Online marketing takes money, time, skill, and good content.
You can’t succeed without knowing what you are doing.
Don’t be fooled by online marketing companies, know your stuff.
POP QUIZ
Take out your pencils.
Marketing your business online and generating a real ROI takes:
a) Content
b) Time
c) Money
d) Expertise
e) All of the above
times up…
The answer is e.
If you have been watching my videos you would have known this. But we should have thrown in a couple of others:
f) The right message
g) A good product
h) Tracking
i) Adjustments
z) A bit of luck
The Problem with Online Marketing
Not all online marketing campaigns are going to see a positive ROI.
48% of online marketing campaigns are a total disaster.
Google that.
Fortune magazine just confirmed that number this morning.
But I will tell you it is worse.
This is a big problem because right now you are probably spending money on a campaign that has no chance of succeeding.
They will promise you that for only $250 a month you will be on the number one google spot and will skyrocket your business, but then it all will disappear.
The Pareto Principle
The fact is that that online marketing follows the same principle of everything else. The Pareto principle. Also known as the 80/20 rule, the prediction that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes.
Dentist, orthodontist, doctors, real estate agents, mortgage officers are notorious for falling for this one.
That’s funny and unrealistic.
Think of it logically.
There is only 1 spot available for the number 1 spot on Google.
Do you really think you are going to take that position by putting in minimum effort, time, and money?
Best Practices for RLSA Ads and How To Create RLSA In Adwords
I wasn’t really planning on creating a best practices guide for RLSA ads. It just kind of happened because I saw a huge need for it. There were a couple of nice articles out there, but nothing explaining the basics.
I wanted to educate myself and learn a little more about how RLSA ads work and why I should be using them for my business. I thought I was running them, but it turned out I was not. That hurts, because they provide a huge benefit.
The more I searched the more confused I became. Google’s own guide and YouTube tutorial videos were terrible and have zero value. Even after I created a couple of RLSA ads I blew $150 dollars in a matter of minutes. I set them up wrong and I assume it has happened to thousands of other people. I want to prevent you from making that same mistake and make you a genius in the process.
So let’s get started.
What are RLSA Ads and How Do They Work?
First let’s define what RLSA stands for and how the ads work.
I thought RLSA ads were just another term for remarketing on the Display network, but that’s not the case. RLSA stand for Remarketing Lists For Search Ads. There’s a big difference.
A Remarketing Display ad can show up all over the internet as an image, gif, or html graphic; an RLSA ad shows up as a text ad in Search.
RLSA Ad
They are just a normal search ad that is created for your remarketing lists.
Watch the simple tutorial video where I explain the big difference between Search and Display remarketing ads.
Create Remarketing List
Step one of RLSA is to create remarketing lists. You can do this through Adwords or use your analytics account. These list are the foundation to your RLSA campaign.
If you do not know how to create a remarketing list you might want to jump over to YouTube and learn. It’s easy. Here is a link to learn how to build Adwords Remarketing lists.
Build all types of lists because it’s free.
Once you have your remarketing lists set up, it’s time to watch our 2nd RLSA video. We will actually show you how to set up a campaign.
Bid Only vs. Target & Bid. What RLSA settings should you use?
As you can see by the screen shots below you have 2 different bidding options. The Target & Bid option are more restrictive while the Bid Only option is loose and can cost you a lot of money quickly. I made this mistake and within 20 minutes I blew $150.
That is the price of a massage. ☹
Basically, when you choose Target and Bid the ad will only show if the person types in your keyword and can be found on your remarketing list
Bid only will show your ads if the keyword or the remarketing list are used. It’s an “Either” option. A lot less restrictive and can cost you a lot.
Not that you understand how RLSA works and what to watch out for, it’s time that you test the waters.
RLSA Strategies
Pay per click ads can get extremely expensive, especially if you find yourself in a competitive industry.
Here are a couple of strategies you can use with RSLA ads. The idea is to cut down on your cost per lead by only running ads to people who have visited your website. Especially if you are in and industry where your cost per click is +$50. Wordstream analyzed the most expensive keyword categories for online advertising and found that keywords related to Insurance, Loans, Mortgage, Attorneys, and Credit were the most expensive with advertising costs ranging between $45-$55 per click.
That hurts! They could be spending $10,000 dollars to capture one customer. A way to lower the cost per customer is to drive huge amounts of traffic with social media and then run PPC ads with RLSA. I will test this in the coming weeks.
Drive traffic to your site with social media
Create a RLSA campaign to all visitors
The second strategy I like to use is the one I spoke about in the RLSA video tutorial. Why not run funny and engaging ads on your competitor’s keywords. That way if one of your website visitors decides to go elsewhere they will see a funny ad calling them out. This goes along with our brand, so it works great.
Examples:
“We caught you cheating” “What are you thinking” “Come On Back”
Now it is your turn.
If you have comments or questions about RLSA best practices, please let us know. We like to hear from our visitors.
Here are the video transcripts
[Start of video RLSA Ad words. Remarketing Lists For Search Ads Explained. Part 1]
[Beginning of recorded material]
Jace Vernon: Okay, so real quickly I’m going to show you guys the difference between a standard display remarketing campaign and in RLSA remarketing, which RLSA stands for remarketing list for search ads. Okay, so as I kind of explained above is I got really confused with this, which I shouldn’t. I do a ton of Ad Words. Well, the other day I started to run these new RLSA ads. They are not that new, but to me they were kind of new, because I’ve been doing all normal display ads. Okay, so I’m going to show you the main difference between a standard RLSA ad and normal display ad. So first off, whenever you’re go into the search engines, let’s say you search for something- I put video marketing company right here. So, let’s assume that somebody comes to my website, down here where you type in video marketing company and they visit my website.
Now I’m at the website. Now, let’s say that this same person turns around and says, okay video marketing production. Got it? Now, we know that they’ve already been to my website. Now they type in video marketing production. Well, if I’m doing an RLSA ad I can run an ad right here to those who’ve already visited my site. So, this is a typical search ad. These guys are all doing search ads, but if I wanted to I can come back in here and say okay Google, I know that I already visited this site, or somebody already visited my site, I want you to bid higher on that keyword if they visited my site. That’s an RLSA ad. Okay. So, that’s not your typical search. Most of the time when somebody comes to your site you will cookie him, then you will run him a standard display ad. Let’s say you’re over on, this is a good one- KSL.com. So right here, this is a display ad right here up at the top. Okay, now that’s normal remarketing. The biggest difference between RLSA ads and standard display remarketing ad campaign is you are able to run these search ads that are up at the top. So, I hope that makes sense. Just remember, you can run them search ads and you can bid higher, because they already came and visited your site before. So, I hope you can see the power in that compared to your normal just standard display ads. You know they’re already searching for a second time or third time for that keyword, so they’re in the shopping cycle.
Okay, I hope that makes sense. If you have any other questions keep reading. Down below we’re going to actually do a video on how to set up RLSA campaign. So, stay tuned, or jump over to the other video and we’ll get started.
End RLSA ads video 1
[Start of video RLSA ads Part 2 Tutorial Video for RLSA ads]
[Beginning of recorded material]
Jace Vernon: Hey guys, it’s Jace over here at Yinc marketing and we are going to go into part two of the RLSA ads series. So, if you haven’t seen Part 1 yet, you might want to jump over there and take a look at the Part 1 video, where we discuss what is an RLSA ad and what is the difference between an RLSA ad and a standard remarketing display ad. Real quickly; if you’re not going to go watch that an RLSA ad is remarketing list for search ads. Okay. It’s a little different.
So, I’m going to show you how to actually set one up. So, jump over here to my dummy campaign and right now I am going after certain keywords. So, this is in your Ad Words account. If you don’t have an Ad Words account, you need to have one. If you don’t really know what a search campaign is, you better learn what one is so you can set this up. So, right now I’m going after YouTube agencies, YouTube for business YouTube business, so you can see my keywords. Well, if anyone goes to my website for these keywords, well I’m going to cookie them. Okay. Now, when I cookie them what happens is I can start running them display ads. But this is a little bit different. I’m not going to run them display ads. What I want to do is make sure that if they Google any of my other keywords that I’m going to bid higher; that I’m going to increase my bid on those keywords, because I want to be at the top. I know they’re interested, I know they’re shopping I know they’ve seen my website and they’ve been there and so if they search any of my keywords, I want to make sure I’m popping up on number one spot in the search campaign. Got it?
So, click over here on audiences. Okay, you’ll see I don’t have any. I’m just going after search. You can add your audience here. Let’s pick the YouTube marketing company. We’re going to go to Add Interest and Remarketing- Remarketing lists. There is a bunch of remarketing lists. We’re going to go Home Page Visitors. So, once I have those added in I’m just going to click save. Then, here is the thing; you want to increase your bid by 10-40%. Okay. If you’re just starting out, don’t get too crazy. Just say, “Hey, I’m going to increase my bid by 20%, 10%. I’m going to increase my bid here by 10%.” Now, that’s pretty simple to do. All you did was jump on one of your search campaigns. Then you went ahead and added these audiences up top. So, you click on audiences and you start adding your remarketing audiences. And there are so many different remarketing audiences that you can create. You should be collecting everything you can about your visitors.
Okay. Now, if you’re not getting any impressions then you can go back here and increase this up to 20%. So, you’re just saying Google if they come back and search any of these keywords; so if they’ve already visited my site and they search any of these keywords, I want to make sure I’m biding up to the top page or number one spot, because I want to be seen. Now, something else that you can do with this, which I screwed up the first time I did it is you can create a whole other campaign. With a whole other campaign you’re able to target like your competitors. You can target people; you can really get a dedicated message and let me show you what I mean. So let’s assume; let’s go back here into Add groups. I’m going to create a whole other campaign and I’m going to show you a big difference on this. So, let’s go Search Network. There’s a key, that’s going to save you a lot of money, because the first time I set up this RLSA ads I blew $100 in almost 5 minutes on nothing. They were actually junk sites and it was kind of a screw up, but at the same time Google does not explain nor they got out there and really said hey, you guys- like they’ve done no really good tutorials, I guess it’s what I’m trying to say. I could not find anything, hence the reason I’m doing this tutorial.
So, I’m going to call these RLSA video ads. I’m going to do all features. I don’t like to do anything off of the search network. United States is good. I’m actually just going to go United States. And just teasing, I like Canada. Okay, the manual CPC is fine. We’re going to change this in a second. I’m going to go my default bid $3, budget go $100 per day. Now you can do all your site link extensions, which you should do. Add in all your… So, add these in. Now, I’m going to come back and do all this so I don’t have; I do it here, so I don’t waste your guys’ time.
Okay, so basically what I’ve done is you have to go in here and create an ad. Now remember I am going after my competitors, so this is just a remarketing campaign that’s going to focus- a remarketing search campaign that’s going to focus on my competitor’s keywords. Okay. You can see, kind of the ad that I created here said “Shame On You. Wrong Company”, because I know that they just search for somebody else’s business, and they’ve been to my site. Okay. So, if I know they visited my site, well I’m willing to kind of go out on a limb and do a call out on the actual ad. So, it’s just a little different. It’s not just going to say Video marketing company. I’m talking to them directly like “hey, what are you doing searching for another company?” Got it?
So, you go down here, and now in this one you can be broader. Okay, once again we’re targeting people who have already been to our site. So, normally I would put quotes, I’d put brackets, just because I want nothing but phrase match or exact match. But I don’t have to do that here. I’m just going to put video marketing company; video marketing agency- now obviously I’m going to go all the way down through here. Normally, I never do this. I don’t just let them pick my keywords for me. I’m pretty strict with what I allow Google to do, but for the sake of time we’re just going to throw those in. Okay. Now, obviously after I increase my bid if I want to go after these, here is the key. This will cost you a lot of money, if you don’t do it, if you don’t do it quickly. Like right now, Google can turn around and just start throwing these ads up, because I haven’t added my audience. If you go in here to your audience and say, okay, I’m going to add now my RLSA ads. So, I’m going to go down here and say okay, I want all website visitors- you have to have 1000 or more. Like I said, this is kind of your dummy account be the way. I’m going to leave that red like that.
Now, here is- I jumped over. I’m going to go back so I can show you how to get there. Down here there’s something that says Bid only, or Target and Bid. If you create your campaign on its own, you have to select Target and Bid. If you hit Bid only, your budget is going to be blown on a bunch of junk keywords, because you know how we went broader on our keywords, we’re a lot more broader than we normally should. Well, if you don’t click Bid Only, Target and Bid Only, you’re going to show up for everything. So, you’re basically, when you click this you’re telling Google, hey Google, they have to search my keywords, but on top of that they have to be on my list. Okay. If they’re not on my list, you don’t show them the ad. So, it’s just a really good way to know that you’re target now.
Now, obviously my keyword that I chose was video marketing, bit on top of that this is for my competitors’ keywords. So, I’m going to go back in here and put all my competitors: pixability… Let me think. Well, first off what I’m going to do is grab all these guys’ video explainer. Copper fish media, Brand the global. So, I just go over here in- going everywhere. Copper fish media video explainers, Epipheo studios, Pixability… I just know some of these. I’ll go down and put a list of probably 50 of my competitors. Got it? And I save that. You need to go back and you see I underbid all of these keywords. I need to go back and actually adjust all the bids.
Okay. So, I hope that helps. That is a simple tutorial on RLSA ads. Remember you will waste a lot of money especially if you’re over here on your search. If you do not click, like on your standard search one, your audience right here you can adjust your bid to increase it. Now, you can see my targeting settings are Bid Only. That’s okay, because the keywords that I’m using are extremely restrictive. I’m not just going after YouTube. Like if I just put the word YouTube there, I would show up, I mean my budget would be blown in a matter of minutes. Okay.
So when you create your own search ad, you’re not going off of one you’ve already built. When you’re developing your own like this one over here on the left hand side, remember your target settings need to be Target and Bid. That means it has to match both your keywords and be in your audience. I hope that helps. Like I said, I wasted money on when I first did this.
So, if you have any questions, always reach out to us marketinghy.com. Send us an email jace@marketinghy.com. We’ll be happy to help me. In the meantime you can check out our other videos. We do a lot with video ads, and we especially focus on video marketing. So Gmail video ads in the in stream in display and display, all those things that can just help you get a higher ROI on your investment when it comes to video ads. Okay. Thanks for listening. Talk to you later.
[End of recorded material]
Guide To Remarketing Lists For Search Ads and RLSA Best Practices
I Love Podcasts and I have been listening to some of the top Marketing Podcasts over the past 12 months. It’s kind of crazy that we can learn from the best minds in our industry all for free.
I am always preaching that people should skip college, listen to Podcast and watch YouTube Videos. You will learn more. It’s a great habit to get into especially if you are running a business. Podcasts can keep you focused and inspire you to keep moving. Plus it’s fun listening and learning about the struggles, challenges, triumphs, and successes that others are going through.
So here are…
The Top 10 Marketing Podcasts that are worth your time.
This podcast is awesome because Nathan doesn’t mess around. In business, there can be lot of fluff. People tend to beat around the bush but Nathan keeps them in line.
If you want to listen to all different types of Entrepreneurs in all different stages of their businesses, then The Top Podcast is for you.
Kudos to Nathan Latka for being consistent and providing us with great information.
Perpetual Traffic is a weekly podcast produced by Digital Marketer and hosted by Keith Krance, Ralph Burns (Dominate Web Media), & Molly Pittman (Digital Marketer).
Obviously Digital Marketer has spent Millions on Facebook advertising so they know their stuff. They provide some great value and are well worth your time.
Growth Everywhere is a lot like The Top. Eric interviews all types of Entrepreneurs. They give you a lot of little tips you can apply to your business. I also like the fact that Eric interviews people who are just starting out.
I am just getting into this Podcast. Basically, Conversion Cast is the only podcast that gets to the heart of the metrics. At least that’s what the description says.
I will be the judge once I listen to a few more episodes, but so far so good. They are short and sweet.
The Social Media Marketing podcast is hit-or-miss for me. They have some good content, but I have to pick and choose what I want to listen to. They hit almost every social media avenue, so it’s a great start if you are looking to get an overall view of all things Social Media.
If you are running a SaaS business you have to listen to this Podcast. Jason Lemkin is all about getting you from $0 to 100m Annual Recurring Revenue. (ARR) It is jammed packed with ideas and great interviews.
If you have no idea what SaaS stands for, get in line. I probably heard this term for 2 years before I even knew what the word meant. SaaS stands for Software as a Service. Now doesn’t that feel better?
I actually ran into this Podcast while listening to music. Their commercials kept interrupting me so, I decided I would check it out.
Startup is the real story behind creating a business. Their format is amazing and very entertaining. The Gimlet staffs are storytellers and the production of each episode takes a lot of work.
You will know what I mean when you listen to an episode or two.
I live and breath Video Marketing so of course I am going to listen to a Podcast that is all about Video Marketing. I am a going to on an episode or two in the coming weeks.
Those are my top 10 marketing podcasts but I also listen to a couple of others that I am going to mention. You might like the honorable mentions better then my top 10.
The way to get the most out of Podcasts is to actually apply what they’re saying to your business. You’re better served by doing what they say, not just listening.
I like to listen to an episode, take action notes, and then apply those notes.
Good luck I hope you enjoy my Top 10 Marketing Podcasts now go listen and apply.
The online marketing arena, like the real world, is full of shysters, con artists, and wannabes. They have so many different angles, tactics, and maneuvers that they’re hard to keep track of. But that will not stop us from revealing who they are. We are nice like that… 🙂
We are going to paint a picture of the online marketing companies or people that you need to watch out for. They are costly, and have a negative impact on your business. This list comes from real life companies that we have visited and consulted with.
So here we go:
1. The Do Nothing Guy (most common)
Description: These marketers can charge a lot or a little for their services. It doesn’t really matter to them because they don’t do anything to earn it. They capitalize on your lack of knowledge and will talk over your head so they can keep you confused.
It’s an easy trap to fall into due to the fact that once everything is set up and running, an online marketer can just sit back and relax. At least for a little while. Eventually rankings, ads, and leads will die, but that could take some time.
I have talked with a few small businesses who are paying upwards of $10,000 to $18,000 a month and not getting anything in return. Let me phrase that another way: There’s online shysters who are taking in $2160,000 a year and not doing anything for it. The problem isn’t they money. Some companies are worth way more than that. The problem is in quality of work one is getting.
They might of set up a PPC campaign, they might have built your website, and you might be turning a nice profit. And the worse case scenario is your company is booming so you think they are doing a great job. This is where the opportunity costs come in. You could be making way more money, but the do nothing guy is holding you back.
Fix it: Online marketing is not a set it and forget it type of process. There’s always more that can be done. Any guy that thinks he can just sit back and relax is going to be trampled by professional online marketers who are doing the work. Online marketing is not easy and it can take months to see some results. But once the system is figured out and leads start to come in. It can be a huge revenues source for your company.
Below will show you how to protect yourself from these types of dudes.
2. No Brains
Description: These online marketers have zero education and do not know what they are doing. They can talk the lingo, but fall short when it comes to actual performance. They have never been successful nor do they take the time necessary to learn the trade.
You know you are working with a “No Brains Guy” when you have hired your uncle, your cousin, your friend, or a referral from a friend who has watched a few YouTube videos and is now in the business. You may be his first client. There are a lot of “No Brain Guys” out there and it would shock you to know who they are.
3. Over Promising Salesman
Description: “Page One of Google for Lawyers in 5 Days Guaranteed!”
These guys are amazing salesman and will promise you the world. Profits, immediate results, huge returns, page one, ranks of all your keywords, etc.
One of my first employees called me a while back to tell me about an internet company called 180fusion. They are well known and you can read about them on the web. I am not trying to pick on them or call them out, I just want to be very open about what is happening out there.
She had 99 clients under her and was getting paid a ridiculously low amount of money. There’s no way that one person can take care of 99 different clients. Her job…was to try and keep the clients as long as possible before they realize they are being ripped off.
This type of online marketing company will call you endlessly to get you to sign up for their service. Their sales force makes up the majority of their company. Their survival depends on it because they lose clients as fast as they bring them on.
4. Cheapest Guy In The Room ($299 a month service)
Description: This is extremely common and my guess is that most of you have signed up for one of these types of services. I myself have been guilty of taking on clients for a low $299 and end up giving them a bad service because my time has to be spent with clients who pay. Let me tell you how they work.
They undercut legit companies because their model is based on the numbers. They will ask you to pay whatever you can afford to pay. $299, $1500 or $5000 it doesn’t really matter because once you sign up they are off to get their next clients. These companies are all about adding accounts as quickly as possible. They are famous for saying, “It’s only $299, they won’t cancel.”
Sure they will have one or two success stories but it is based off of luck. Think about it…if they can sign up 100 companies, one or two of them will be successful not matter how bad they screw things up.
Ask yourself, how much time can a company really put into my business for $299 a month?
Doctors, Chiropractors, Dentists, and other local businesses are great victims of these services, so keep your eye open. I am guessing, most of you have 5 or 6 charges a month around that $200 dollar range. I would cancel them.
Oh wait, it is only $299 a month. What if it is working? lol
5. Do It All Guy (Owner)
Description: Nothing bad to say about these guys because they are usually the owner or manager of the company. They are making things happen, working long hours, stressing about growth, and taking all the risk. I have been there and still am some days. My heart goes out to these guys because they just can’t seem to let go and let the professionals grow their business.
For Example:
Three weeks ago I met with the owner of a growing business. They were bringing in a $150,000 a month in revenue, which is pretty good for a startup.
The catch…
That $150,000 was all going out, and the owner was broke. Couldn’t afford to spend money on online marketing even though that is where his revenue was coming from.
What is the problem?
The owner is trying to do everything and is losing money in the process. He has no idea where his conversions are coming from, his website is a disaster, no up sells, no email campaigns, no content creation plan, and no tracking. He has started a great company that has huge potential but he will not let go so he can grow.
Like the other fraudsters, the “Do It All Guy” is usually harming himself. His ego has taken over. This must be stopped.
How to protect yourself from bad online marketing companies.
Now for the good part! We have identified the shysters, so now it’s time to get educated on how online marketing really works. That way you can know when to run.
1. How to hit page one of Google.
If any SEO company promises you rankings on the first page of Google in a short amount of time…(6 months or less) it is time to run. Google makes the rules, and they are very strict on how the game is played. There are always exceptions and it is easy to rank for keywords that nobody is looking for. I am talking about real money keywords. Ones that will actually bring you business. These keywords are extremely hard to rank for and you are competing against companies with millions to spend.
The only way to rank for competitive keywords is to create amazing content consistently and get qualified backlinks. This takes a lot of money, time, and effort. 4 blogs, 500 words+ per week is a good place to start.
If you can not afford to pay someone to do a good job than you might as well forget about it, because the 5 fraudsters above are not going to take the time necessary to get you ranked. It’s too much work!
2. How does Pay Per Click (PPC) work?
PPC is one of my favorites avenues because you can get immediate results. Every company should be running some type of PPC campaign even if it’s for remarketing only.
A PPC campaign is easy set up and it is even easier to forget about it. Some companies may check your account once a month others may not check it at all. This is where a lot of businesses can get in trouble. If you make a mistake in PPC… Google, YouTube, and Facebook will take your money within minutes.
Make sure you are monitoring your accounts daily, build out multiple landing pages, and start slow. It takes strategic planning to set up a profitable campaign and it may take a couple of months. Track everything down to a conversion.
This should give you a good idea of what to expect. Once again, the 5 shysters above are not going to put in the time, effort, or work…especially if you are paying them $299 a month.
3. How do email marketing campaigns work?
This is an area that you can create once and receive the benefits for years to come. I usually like to build out a 12 email sequence. Email provides you with a way to nurture and educate your audience after they have chosen to interact with your company. They should be carefully crafted and, ideally, you will want to build out different campaigns according to the needs of the customer.
Emails campaigns are the glue that holds everything together and it’s a must for marketing campaigns.
You can use Aweber, Infusionsoft, MailChimp or Constant Contact to create your sequences. The cost and time will be spent on creating the right content to help the audience convert. It’s that simple!
Not all marketing companies are bad and most of them have good intentions.
So here are some questions to ask yourself:
How much time should a company spend on your online marketing? How much time does it take to be successful?
Can you pay $299 a month and get 40 hours of work?
In my opinion you need 40 hours for a small startup and it can go up from there. Some companies need 20 employees at 40 hours a week. It just depends on your size and growth.
So that leads you to the next set of questions:
Do you bring someone in-house or do you hire it out?
Both options are great but both have their problems. If you decide to bring someone in-house you will want to make sure they are educated and know what they are doing. If you hire it out, you will want to verify that they are working and progress is being made.
Now for the final question:
How much should you pay? $10,000 a month? $5000 a month?
A professional marketer is not going to work 40 hours a week for free. Some of them could be worth $100 an hour, others $25 an hour. It depends on their skills and the results they are able to achieve.
This is where you have to put in the time and research necessary to hire the right people. If they are good, you will end up keeping them forever. If they are bad, your ship may sink with theirs.
The goal is that your business will become their business, and your growth their growth. Over time all cylinders will be firing and your online marketing efforts will pay huge dividends.
Tread carefully when you are hiring an online marketing agency. You only want to do it once…
Thanks for reading
How To Protect Yourself From Hiring The Wrong Online Marketing Company
We are finally to part 3 of scaling your business. It has been an eye opener thus far and I can’t wait to see what the next 6 months hold. If you haven’t read part one or part two you may want to.
Here are the links:
The other morning I was laying in bed in the twilight zone. I may be a little weird; I’ve had some crazy ideas come to me in the realm between fully awake and asleep. It’s like my brain is firing on all cylinders and the ideas start to flow.
It may sound crazy to some, but it happens to me all the time. One of these days I’ll tell you about the time I did calculus all night in my dreams, which helped be get a 99% on my calculus test.
Anyhow… I jumped out of bed and sketched our marketing blueprint.
As I looked at it, I could see a few holes that need to be filled and where we could adjust our remarketing and banner ad campaigns.
I’ll keep you posted on our results in the coming weeks. But for now, we have a complete online marketing blueprint. Here’s what it looks like:
As you can see, I am not the artist behind Ydraw videos. My chicken scratches will pass for a third grader and are fine for the time being, but I’m having this created professionally.
When I got done drawing I could see why we were generating so many leads. This Online Marketing Blueprint is a system that keeps getting better and better over time. To get the kind of results we are getting, each section has to be mastered. For example…Adwords is a big part of our business. We have put in a lot of time and effort to create the right text ads, keywords campaigns, display campaigns, etc. The same goes for Facebook, emails, and YouTube. Each section needs to be perfected.
It’s a lot of work, but very doable.
If you leave a part out…it may not work.
I just know that we have gone from 100 leads per week to 500 leads per week in a 3-month period. Which brings with it some growing pains, but those are great problems to have.
Here are the numbers from our Adwords accounts:
October 2015
Adwords
Spend: $8,083
Leads: 81
Cost per lead $99.79
Click To Conversion Rate was 3% to 9%
March 2015
Adwords
Spend: $10,653
Leads: 165
Cost Per Lead: $54.55
Click to Conversion Rate 13%
The Changes We Made to Adwords
You can see we’ve doubled our leads and cut our cost per lead in half. With the small changes we are making weekly, I can see this getting even better over the next couple of months.
Here are some of the changes:
We redesigned and simplified the website. I can’t stress the importance of simplification. Cut out steps and cut out the clutter. It made a huge impact on our conversion and I know it will make a huge impact on yours.
Create one call to action. What do you want the audience to do?
Google eliminated the right hand ads which gave us a little boost. This may have hurt a lot of other companies. We were always bidding high. It eliminated some of our competition.
Added more negative keywords.
Did A/B testing with text ads.
**added Gmail sponsored ads to the mix**
Gmail Sponsored Ads
I hate giving away secrets like Gmail Sponsored Ads because I know there are other video companies out their watching our every move. It’s a curse, but I want to make sure I give you as much value as possible.
In return I ask that you subscribe to our blog. It’s for the greater good. 🙂
Gmail sponsored ads have been a big focus of mine for the last couple of weeks. With Gmail sponsored ads you are able to run ads within Gmail.
We can place ads based on the account activity of a personal Gmail account. Think of all Gmail users out there. We are able to run promotions directly in their inbox.
The Gmail advert is set out in two sections in the Gmail inbox – a collapsed ad and an expanded ad, but essentially this is the same advert. The collapsed ad appears as a ‘new message’ in your inbox and when you click on it, this then leads you to another ad – the expanded ad. You pay for the cost per click (CPC) every time somebody clicks on the collapsed ad. The expanded ad then leads the user to your landing page; however, you do not pay for the click from the expanded ad to the landing page (this is free).
Here is what one looks like.
They are simple and have had a big impact on our Adwords account.
I created a simple tutorial video on how to set up Gmail sponsored ads. Watch it so you can see what I am talking about.
Now let’s jump over to Facebook and Instagram.
When we first started…here is what the numbers looked like:
Facebook and Instagram
(30 Day Time Period)
Spend: $4665
Number of Leads 446
Cost Per Lead: $10.45
Facebook and Instagram March 2016
(30 Day Time Period)
Spend: $6970
Number of Leads: 1461
Cost Per Lead: $4.77
Yay for Facebook and Instagram! Our leads have gone up drastically and our cost per lead has been cut in half.
Here are the changes we made to our Facebook and Instagram ads to achieve our results:
We basically had Facebook track anyone who hit our conversion page and created a lookalike audience that matched our conversions. It has been very effective.
Created a new whiteboard animation video that provided a little better messaging.
Increased our ad spend budget.
Allowed our good ads to keep running continuously.
That is exactly how we increased our leads.
Please note that we have created an overall system and you are getting a glimpse into this portion of our marketing campaigns. There are more videos and blogs coming in the near future (and most likely a book).
Now it is your turn.
Let us know if you have any questions. We would love to help implement our whole marketing strategy to your business.
Thanks for reading Incredible: From 100 Leads Per Week To 500 Leads Per Week. See How We Did It!
