A Call to Arms: AdWords Ad Extensions Can Be Your Greatest B2B Digital Marketing Ally
by MGB2B
HEY YOU!!!
Did I catch your attention? One of the overall goals of any B2B digital marketing campaign is to catch the audience’s eye and stand out from the competition. In a highly competitive arena like Google paid advertising, where our opportunities to attract quality attention are governed by strict rules like not being able to write something cheesy like “HEY YOU!!!” in an ad’s headline, and even stricter character limits, although this is getting a bit better lately with Google’s addition of new Expanded Text Ads, finding a way to separate yourself from the playing field can often be daunting. But fear not: Ad Extensions are here!
Any AdWords marketer worth their digital salt knows about ad extensions. They’re those complimentary bits of information that can show next to or below a text ad. There are a wealth of these extensions, and each allows the marketer the opportunity to give their audience a bit more info connected to their ad. But let’s focus on two that often go overlooked when setting up a B2B digital marketing campaign in AdWords.
AdWords Ad Extensions: Your Greatest Ally in the Fight for B2B Audiences’ Attention
Call Extensions: Call extensions allow you to show the phone number of your company alongside a text ad. This is a great way to improve your audience’s engagement with your ads. If a customer is using a desktop computer, your text ad will show your company’s phone number below the headline. If they’re searching on a smart phone, a “Call” button will show next to the add, allowing the customer to call you directly from the Google search results page with just one touch of their screen. This can be particularly handy in the B2B market, where an on-the-go salesman or contractor is searching for your company’s offerings.
Callout Extensons: Callout extensions run below a text ad providing added details about your company or offers, like the “Free Shipping” etc. in the ad below. These extensions offer you a fantastic way to highlight the key elements of your business in a structured line, and can be set up on an account, campaign or ad group level. And unlike their cousin Sitelink extensions, Callout extensions aren’t a clickable link and don’t require a unique attached URL. This allows you to single out special offers and calls to action, while still directing the audience to the landing page you’d originally chosen for your text ad. When trying to catch the attention of a busy B2B searcher, this can make or break an ad’s performance.
While both of these extensions offer their own specific audience engagement opportunities, they also provide an even more valuable service: they grab the searcher’s attention and make your ad stand out from the rest. On a search results page any available space is valuable, and both of these extensions allow you to take up more space than a stand-alone text ad would. And they add an air of authority and credibility to your ads, encouraging click confidence in your audience.
Historically, ads that show extensions like these can expect to see above average click-thru-rates and lead to conversions with lower cost-per-acquisitions, which are metrics any B2B digital marketer likes to see. Couple Call and Callout extensions with a well written, relevant text ad and you’ll be seeing better return-on-investment in no time.
The B2B paid advertising landscape on Google can often fell like a battlefield. Call on these ad extensions to help you win the fight! Need reinforcements? Drop us a line.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Your Monthly Newsletter is an Effective B2B Email Marketing Strategy
by MGB2B
The Myth: Your Monthly Newsletter is an Effective B2B Email Marketing Strategy
The Truth: Not All Newsletters Are Created Equal
And neither are your subscribers. Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to your B2B email marketing strategy is likely to land your monthly marketing emails in the virtual trash can. Email marketing done right remains a powerful force for reaching your existing audiences and tapping into new ones. But if you’re not diversifying your lists and tweaking your strategy month after month, your subscribers will start falling by the wayside. As you start thinking about next month’s marketing emails, keep these 3 things in mind:
- Segmentation. Between your own industry expertise and the information you (hopefully) gather when people subscribe to your emails, you can begin segmenting your database by market, product line, length of time someone has been a subscriber, etc. Adding this level of personalization to your emails will help you retain your readers and increase your open and click-through rates. (Want more? Here’s a deeper look at email segmentation.)
- Format. Take a look back through your past marketing emails. Do they all look the same? If so, your emails are probably blending in with the other 126 marketing emails the average business person receives every day. While creating a new email template each month would be time consuming, not to mention confusing for your audience, you may want to consider designing templates for things like white papers, webinars, podcasts, and other subcription-based content. Not only will this help diversify the look of your emails, it will help catch your readers’ attention and even score you a few shares and new subscribers.
- Testing. The best day and time to send emails is a hotly contested issue in the B2B marketing world. The answer? There isn’t one, at least not for everyone. Testing your emails on different days and times is the best way to determine how your audience interacts with your content. You should also be testing Tips #1 and #2 to see which methods of segmentation and which formats best resonate with your audience. Test, analyze, repeat.
Happy Monday! Feel free to share your favorite email marketing tip in the Comments!
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Your Customers Care About You
by MGB2B
The Myth: Your Customers Care About You
The Truth: Your Customers Care About Themselves, Not You. Sorry.
However, that doesn’t mean that what you have to say doesn’t matter – you just need to make sure it matters to your customers, too.
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