casting a wide net. They will catch a lot of fish. However, in order to find the gems, you need to analyze your data to see which keywords are actually converting and identify the long-tail keywords you’re missing.

3. Bid on keywords similar to your competitors

Now that you’ve reached those users searching for a specific product, why ignore those who are specifically looking to buy from your competitors? A lot of searches come from people who have heard about a particular brand to buy from – but they’re not convinced yet. These searchers may be open to other options that offer better offers.

In the brick-and-mortar shopping world, someone might walk into a competitor’s store next door if that store has better prices and a larger selection sign. That’s why it might be helpful to create campaigns targeting competitor keywords with simple ads that make customers aware that you’re also an alternative, affordable choice.

4. Don’t use your competitor’s branded keywords

While targeting your competitor’s ad keywords, you should avoid targeting branded keywords. If you do this, a few things might happen:

• You will be paying for low-quality traffic.
• When your competitors notice, they may drive up your costs significantly by bidding a little more themselves (because their Quality Score is higher).
• Your competitors may complain to Google
• Rather than targeting branded keywords directly, take cues from your competitors’ PPC ads to help inform your own strategy. For example, if competitors are bidding on keywords that are important to your business, you might consider obtaining paid status for those terms as well. Or, on the other hand, there is a chance that some competitor will win a keyword that is important to you, but it will take months to accomplish. Using PPC to earn some traffic for these terms is a good stopgap measure in the meantime.

5. Include transparent pricing in your ads

With the limited number of characters we can use in text ads and the ever-increasing cost per click, it is becoming increasingly important to qualify traffic before your ad is actually clicked.

Even if you target certain keywords, there’s only so much you can infer from people using general terms. However, you can filter out less qualified people simply by adding pricing information to your ad. If you allow someone who is only willing to spend $40 on your product to know in advance that all your products are $75 and up, they will most likely not click on your ad.

This saves you advertising spend on qualified leads who can see your prices, know what to expect, may not be scared off by the prices, and are more likely to convert into sales.

When optimizing PPC, there are actually many details and gameplays to pay attention to. We need to analyze categories, cases and even brands more specifically to get the best solution.

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Author: Xinrui Society

Source: xrsmedia