Sales are a time tested tradition in business. Many brands have sales to drive incremental revenue, or clear out excess inventory. As customers there is a passion around finding the best deal, and brands train customers in many cases to look for these deals.
The question for brands is: what is the impact on the business when you run a promotion? Furthermore, what is the impact if there is incremental public relations support (PR support defined by additional public figure endorsement, media, or PR placements)?
The answers to these questions can help you predict the business impact, and therefore best prepare for consumer response. Let’s look at some metrics, then four tips to better prepare your paid search campaigns for these offers.
Promotional Business Impact
Some of the data we have shows a 10 percent lift in orders when running an offer with no PR support. This is a very nice bump vs. typical business as usual performance.
However, when that offer is surrounded with additional PR support we have seen a 160 percent improvement in orders. That incremental coverage and support has really increased the total value of the offer. It also provides opportunities to be much more aggressive in your bid, and traffic acquisition strategy.
4 Tips to Support Promotions + PR
1. Ad copy that supports the promotion and PR
With any promotion you want your ad copy to representative of the best offer. However, many times the offer on the landing page isn’t carried through to the first touch point – the ad copy.
This ad copy should reference the promotion, or the specific PR. For example, “As seen on The Office,” or “25 percent of $100.” The supportive copy will drive the CTR up, and help consumers reference what they may have seen, or heard offline.
2. Purchase promotion, and PR keywords
If you have a branded name for your promotion, or have your product placed on a TV show you should consider buying those keywords. Frequently consumers will search for ‘watch on Gossip Girl.’ The consumer is hoping to find out more about that product, but often times those searches return lack luster results.
Heineken is doing a good job with their placements in the upcoming James Bond movie:
3. Increase branded campaigns budgets
Your branded paid search support will spike significantly under these promotional times. You should be certain that your budget limits are well above their normal limits.
This is a good tip for almost any reason, or season. You never want your branded support to be turned off.
4. Evaluate your bid management strategy
With any promotion, or change in conversion rate you have the ability to make a decision. You can decide to receive the same traffic, and drive a higher ROI, or you can increase your bids to capture incremental traffic and maintain the same ROI.
A simple ROI analysis can help you determine the right approach that maps back to your campaign success metrics.
Summary
Thinking about the implications of any external marketing factor, and its impact to your paid search campaign can’t be understated as we showed in the data. Understanding the impact of full marketing support for your promotions, and the proper actions that need to be taken is a critical piece to ensure success.