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As a Pittsburgh-based paid advertising agency, we have adapted to the technological changes happening in the industry. Here are some SEM best practices that we regularly use to create and manage top converting campaigns for our clients.
Posted in: paid advertising agency, pittsburgh paid advertising agency, pittsburgh paid advertising agency best practices
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Paid Advertising, with its ability to reach audiences with specific educational and professional backgrounds provides colleges and universities with a powerful tool to attract right-fit students.
As we develop ad creative for our higher education marketing clients, many factors inform our campaigns. This has resulted in best practices that we follow for creating high-converting ads and craft unique campaigns for each client.
At Elliance, a digital marketing agency, we create unique landing pages for our higher education marketing campaigns. Here are some best practices that we follow which work well in attracting and engaging prospective students.
Until recently, the battle for consumer attention on digital devices and platforms was led by Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter – and to a lesser extent by Pinterest and Snapchat. The entry of Amazon dramatically changes the dynamic of online advertising. It is now the third largest digital advertising platform in the US. To put things in perspective, here is how these platforms are situated in the demand funnel. In a nutshell, social media platforms know buyer’s interests and let them discover new products/services; Google and Bing have the intelligence about the buyer’s intention to purchase something; and Amazon has data about what products buyers are purchasing. Each player now offers its own advertising service, with e-commerce product companies favoring Amazon Advertising, and all other companies using a combination of Google, Bing and social media advertising platforms. According to eMarketer, Amazon advertising is still a distant third behind Google (37%) and Facebook (20%) in US digital ad spending, … Continue reading
With people relying on mobile more than ever – over half of the trillions of Google searches happen on mobile – Google recently announced changes to favor the mobile experience. Google is calling this the biggest change since AdWords launched 15 years ago, and in my 10+ years experience working in the platform, I would agree! The changes will expand the length of Google’s paid text ads. This change comes primarily with mobile in mind. When the expanded text ads become available later this year, here’s what the changes will look like in the headline and description: Ad Headline: Advertisers will now have two 30-character headlines instead of the current 25-character headline. Ad Description: One 80-character line of description copy instead of two 35-character lines! The increase in characters may not seem like a huge difference, but it is! The extended ad format will ultimately give us advertisers the opportunity to create a longer, engaging message to attract more qualified clicks. Google said … Continue reading
Posted in: paid advertising agency
Google has officially started rolling out a major change to its paid search layout. They will begin phasing out the paid ads to the right of its search results. Instead, Google will only show 1-4 ads above the fold and some at the bottom of the results. What does this mean for advertisers? Mobile traffic: If you’re like most of our clients, you are most likely driving your traffic to a landing page where mobile traffic is high – upwards of 80%. Initially only two PPC text ads would show on mobile searches. Now, mobile searchers will often see three or four text ads for some queries. Google has reported that they may expand the space for ads if they are particularly relevant. Cost (CPCs): We can still only speculate, but with less ad space, cost-per-clicks (CPCs) will most likely increase now that there will be even more competition and demand for the top spots. Time will tell, and this … Continue reading
Posted in: google ppc, paid advertising agency
Have you noticed promoted pins showing up in your Pinterest feed? Last month, Krystal shared how Pinterest boards and pins are being utilized to their fullest to attract, reach and inspire (Pinterest and your Business). Pinterest is continuing to find ways to grow within their 100 million Pinner community. They introduced a paid advertising feature called Promoted Pins. These are just like regular pins, only you pay to have them seen by more people. While this feature was initially launched last spring, it’s still in beta and only available to certain business account holders in the U.S. Below is a snapshot of how baby retailer Carter’s is utilizing promoted pins to push their Christmas clothes while a Pinner is looking for baby toy ideas for Christmas. How can you use Promoted Pins? A promoted pin is essentially a paid ad on Pinterest. You can geo-target by location, demographics and devices, to reach customers who are searching for or have shown an interest in … Continue reading
Posted in: paid advertising agency, pinterest
We all know Facebook is Big… But Facebook began as a service that only allowed college students to communicate with each other over the Internet. Even after the site opened up to public users, college students continued to comprise a significant segment of the Facebook user base. High school and college students still comprise a large piece of the Facebook pie. Despite recent speculations that Facebook users are reducing their monthly activity on the social network, Facebook remains the number one social media platform for teenagers ranging from 13-17, a prime target demographic for higher education marketers. Segmenting by demographic is a smart way for colleges and universities to strategically reach prospective students on Facebook. Because users list their age, gender, location, interests and other information on their Facebook profiles, it is easy to find your exact target audience. Facebook’s advertising platform includes settings that can target beyond the typical geographic criteria. For higher education paid marketing targeting specifically, you could use … Continue reading
Retargeting allows you to follow users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse the Web. You want to be sure you are getting the most out of your retargeting campaigns, and most importantly, your repeat visitors. Be sure to avoid these 3 retargeting mistakes: 1. Unclear and non-specific visitor segments One of the biggest mistakes is to retarget to ALL visitors from the pages you are targeting. You want to be sure to create visitor segments that align with your goals and your audience. For example, you should not show an undergrad retargeting ad to a prospect who just visited your MBA program page. 2. No tags on important pages on your website and/or campaign landing pages Once you’ve determined your retargeting campaign objectives and campaign segments, it’s important to tag all of your web pages properly. Then, you can create campaigns that target each visitor segment. 3. Not using all available ad banner sizes It’s important to run … Continue reading