It is amazing that search is so important. There are many compelling reasons it should be the foundation of every media plan.
- This is highly targeted and reaches exactly those people looking for the content.
- You can easily see exact performance metrics.
- You can measure it easily, particularly if you use tools like Google Analytics.
The creative requirements are of great importance to many. However, they can be far more manageable. You don’t have to think about animations, videos assets, or images. It is loved by clients for all of these reasons.
Search is going to be the strongest performance channel, especially when you consider last-clickattribution (LOAS) and return-on-adspend (ROAS).
What’s the next step after you have completed your master search?
You need to work with brands in the changing digital landscape.
- You should be aware that search campaigns can reach efficiency limits.
- Scale at the appropriate spend levels
- Explore new ways to reach audiences.
Particularly younger audiences are looking for information differently . They are searching on Google, Bing and TikTok depending on their search query.
You can forgo the funnel
It’s time for us to think beyond traditional strategies. We need to move beyond traditional marketing funnels and focus on signal planning. This is more about the needs of the consumers than they are the marketer.
We can focus on our consumers map to identify our audience on their path to purchasing based on what they send back.
This map shows your consumers in the middle. That is where you should put your first dollar.
The signals that you receive from channels diminish as you reach more active customers and into general demand generation or in-category awareness,
You can reach more people even though you will spend less money in these areas. This framework is important because it optimizes inner circles through slow expansion and focuses on ROAS.
The next step in building on the consumer map is to create a customized measurement framework that identifies key goals and tentative channels. Primary and secondary KPIs will also be identified.
You might consider your brand’s demand for demand generation and decide that linear and channels, influencers and partnerships with audio content are the most effective media channels.
You should track KPIs that go beyond reach and frequency. For example, brand search interest is the number of search impressions for your branded keywords.
KPI can be valuable as it has the potential to have the halo effect on new channels, increasing your search spending and improving search efficiency. You can also use this to increase organic traffic so that you’re able quickly reach people who know about your site and are engaged.
A measurement plan is necessary
This is where you can learn how to best measure success. You have four options, each with different levels of complexity. These can all be customized to fit your media budget.
- Reporting and visualization of data.
- Platform-based attribution.
- Testing for inrementality.
- Media mix modeling.
Clients will rely only on one or two of the above depending on their campaign requirements.
You should have a clear and consistent reporting system, ideal in a dashboard, to monitor real-time performance.
You might consider platform-based attribution (also known as the Campaign Manager 360 Model), which allows you to think more deeply about consideration tactics.
You might also consider incrementality testing if your campaign is about awareness. If you launch a channel that is more popular than YouTube, CTV, or other channels, it might be limited to a handful of key markets.
To see what is working, compare the results of your efforts with markets that you were not present. This can be used as a guideline to scaling up and going larger.
Finally, multi-touch attribution or media mix modeling are options that can be considered if you’re sufficiently sophisticated.
You can test, test, and more test
The testing plan is likely to be the most critical step of the entire process. This is crucial for ensuring that your strategy is more rigorous. It should include the following:
- Test details.
- Learner’s goals.
- Test length.
- Run dates.
- Secondary and primary KPIs
- Channel.
- It was a good idea.
- Conflict.
- Results.
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Platform selection
Now that you have your measurement plan in place, you can choose which channels or platforms make most sense for the campaign.
This is done by taking the stages in your consumer map, and aligning them with the samples signals that you observe from consumer behavior.
You might continue with the demand generation example from earlier. This stage could be stacked with signals like nearby category purchases, wedding plans, and moving to another climate.
There are many channels that can reach all parts of the consumer mapping. However, we can identify which channels may be fully-funnel. We can prioritize channels based on our budget and the best fit for us.
To prioritize action areas, you can also look into platforms that measure consumer behaviour.
You can use common consumer behavior to guide channel selection.
You can get insights based on consumer mindset to help you make creative decisions about which platforms will offer the best ROAS. Another way to look at scaling beyond search is by using this method.
Creativity is essential
Your campaign will fail regardless of how well-planned, targeted, and managed it is. If you don’t use the right quality and quantity (or leverage the same creative throughout the funnel), then even the most successful marketing strategies won’t work.
You can determine how complicated the creative process is to help you make the right creative choices.
Although TikTok is a popular channel, almost every brand is interested. Many brands simply aren’t creatively prepared to manage that production schedule.
CTV is not like YouTube or Hulu in terms of refreshes, however, it requires very high-quality creative.
Meta and programmatic channels, however, need fewer updates (monthly/bimonthly), but can be able to function with a slightly reduced creative complexity. These depend on audience size and budget so there may be tradeoffs.
You should also consider who your creators are and what they could be used to promote ads. Influencer assets are highly effective and cost-effective, especially on platforms like Meta or TikTok.
You can see positive results in many different ways. You can amplify directly from an influencer’s account, in addition to using the creator for branded posts. You can modify the caption to make it more actionable.
There is some success in “mashups,” which are creative teams that take assets from influencers and turn them into something new. This can be a way to make your audience more relevant or offer different experiences.
Points of cohesion
Scaling beyond search requires that the campaign be cohesive and integrated.
You must ensure that your entire marketing team is functioning and ready to succeed in implementing the KPIs you have established for media.
You will need to pay attention to more details, particularly as campaign variables come into play. However, these steps can help you scale beyond Google and Bing, while still keeping your business focused on ROAS.
Tik Tok on Facebook and Beyond: Driving ROAS beyond Google and Microsoft
Here is my complete SMX Next presentation.
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These opinions are not necessarily those of Search Engine Land, but they do reflect the views of the guest author. Here are the names of staff authors.
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