Last week, Circus PPC Agency hosted a panel event as part of Leeds Digital Festival exploring CRO and its effectiveness from the standpoints of a product feed optimisation specialist, PPC agency, and on-site tech experts. Read on to find out more how to increase conversion rate.
Panel host, Donya Broadhead, began the discussion keen to delve into the cost-of-living crisis and the impact it has had across the different sectors of panel guests, reiterating how tricky the past couple of years have been, and how consumers are becoming more and more savvy when it comes to deciding how and where to spend their money.
Then, the panel discussed their experience of CRO within their own individual industry sectors, where they also answered audience questions and provided key insights into what can be done to better increase conversion rate.
Increase Conversion Rate With These Key Takeaways
Feed Optimisation
John Cave founded Shoptimised – the UK’s fastest growing feed optimisation platform, and shared some of the trends that he’s seen during the cost-of-living crisis.
“One of the big changes we’ve seen through search in an increase in people that are looking for cheap, discounted, promotional and we’re those search terms through a lot of reports. We’ve seen it on different spectrums and different sectors. So right across the board, you see that luxury doesn’t really seem to have slowed down at all due to the audience and because people have got lots of income. The people at the other end of the spectrum are having to be a bit more savvy about what they’re spending.”
Account Optimisation
Inny Vaiciute, PPC Expert at Circus PPC Agency, has worked across a range of both eCommerce and lead generation clients, and shared the importance of targeting the right audience, and doing so effectively, in order to improve conversion rates.
“Really understand your audience. If you want to optimise for them to buy something from your website, then you have to understand how they think in order to persuade them with website content and highlight why they should buy from you. You should understand how your specific audience refer to your products – because you can say trainers, you can say sneakers and there are so many different synonyms for a single product and different types of people might use different words. So it’s really about understanding your audience, understanding how they communicate, how they think, and then using that information to persuade them to buy from your website.”
Website Optimisation
Tim Mawson, Head of Partnerships at Salesfire, shared his thoughts about the impact of third parties and how they can help to optimise your website to drive as many conversions as possible.
“The biggest thing for me in terms of success is to do with understanding what adding a third party to your website can do. The biggest thing we found is that if a person engages with your site search on the website, there are two and a half times more likely to convert. Then, by the time you factor in things where you can add in like voice and image search, which the younger generation are keen on brining to mobile use. It’s about catering again to that specific audience, market, and demographic and being able to understand what you can provide as tools on the site to make conversion flow a little bit better.”
What Else Can Be Done To Increase Conversion Rate?
The panel finished with their top takeaways from the discussion:
John: Nail Your Strategy
“Know what you’re working towards and make sure that everything lines up between what you’re doing with your feed, to what you’re doing with your marketing, and then what you’re doing on your website. If you understand what your strategy is and everyone – your partners, agencies, softwares – are aligned, then everyone can work in unison.”
Inny: Let The Results Guide Your Spend
“As PPC Experts, we can take you in the direction you want to go, but if you get there and don’t like the results, it’s time to find another direction. So, find out where your money is going and where it is you want it to go, but always be open to questioning your own judgement.”
Tim: Keep On Testing
“Test and actually evaluate what you’re doing and look at how people from different traffic sources react differently. If someone’s coming from TikTok, they need a completely different type of messaging to someone coming from Google Ads. Being able to understand that there is a time to appreciate the strategy you have but also a time to adapt, is key. Once you can differentiate between the two, you can go ahead and create a strategy.”
Now more than ever, effectively optimising conversion rates is becoming harder for businesses as they fight to remain ahead of competitors whilst consumers are more clued-up than ever when it comes to their purchasing habits. Listen to the whole panel discussion on our YouTube channel here.
Circus PPC Exhibit At Marketing Showcase Leeds
Circus PPC are excited to be exhibiting and speaking at this year’s Marketing Showcase Leeds, which will be held at the Royal Armouries.
Having previously attended the Marketing Showcase events in Manchester and Sheffield earlier in the year, Circus are finishing their 2023 event schedule in their home city, where Commercial Director Ahmed will also be delivering a talk titled ‘Re-launching a PPC strategy to tackle current challenges.’ The talk will take a look at how to manage a PPC strategy in the current climate, and how to make it work for you.
On the day, you’ll also be able to stop by our stand and speak to some of our talented and experienced PPC experts, who have managed accounts and delivered fantastic results for clients.
Register for your Marketing Showcase Leeds tickets here: https://mktgshowcase.co.uk/events/leeds/
Salesfire Summit Sponsored by Circus PPC
Circus PPC are sponsoring the first ever Salesfire Summit this year, alongside other industry experts to deliver insights, seminars and networking.
The event, which is taking place at The Belfry, is the first of its kind from Salesfire and will bring together some of the biggest names in the eCommerce industry for a full-day conference focused on trends, knowledge and networking. The Salesfire Summit will also be followed by the ever-popular Salesfire golf day.
Circus’ Commercial Director, Ahmed Chopdat, is one of the expert speakers on the line-up, and will be delivering a talk titled ‘How To Work Smarter With PPC In A Turbulent Landscape,’ which will touch upon how to save on wasted budgets and apply them in thriving areas within your account, whilst taking the current landscape into account and making sure that PPC as a revenue stream can remain profitable.
Location: The Belfry Hotel and Resort, Sutton Coldfield
Date: Tuesday 19th September
The event is free to attend, and you can register your interest here: https://www.salesfire.co.uk/salesfire-conference-2023
Circus PPC Hosts Event For Leeds Digital Festival
Circus PPC will be hosting their first ever panel event in partnership with Leeds Digital Festival this year. Read on for more about the event and how you can secure a place.
The current state of the economy and a dip in consumer spending means that many businesses are facing tougher times both online and offline, which, along with an increase in online competition over the past few years in particularly, advertisers are looking for more ways to maintain and improve CRO than ever before.
Join Circus PPC Agency at Leeds Digital Festival as they speak to their esteemed panel of industry experts, all experienced in various fields that are important to driving CRO, as they dive into how improving conversion rates can lead to significant improvements in revenue and ROI, ultimately making you and your client’s businesses more profitable.
Our speakers for the event are:
Donya Broadhead, Circus PPC Agency
Our panel host and PPC expert who works across a range of retail and ecommerce accounts, and has recently helped drive budget efficiency for a number of clients.
Ausrine Vaiciute, PPC Analyst, Circus PPC Agency
Ausrine (Inny) is a PPC Analyst at Circus PPC Agency, working with ambitious brands to help them to drive growth through PPC.
Tim Mawson, Head of Partnerships, Salesfire
Tim is the Head of Partnerships at Salesfire, and currently hosts the Salesfire Catch Up and Salesfire Trends podcasts, speaking to industry professionals and sharing valuable insights in the world of ecommerce.
John Cave, Co-Founder and Director, Shoptimised
John co-founded Shoptimised, the UK’s fastest growing and most powerful Product Feed Optimisation platform, in 2018, and now works with advertisers and brands to optimise their product feeds and drive CRO.
Register for free on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-conversation-with-driving-cro-through-a-consumer-crisis-tickets-686480992127
The PPC Experts Black Friday Checklist
It’s nearly that time again, and as we get closer and closer to the biggest shopping event of the year, we’re sharing The PPC Experts Black Friday Checklist.
Get your copy of the full checklist here, or have a look at a few of our top selected tips below before downloading!
The ONLY Black Friday Checklist You’ll Ever Need
Our PPC Expert approved checklist is exactly what you need to ensure that you’re on top of this year’s Black Friday ads, and we’re giving you a glimpse of some of the top tips that we’ve shared in our checklist.
1. Conversion Tracking
Ensuring the conversions you expect and want to be live are working prior to Black Friday is a biggie. Ask yourself – is tracking up-to-date e.g. not using old analytics code? Are conversion actions using the right attribution model?
Fact: 75% of our PPC experts cited tracking as the PPC issue they’d most like to solve!
2. Ad Copy
Play it safe and get your ads uploaded in plenty of time so they can be reviewed, remembering to upload in a paused state and set rules for them to go live when required. This works the other way too – ensure that rules are set for ads to be switched off once the promotional period is over, and for your normal ads to be re-enabled.
For more, check out our PPC guide to ad copy here.
3. Theming
Big events such as Black Friday, Christmas, or Summer, are often associated with promotions by consumers, so theming your ads to suit these events could ensure that you’re reaching the most relevant and vast audience for your products.
Headlines and descriptions can be made more specific to the event in question – but be sure to note down what they were previously, so that they can be changed back following the event.
4. Budget
If you’re expecting a surge in sales during the Black Friday period, make sure that your budgets are set and in place. Closely monitor these budgets during the day in case they need to be increased further, or capped to ensure that you remain in budget.
5. Data
Top Tip: Use historical data to influence how you build campaigns and where to put budget to set your account up for success.
We all know historical data is an essential part of understanding what does and doesn’t work within an account, and it’s just as beneficial to look back on when it comes to seasonality and events. Ask yourself what has previously worked well, what were people researching, and what the data tells you about dips during the event e.g. between Black Friday and Saturday?
Click here for your own copy of The PPC Experts Black Friday Checklist!
In order to best set yourself and your accounts up for a successful seasonal period, now is the time to prepare, plan, and start putting the work in as early as possible. Our PPC Expert approved checklist is a great starting point, and provides all of the information you need to get going on your Black Friday planning!
Circus PPC Named 2023’s PPC Agency Of The Year
Circus PPC is celebrating a second ‘PPC Agency of the Year’ win this year.
Back in January, Circus won the coveted title for the first time at the UK Digital Excellence Awards, and last week celebrated as they were awarded the title for the second time at the UK Digital Growth Awards.
Following the awards ceremony, judges said of the win:
“We were truly impressed by this agency’s exceptional performance. The excellent growth experienced by both the agency and their clients is a testament to their hard work, dedication, and strategic expertise. Their achievements are truly commendable, and we look forward to witnessing their continued success in the future.”
The judges also commented on the agency’s ‘great performance,’ ‘successful business results,’ and ‘impressive YOY ROI.’
Circus’s Managing Director, Rick Tobin, said:
“It’s great to have a second ‘PPC Agency of the Year’ win, and it really goes to show how impressive the work is that our team are doing. We already knew that we were offering the best PPC management for clients, but it’s awesome to be recognised by other experts in the industry, and share that recognition and excitement with the team.”
This year, Circus aren’t just celebrating their recognition as an agency, but also for individual campaign work. Their work with longstanding client, Miele, has been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards including The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA and the Performance Marketing Awards. See the work that was shortlisted here.
Prime Day Ads Prep: Getting Ready For 2023
It’s official – this year’s Prime Day will be taking place over 11th-12th July, so now is the time for advertisers to check in with clients about their prime day ads and advertising strategy.
Last years Prime Day was the biggest to date, with over 300 million items being purchased online, and this year, there’s more pointing towards another huge day for online retail as Google reports a clear ‘shift in consumer behaviours and expectations’ and potential customers that are ‘exploring and evaluating options more than ever before.’ (Google Marketing Live, 2023)
For advertisers and brands alike, Prime Day is ‘prime time’ for online retail as shopper intent heightens and an average 30% (2022) of global consumers plan to shop on this day specifically.
Top Tips For Your Prime Day Ads
There’s certainly no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to planning for Prime Day, but there are certainly some actions that all advertisers should be taking to ensure that their clients are ready for whatever the big day brings!
Look into historical data:
What has Prime Day looked like for your clients in the past? When working out a Prime Day strategy with your clients, historical data is a huge asset, and can highlight what has and hasn’t worked in the past to drive a successful strategy going forward. In addition to looking at your client’s historical data, the seasonal trends and industry data available from previous years can help you to benchmark your clients performance against industry standards.
Check out the competition:
Are Amazon, or any other competitors, stocking the same product lines as any of your clients? Are they currently undercutting your client on price? During the recent Google Marketing Live event, we discovered that the buyer journey has become more complex than ever before, with over 50% of consumers using five or more online sources before making a final purchase decision. However, impulse shopping has also grown YOY, so visibility and making sure your ads display the right message to the right people at the right time, is just as important as competitiveness when it comes to standing out to potential customers.
Do your research:
Are there any internal or external factors that could influence and affect your client’s performance? Last year, there were a number of external issues that affected peak seasonal periods, such as postal service strikes, the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, and an ever increasing cost-of-living. Whilst it’s important to be aware of these issues, it’s also important to communicate with your clients to understand if there are any internal issues that could affect their Prime Day strategy.
Does your client have enough resource to keep up with potential demand? Are there any current stock issues? Understanding and preparing for potential issues in advance could help both you and your clients to mitigate risk and ensure that their Prime Day ads are designed with these factors in mind.
Case Study: Prime Day 2022
Our client, a health and beauty brand, saw incredible increases in sales, revenue and ROI during July 2022 – when Prime Day took place.
In anticipation of the event, our client wanted to launch a ‘buy one get one free’ sale to take advantage of the higher shopper intent during this period, as well as effectively competing with retailers that also stocked their products.
In order to best optimise the account to perform effectively during the sale, a number of actions were taken such as performance data analysis and reviewing shopping feed improvements and changes.
These actions – along with consistent monitoring of performance – helped increase ad visibility over Prime Day, and we saw a sudden then gradual increase in ROI which peaked during the Prime Day period. MOM increases displayed an ROI increase to over 10X, as well as growth of over 200%; a total revenue increase of 103%; and more than doubling the amount of sales, despite a reduction of over 30% in spend.
So remember, Prime Day isn’t just for Amazon, and it’s a great way for you and your clients to make the most of an increasingly popular time period for retailers all around the world.
Want to know more about how PPC can help you to drive success during Prime Day? Contact us!
UA to GA4: Why And How To Make The Switch
PPC advertisers currently using Universal Analytics (UA) will be aware of the upcoming deadline of July 1st to migrate over to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and ensure that tracking is enabled when UA stops measuring at the end of the month.
So, what are the benefits of moving from UA to GA4, and how can you make sure you do it right?
The Benefits of Migrating From UA to GA4
The transition from UA to GA4 represents a significant shift in how data is collected, organized, and analyzed. Here are some key changes that will occur with the introduction of GA4:
- Events instead of sessions: GA4 focuses on tracking specific actions or events users take on a website or app, like clicking a button or watching a video. This provides more flexibility in understanding user interactions.
- Tracking across different platforms: GA4 now allows businesses to track user behaviour across websites, mobile apps, and other devices. This helps understand how users engage with the business across different platforms.
- Smarter insights with machine learning: GA4 uses advanced technology to automatically identify important trends and anomalies in the data. It helps businesses understand key insights without having to manually analyse the data.
- Understanding users, not just sessions: Instead of looking at individual sessions, GA4 focuses on tracking users and their interactions across multiple visits. This gives a more complete picture of how users engage with a business over time.
- Privacy and consent management: GA4 has features that respect user privacy and comply with privacy regulations. It provides options for users to control their data and consent to its collection.
- Easier setup: GA4 simplifies the initial setup process, so businesses can start tracking basic data without complex configurations. It’s designed to get you up and running quickly.
- BigQuery integration: GA4 integrates with Google BigQuery, a powerful data analysis tool. This integration allows businesses to export their data to BigQuery for more in-depth analysis and advanced data processing.
These changes in GA4 make it a more comprehensive, privacy-conscious, and flexible analytics solution that helps businesses understand user behaviour and make informed decisions.
Google recently highlighted some of their newest products and updates at the Google Marketing Live event, which you can read more about in our blog post here.
How To Migrate From UA to GA4
“Migrating to GA4 before 1st July is a must for all brands and advertisers. UA properties will stop collecting data on this date, so if your GA4 solution isn’t in place, you will have a data blackout until it is. In addition, some marketeers are importing goals from UA for use with smart bidding in Google Ads. If these goals aren’t replicated once UA is discontinued, there could be huge ramifications for campaign performance, as there will no longer be a flow of conversion data running through the account.”
Meg Wilson-Taylor, Operations Manager
For more on how you can start the process of migrating to GA4, you can find all of the information you need here on the Google Analytics Help Centre.
Countdown to GA4Google Marketing Live Recap: What’s New For 2023?
Read on for our Google Marketing Live recap following the 2023 event held across 24th and 25th May 2023.
It’s not a huge surprise that there was one topic in particular that dominated this year’s Google Marketing Live event. And that is: AI. Recently, AI has become much more prevalent, and now, is something we can leverage to change the way we work.
Google Marketing Live: The Main Points
Conversational Updates & AI For Search Queries
Google announced the release of a new user-friendly, conversational interface to assist advertisers with the creation of new campaigns.
Driven by AI, the ‘assistant’ will generate relevant assets such as headlines, descriptions, images, keywords and more – all following an analysis of existing landing pages and ads.
One important – and comforting – thing to remember is that these suggestions can all be altered before launching, meaning advertisers are still in control of what their ads look like.
Automatically created assets will also embrace the power of generative AI to enhance ad relevancy in a similar way, and as a result, modify Search ads to better reflect the context of individual search queries and user intent.
What did our experts say?
“The conversational AI features that will be coming to the ad creation interface look super exciting. As marketeers we know our customers best, but leveraging AI to create initial ad copy, that can then be tweaked via our inputs, could create something really special. Sometimes you know your ad needs to be more ‘fun’ or more ‘formal’ but it can take a while to land on the right messaging. This new conversational interface will hopefully help us reach that place faster.”
Meg Wilson-Taylor, Operations Manager
Generative AI & Simplified Performance Max
Performance Max may not have been around for long, but it has certainly demonstrated the ways in which AI-powered campaigns can help drive growth and improve account performance.
In response to the success of PMax, Google will introduce generative AI into the campaign type, simplifying how custom assets are created and improved upon.
By providing Google with your website URL, your brand will be explored using AI, and campaigns will be populated with assets that accurately reflect the findings. Google also spoke about how the AI will make image suggestions made specifically for you and your brand.
Google Product Studio & AI Images
Google announced the upcoming launch of Product Studio, a tool that will allow merchants to seamlessly create AI-generated product images. Product Studio will be available in Merchant Centre Next (see more below).
Some of the capabilities of the new tool include image generation and enhancement through text descriptors, removing the need for merchants to manually create content and instead, focus on reusing and repurposing product images within a variety of different campaigns.
What did our experts say?
“The image AI will be very useful when it comes to being able to create images for image extensions, and will help us to increase CTR and create engaging headlines.”
Lauren Morton, PPC Executive
Merchant Centre Next
The new and improved Merchant Centre – Merchant Centre Next – has been simplified to remove complications and provide an improved user experience. Some of the updated features include automatic updates to the product feed from information detected on your website, and access to insights report in the Merchant Centre Performance tab.
Merchants and advertisers can expect to see Merchant Centre Next fully rolled out in 2024, with new users already granted access.
What did our experts say?
“The evolving structure of Google campaigns are going to bring a lot of excitement to the industry.
Having worked closely with my clients to implement a tiered profit-based approach to the PMax system, seeing the wheel reinvented slightly will change way our setups have worked. Creating a Merchant Centre with ROAS targets that reflect the profitability of the products in individual tiers has enabled us better control over our PMax campaigns.
These new tools will allow advertisers to focus on creating the best retail experience for our clients needs. Being able to drive more profitable and ROAS-led sales, whilst utilising AI to create on-brand messaging and ad copy for products, will help us to deliver on client expectations and help drive business growth.”
Ru Watt, PPC Executive
New Google Ads Features & Campaign Types
In addition to the countless ways that Google are harnessing the power of AI, they also announced some new Google Ads features and campaigns types. Said features include brand restrictions in broad match to help to ‘leverage broad match with the brand traffic specified by the advertiser,’ and the implementation of AI into Smart Bidding to help LLMs to cleverly optimise for search queries that it might not have previously encountered.
The new campaigns that are going to become available in Google Ads are ‘video views’ and ‘demand generation’ – both video-first campaigns and the former of which does what it says on the tin, maximises views, with the latter using AI to engage users and drive them to take specific actions.
Stay tuned for more on these specific features and campaign types as we explore what they could mean for advertisers in future blogs.
What It Means For Marketeers
So, we hear you asking, what does all of this mean for marketeers?
This year, with it being the 10th anniversary of the Google Marketing Live event, we expected some big updates and news, and that’s exactly what we got. The focus on AI, whilst unsurprising due to its ever-growing popularity and relevance, is something that we’re extremely excited to see play out, and we’re looking forward to providing continuous updates on how new tools, products, and ways of working will allow us to drive desired growth for our clients.
Ask The Experts: ChatGPT & PPC
The word on the tip of everyone’s tongue at the moment is ‘ChatGPT,’ and there’s no surprise as to why.
Since it was launched by Open AI on November 30th 2022, it has been dubbed the ‘best AI chatbot ever released’ by the New York Times, become the fastest growing app in the world by accruing 100m users in just 2 months of launch, and even inspired Google into releasing it’s own chatbot, Bard AI.
But just how reliable and capable can ChatGPT and other advancing AI be when it comes to PPC? We spoke to some of our PPC experts on how they think AI will impact PPC management as advancements continue, and people become more intrigued by the possibilities that AI possesses.
‘AI is the car, we are the drivers.’
“If automated tools like ChatGPT and AI are the car, then we as marketeers need to focus on laying the road, filling the car with petrol, and smoothing over potholes in order to allow automation to drive efficiently and in the direction we want it to go.
Just like a Tesla, it might be able to drive itself, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll do everything right each time without human intervention. PPC management from actual humans will still be needed to inspire overarching strategy.“
Meg Wilson-Taylor, Operations Manager
‘Use AI to assist, not to take over.’
“As the saying goes, there are two sides to every story. One the one side, ChatGPT and other AI tools will absolutely become beneficial when it comes to monotonous, time-consuming tasks. On the other hand, access to, and total reliance on, these tools, will highlight ‘lazy PPC’ through usually avoidable and clumsy mistakes.
Either way, advancements in AI should be something that PPC experts look to enhance their work – not completely take over.“
Ahmed Chopdat, Commercial Director
‘AI isn’t quite ready to rule the world.’
“ChatGPT and other similar tools can be used in everyday life, but they have flawed limitations including information accuracy and algorithmic bias, which signals that further improvements are needed. Currently, these limitations feel quite significant, but equally, these tools represent a huge step forward in development.
It’s doubtful that ChatGPT and AI in general will ever reach a state of ‘perfection,’ but I’d like to believe that future developments will help find solutions to the existing limitations, making these tools even more beneficial to those who use them.“
Inny Vaiciute, PPC Executive
In addition to the benefits that ChatGPT possesses, there are also a number of disadvantages that come with the program, such as being unable to access the internet, relying on training data that is cutoff at 2021, and threats to cybersecurity and higher education due to it’s ability to create both convincing phishing messages and research papers. (Source: TechCrunch)
Similarly to the threats that ‘deep fake’ videos posed, which saw existing images and videos replaced with other people’s likeness, ChatGPT has been reported to be able to ‘imitate’ the writing style of famous personalities, posing the danger of both identity fraud and misleading the general public, which if left unsupervised, could lead to some catastrophic consequences.
Across both the PPC industry and other marketing industries, ChatGPT and AI should be used to improve the way we work, and even as a supplement for spending long periods of time on more mundane, long-drawn-out tasks. However, reports so far tell us that it’s not quite ready to be taking over anytime soon.
Read more about why AI doesn’t stand a chance against humans when it comes to ad copy here.