Search Marketing Q & A

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How do I know what platforms will be best for my business?

To know what platforms are best suited to your business, a great place to start is understanding your customer. Who are the people that are buying your products? Who are the people you want to buy your products? How old are they? What are they interested in? If you understand these things about your customers we will be able to align your advertising dollars with the proper platforms. If you struggle to understand who your audience is, you can start broad by running a general awareness campaign on a platform like YouTube or the Google Display network. This can help generate enough user data to understand who is engaging with your brand online and where your advertising might be best suited.

What kinds of ads can I put on Spotify?

On Spotify you have the opportunity to advertise with both static and dynamic (video) ads.

What’s Connected TV and what are its benefits?

Connected TV is simply a TV with a internet connection, with the ability to stream content. We have the ability to deliver ads to connected TV’s on popular apps such as the CTV App, Discovery Plus and more.

What kinds of ads can I put on SnapChat?

On SnapChat you have the opportunity to advertise with both static and dynamic (video) ads.

What kinds of ads can I put on YouTube?

On YouTube you have the opportunity to advertise with both static and dynamic (video) ads.

What are the benefits of advertising on Spotify?

Some of the benefits of advertising on Spotify include:
‘- Reach: Brands can reach more than 3 in 10 online Canadian adults and 1 in 2 Gen Z adults. Spotify delivers on average 26% incremental reach when compared to radio. Spotify delivers an average 24% incremental reach when compared to TV. Because Spotify is more of an immersive experience, 24% of Spotify users say they pay full or almost full attention to ads they hear on Spotify, +33% more than radio listeners.

What does Directwest’s Search Marketing include?

Our Search Marketing includes advertising on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, SnapChat and Spotify. We also offer the ability to advertise on third party websites.

What are the benefits of advertising on SnapChat?

Some of the main benefits of advertising on SnapChat include:
‘- Driving Traffic: Because of the nature of SnapChat’s platform of disappearing photos and videos, this can help ads drive traffic because the thought that the ad will disappear creates a sense of urgency.
‘- Connecting with a younger demographic and attracting new followers: If you are looking to connect with people under the age of 35 this is the place to be as 82% of snapchatters fit this demographic. Snapchat users are also highly engaged spending around 30 minutes per day on the platform.

What are the benefits of advertising on YouTube?

Some of the main benefits of advertising on YouTube include:
‘- Highly targeted audiences: whether it is by age and gender, targeting popular YouTube channels, or key life milestones like moving, getting married or having a child. YouTube marketing is flexible to reach your target audience.
‘- Your Audience is on YouTube: With the boom in Smart TV’s access to YouTube outside of desktop and mobile devices has become easier than ever with viewership on TV’s growing by 70% over last year. YouTube is also for everyone, with its audience consisting of 77% Gen Z, 75% Millennials, 61% Gen X, and 44% of Baby Boomers visiting YouTube on a daily basis.

What is a Quality Score?

A quality score is a ranking system with several disclosed and undisclosed factors that ad platforms use to determine the relevancy of keywords compared to their accompanying ads and the landing pages the ads link to. The more relevant the keywords you bid for are to your ad campaign, the higher your ad ranks, and the less the bids cost.

What is a conversion?

A conversion is any action you want your visitor to take that you deem is valuable, such as calling, filling in a form, signing up for a newsletter, or purchasing a product or service. For a Search Marketing campaign, generating a specific type of conversion is often the goal.

What are impressions?

Impressions are how often your ad is shown. An impression is counted each time your ad is shown on a search results page or other site on the Google Network.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is the webpage people are taken to after they click your ad.

Google’s policy is that your landing page and display URL (the webpage shown in your ad) must share the same domain.

Your landing page experience is one of several factors that helps determine a keyword’s Quality Score. The experience of a landing page is represented by such things as the usefulness and relevance of information provided on the page, ease of navigation for the user, and how many links are on the page.

What is CTR?

CTR is Click-Through Rate. This is the ratio of the number of clicks compared against the number of times your ad was shown (impressions). CTR is used to help you meansure the performance of your advertising campaign.

What does my ‘audience’ mean?

Audience is the group of users with predefined demographics that you want to convert with your advertising campaign. It can also refer to the users who have completed specific actions such as visiting your website or shown interest in your services.

What is a click?

Clicks are the action of following a link to a website. For Search Marketing, this is how many people click on the link to your landing page.

What is CPC?

CPC is Cost-Per-Click. It is the amount you pay Ad Networks for a click on your ad that sends a visitor to your website.

Why is Search Marketing a good digital marketing tool?

Search Marketing allows you to reach the right customer at the right time. It shows results quickly compared to organic campaigns and can be effective in advertising products that are difficult to find.

What is Ad Rank?

Ad rank is your position on the Google page and is determined by Quality Score.

My campaign is live, why am I not seeing any results?

It takes time for your ad to gain relevance through Google’s intent signals and machine learning. It usually takes up to a month to see any real results and it can take more time depending on competition, seasonality, traffic, and various other factors that Google takes into account.

What are Google Video Ads?

With Video ads, you can reach the right audience at scale and capture their attention. Show your ads on their own or within other streaming video content on YouTube and across Google’s network of websites and apps. Video campaigns help you bring your business’s story to life.

What’s the difference between Google’s Search Network and Display Network?

Google Search Network is a group of search-related websites and apps where your ads can appear. When you advertise on the Google Search Network, your ad can show near search results when someone searches with terms related to one of your keywords. The Display Network is a group of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps where your Google Ads can appear. Think of it as Search is pull advertising when someone searches for one or more of your products your search ad will appear. Display ads are more push advertising where your ad is pushed to a specific audience in the Display network.

What is a Responsive Ad?

Responsive ads let you create an ad that adapts to show multiple versions of your ad. For display ads it will assemble an image/video, headline and description to match with what the customer is looking for. For Search it will choose from several headlines and description to match with what the customer is looking for. Google will automatically test different combinations and learn which combinations performs the best. Some advantages are: They automatically optimize your inputs for more conversions. Broader reach with adjustable sizes to fit more placements. Pulls your website brand and colours. You can monitor the performance of each asset. Will display more often than image ads as they adjust to fit more placements.

What are Google Search Ads?

Google Search Ads appear next to Google search results and on other Google partner sites,  like YouTube, when people look for businesses like yours. With a Search campaign, you can make sure potential customers notice your brand, consider your products, and take action.

What are Google Display Ads?

Google Display ads can appear across a network of more than two million sites and apps, reaching 90% of people on the internet. Your ads get matched to content related to your business or to your customers’ interests. Use a Display campaign to increase exposure and reach audiences with specific interests across the web.

What are Google Ads?

Originally, Google AdWords, Google’s online platform that helps advertisers manage and maximize the performance of their advertising campaigns. There are several types of ads within Google Ads: search, display, video, shopping and app.