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.
Circus PPC Wins ‘PPC Agency of the Year’
We are proud and excited to announce that we’ve been named 2023’s ‘PPC Agency of the Year’ at the recent UK Digital Excellence Awards.
The award ceremony took place on Thursday 19th January in London, and looked to reward the agencies and campaigns in the digital industry that stood out during the past year.
The expert judging panel decided to award Circus with the accolade, saying:
“The agency drove amazing results for their customers. It was great to see ambitious goals and impressive results for a small team. We especially loved the focus on value for clients when given extra budget. They are clearly an agency doing all the right things!”
Read more about the work done to optimise extra budget provided by the client here.
Following our win, we look forward to exercising our title as ‘PPC Agency of the Year’ to continue delivering outstanding PPC services to ambitious clients, and consistently improving our agency to make it the best place to work.
2023 PPC Predictions: What Do The Experts Think?
2023 is just around the corner, which means that we’re already thinking about the updates and changes that we might encounter across the PPC landscape next year. We spoke to the experts about their PPC predictions for the next 12 months.
Updated Performance Max Visibility
“Performance Max is still a relatively new Google Ads product, so we’re currently working with less visibility than we had before in terms of the platforms that ads are serving on, the role they play in overall sales, and the performance of individual assets.
I think (and hope) that we’re going to start seeing more interface features on both GA4 and Google Ads that allow more clarity on how Performance Max campaigns are affecting our client accounts – ranging from the performance of descriptions and headlines to the overall sales and ‘the bigger picture.'”
Chloe Tetmajeris, PPC Analyst
Reduced Twitter Advertising Budgets
“With all of the current issues on Twitter, a lot of companies and individuals have started to distance themselves from the platform. Advertising on Twitter at the moment feels like you are essentially lining the pockets of someone who is slowly destroying the platform, which is why I would expect many to move away from not only advertising on Twitter, but away from the platform as a whole in 2023.”
Ahmed Chopdat, Commercial Director
Focus On Traffic Quality Over Volume
“I think we’re going to see a shift in focus from visibility to traffic quality across much smaller target audiences because of tightened privacy laws and the use of cookies. For lead generation accounts, this could mean reducing ads visibility for audiences that are bringing lower quality leads, and for eCommerce clients, eliminating poor performing audiences as much as possible.
Along with this, I think we’ll see a willingness from advertisers to become more aggressive across said audiences, directing as much budget as possible towards PPC ads that are targeting the correct audience for good quality leads and sales.”
Inny Vaiciute, PPC Executive
The End Of Phrase Match
“Phrase Match is already doing the same as Broad Match in a lot of situations, and when it comes to the likes of Shopping and Performance Max, there seems to be a much more streamlined approach. There’s a chance that this could lead to Phrase Match being scrapped completely, or this option being considered at least.”
Abbie Hampson, PPC Manager
More From Microsoft Advertising
“Microsoft Advertising have a few things that are unique to them and don’t exist in Google Ads – such as Action Extensions and Filter Link Extensions. I predict that they will continue to release ad extensions that we don’t have on Google Ads, as a point of differentiation.”
Meg Wilson-Taylor, Operations Manager
What are your PPC predictions for 2023?