Ads and campaigns in e-commerce

[Music]
building an ecommerce store is one of
the first steps to sell online but then
what
customers don't automatically show up
because you built a store
you need to use specific strategies to
drive traffic to your store
one of the ways to do that is through
online advertising which you'll learn
about in this part of the course
let's review what's been covered in this
course so far
first you got an overview of e-commerce
stores and how they work
then you learned how to use shopify
you also learned how to connect an
e-commerce store to google and other
shopping channels
so what's coming up next
first you'll learn about the benefits of
online advertising
next you'll learn how to use google ads
to connect with your e-commerce
customers
after that you'll discover the basics of
google smart campaigns you'll also learn
how to create a smart shopping campaign
next you'll explore seasonality in
e-commerce and how to use google ads to
plan for seasonality finally you'll
learn how to optimize your e-commerce
marketing strategies learning how to
drive traffic to an online store is an
important skill to learn if you want to
work in e-commerce
you may be involved in creating
advertising and marketing campaigns for
your future employer
all right time to get started
[Music]
i have a question for you
how many advertisements do you think the
average person is exposed to in a day
50 75
300 maybe
if you guessed anything below a few
thousand
you may be wrong
if you're a us citizen digital marketing
experts estimate that you can be exposed
to anywhere between 4 000 to 10 000 ads
each day
globally these figures can differ but
this statistic is very telling of the
prevalence of advertisements
now think about the time you personally
spent on the internet
i'm sure a lot of the ads you experience
in a day come directly from a computer
or phone screen
this type of advertising is called
online advertising simply put online
advertising is a form of marketing which
uses the internet to deliver promotional
marketing messages to consumers
whether a brick and mortar store or an
online retailer
online advertising is now the go-to
method for most businesses advertising
purposes
it may be hard to believe but before the
mid-1990s online advertising was largely
prohibited on the internet
companies were forced to rely on
traditional advertisements in radio
television billboards and magazines that
all changed once the band was lifted
online ads soared becoming the primary
way for companies to get their brands
recognized and products discovered
why did so many retailers rush to online
advertising
let's explore this by going over the
four key benefits of online advertising
the first benefit of online advertising
is that it's cost effective
when we compare the two traditional
advertising requires a significantly
larger budget than modern online ads
as we discussed in the previous course
these advertisement costs are calculated
by cpm which stands for cost per 1000
impressions
in general the average cpm for online
advertising ranges from approximately
three to ten dollars
by comparison it costs approximately
fifteen to thirty dollars to reach that
same amount of people through newspapers
or television advertisements
to improve efficiency advertisers
shifted their advertising budgets to
focus largely online
the second benefit to online ads is that
they can have global reach capabilities
before online advertising reaching a
global audience was nearly impossible
for small to medium-sized companies
since global campaigns using traditional
advertising could cost millions of
dollars and require extensive research
thankfully online advertising has the
ability to target specific sections of
the world
using digital marketing technologies
businesses can now market to an internet
user in a completely different country
without the cost and hassle that came
with traditional advertising moving
along the third benefit of online ads is
they help advertisers gather data for
effective brand strategizing with
traditional advertising mediums like
billboards advertisers have little
insight on how effective their
advertisements really are
and they don't know if their billboard
is in the right place for example a
company can put their advertisements on
a busy highway to get noticed but if the
traffic is moving too quickly drivers
might not have the time to read them the
business will never know for certain how
many people paid attention to their
advertisement or what percentage of
those people searched for their company
based on that advertisement
online ads are different
many times advertisers can track
analytics to see where their ads were
seen how many people clicked on those
ads and how many of those clicks led to
a purchase
this data is important for determining
where to spend advertising dollars
and the fourth benefit of online ads is
they are quick and easy to produce
traditional media forums can require a
lot of work for example if a company
wants a television ad they may have to
hire actors write a script and pay for a
production crew
this takes time
additional expenses and detailed
planning
online ads bypass most of these
complications by having automated
structures that streamline the process
depending on the ad hosting service
advertisements will require companies to
simply input information and generate
their desired ad
later we will explore one of those
automated systems these four benefits of
online advertising are just a start
when you enter the ecommerce field
you'll recognize more benefits that will
come with online ads today the most
common types of online ads are powered
by google ads
with google being the most popular
search engine globally google ads allow
internet users and consumers to search
browse and compare products across a
wide variety of brands and retailers
coming up you'll learn about how google
ads use campaigns to connect with
customers
meet you there
[Music]
if you listen to music online you may
have noticed that when a famous musician
releases a new song their new music
video might appear in the recommended
section when you visit youtube
or you may notice a link to their
website in the ad on google search pages
that isn't a coincidence it's a google
ads campaign hard at work a campaign is
a tool that creates and initiates a plan
for how to promote products or services
on google's vast network of search
results
websites videos mobile apps maps
shopping listings and more
to create that plan campaigns use a set
of ad groups like ads keywords and bids
these groups share a budget location
targets and specific audiences
google ads offer a variety of campaign
types to help you craft specific
messaging in your online ad to attract
and engage potential customers for
example
app developers use app campaigns to find
new app users and increase sales within
their app
the campaign helps them promote their
app on many channels
working in the field of e-commerce
you'll likely encounter four types of ad
campaigns that fit your business needs
and help you reach your audience they
are shopping
search display and video
in this video we'll discuss each of
these ad campaigns one by one and when
they are commonly used
let's get started with shopping
campaigns shopping campaigns are product
listings that appear on search results
and the google shopping tab
they're ideal if you're an e-commerce
retailer looking to sell your product
inventory shopping ads show users a
photo of your product plus a title price
store name and more products will also
appear on the shopping tab along with
their competitors
customers find this helpful for
comparing the appearance and price of
similar items
for retailers this could benefit or harm
sales if your product has great quality
and is affordable
it is more likely to sell over products
that have a poor appearance or too
expensive
using shopping campaigns are an
essential part of the online buying and
selling process
if you're a retailer you can use
shopping campaigns to promote your
online inventory and boost traffic to
your website store
they help with retail marketing by using
visually engaging product listings to
promote your retail products
they also help boost your sales by
getting people to buy on your online
store
or sign up for more next are search
campaigns you may remember learning
about search campaigns in an earlier
course
as a reminder a search campaign is text
ads on search results that appear while
people search on google for related
products and services
search campaigns help reach customers
who know what they are looking for and
are ready to make a purchase
for example picture this
a busy restaurant manager named jamie
forgot to order her partner flowers for
their wedding anniversary a tradition
they've held for the last 20 years
during her hectic day she goes to google
search and types in flowers but there's
a problem
she's met with nearly 7
billion search results jamie is
overwhelmed and has to spend a
significant amount of valuable time
filtering through the endless results
search campaigns quickly help identify
solutions to searches if a florist in
jamie's area used a search campaign she
would have been able to quickly identify
a florist who offers same-day delivery
service at the top of the webpage this
would have made it easy for her to place
an order and return to work both search
and shopping campaigns run using a ppc
or pay-per-click model you may remember
that this is a marketing strategy where
a company only pays for the ad when
somebody clicks on it to visit the
company's website
next are display campaigns
if you've been taking the course of this
program in order
you may have already discussed these
types of ads in a previous section as a
reminder a display campaign is a google
ads tool that allows businesses to place
an image advertisement across various
websites display campaigns aren't
limited to the google search platform
they can appear on any platform that's
part of the google display network the
google display network is a group of
more than 2 million websites videos and
apps
the google display network sites reach
over 90 percent of internet users
worldwide
think of these ad campaigns as digital
billboards
unlike shopping campaign ads display
campaigns are often artistic and use a
combination of art graphic design
photography and typography to promote
their products
another type of campaign commonly used
in e-commerce is video campaigns
youtube has over 2.3 billion users
worldwide as of 2021 according to a
recent report
with so many users constantly streaming
videos ecommerce specialists have a
valuable opportunity to reach new and
returning customers using video
advertising a video campaign is a google
ads tool that allows businesses to place
video advertisements before during or
after youtube videos and in the search
results
so
what are the specific benefits of video
campaigns just as search campaigns help
businesses get noticed on google video
campaigns help businesses and products
get noticed on youtube like display
campaigns video campaigns help your
potential customers meet your ecommerce
products at the start of their buying
journey and help spread awareness about
your brand
they can also remind returning customers
to revisit your products or services
these video ads have a limited time to
make an impression on the people who are
watching them so oftentimes a lot of
work has to go into them to ensure that
they are engaging
lots of e-commerce businesses hire
advertisement agencies or professional
video producers to make these ads for
them this is something you may have to
consider in the future depending on the
size and needs of the companies you end
up working for
search campaigns shopping campaigns
display campaigns and video campaigns
are regular google ads campaigns
when you use any one of these types of
campaigns you have complete control of
the campaigns
specific goals keywords conversion
metrics and budget decisions
while google ads campaigns require
knowledge to use they can be extremely
beneficial when creating an ad campaign
coming up you'll learn more about how to
run successful campaigns
[Music]
while regular google ad campaigns can be
helpful they require some advanced
knowledge and skill to manage
luckily there are smart campaigns a
smart campaign is an automated campaign
management tool within google ads that
helps you promote your business
originally called google adwords express
smart campaigns were designed for small
businesses and new advertisers they
provide a simpler business marketing
experience by combining search and
display campaigns and allow google to
control most of the campaign's
management
as an entry-level e-commerce specialist
there are some significant advantages to
using smart campaigns first
smart campaigns are automated when you
create a smart campaign you give google
control over the direction that your
campaign goes
and how your budget is spent this means
that you can spend less time checking in
on your campaign while it operates
second
they're easier to set up smart campaigns
can be set up in under 15 minutes since
they only require a few steps to
complete in comparison regular campaigns
require more steps to set up later on in
this lesson you will learn these steps
as we create a smart campaign
lastly smart campaigns save money
remember when we learn that all google
campaigns run using a ppc or
pay-per-click model
while regular campaigns rely on you to
determine the best budget strategies
smart campaigns use detailed analytics
and data to determine the highest
conversion rate
that means people who click on your ad
will be more likely to buy your product
reducing the gamble of having to pay
when someone clicks on your ad but
doesn't make a purchase
while smart campaigns are less complex
than regular google ad campaigns there
are some control limitations including
limited campaign goals limited keyword
options and limited control of the
budget
like regular google ad campaigns there
are different types of smart campaigns
for e-commerce smart shopping campaigns
are the best smart campaign to help
maximize shopping potential a smart
shopping campaign is an advanced
shopping campaign that uses technology
to optimize for more sales
and reach google shoppers across google
sites and networks
after just a few steps
google will optimize to show your
inventory to the right customers at the
right time across different networks
including the google search network
google display network youtube and gmail
to accomplish this smart shopping
campaigns optimize real-time signals
like user queries time of day and
devices to show your products to
customers who are more likely to buy
your products a study found that smart
shopping campaigns have over 20 percent
more conversion value than regular
shopping campaigns
there are three key benefits of smart
shopping campaigns
first
smart shopping campaigns optimize
existing shopping ad products
they combine your single existing
product feed and assets into ads across
a variety of networks
google systems test them and display the
ones that perform the best
second they leverage automatic bidding
google analyzes and intelligently
predicts the value of a potential
conversion every time a user searches
for products or services you're
advertising then it automatically
adjusts your bids for these searches to
maximize your return on them and the
third benefit for smart shopping
campaigns is that you can get started
right from your ecommerce platform
since they allow easy integration
through a third-party platform like
shopify or woocommerce
coming up you'll continue to develop
your knowledge of e-commerce concepts
and practices get ready
[Music]
you're ready to learn how to create a
smart shopping campaign
remember setting up a smart shopping
campaign takes under 15 minutes
this is significantly less time than
regular campaigns like i mentioned
previously i don't expect you to create
your own shopping campaign during this
program
this video is to give you a chance to
explore what it's like to create your
first campaign in the future
i'll start by signing into
ads.google.com
next i'll select the campaigns menu and
add a new campaign
here i can decide my campaign goals
if you want to create a regular campaign
that i can control 100 on my own
i would click choose that option here
but since i'm creating a smart shopping
campaign
i'll select the sales as the goal for
your campaign instead
then shopping next i'll select my
merchant center account if for any
reason i hadn't linked my merchant
center account with my product data i'd
have to do so now
but luckily i've already completed that
step for campaign subtype i'll select
smart shopping campaign then continue
i'll enter the name of my campaign and
the campaign's average daily budget
by default smart shopping campaigns set
bids that maximize the value of your
conversions within your provided average
daily budget now it's time to choose
specific products or groups of products
that i'd like to advertise in my
campaign if you don't specify products
your entire feed will be eligible to
appear in your ads this could reduce
their specificity and worsen their
performance finally
i can preview my ad and then select save
and i'm done you've just witnessed what
it's like to create a google smart
shopping campaign you can use the google
ads website to explore more advanced
campaigns that may fit your business
needs
[Music]
i have a question for you when is your
favorite time of the year
is it during the part of the year when
your favorite weather like sunshine or
snow is the most consistent
or maybe your favorite time of the year
correlates to a specific day or event
like around your birthday or an
anniversary like clockwork these periods
come around year after year
believe it or not digital marketers and
e-commerce specialists anticipate their
own special times of the year based on
past patterns
this concept is called seasonality
seasonality also called seasonal
marketing refers to the regular and
predictable fluctuation of e-commerce
traffic around special holidays events
and weather
on a quarterly or yearly basis
those in the e-commerce industry use
seasonality to determine when a business
will receive a potential increase or
slowdown in revenue sales
seasonality is split into two parts on
season and off season the on season is
the period where customers are much more
likely to buy products due to related
weather variables or special events
during the on season businesses can
expect to receive the most financial
gain for example in countries that
experience drastic temperature changes
some clothing items are more popular
during certain times of the year than
others this is the case for sandals
while some people may opt to wear them
year-round
they are generally purchased and worn
during warm weather seasons
this is the sandal industry's on season
since the industry experiences a period
of rapid economic expansion called a
boom
however the on season isn't limited to
just seasonal weather
holidays and special events play a huge
role in driving traffic to e-com sites
for example
consider the florist industry
in countries that celebrate mother's day
flowers are a common gift to purchase
for maternal figures
globally the week leading to mother's
day is the busiest week of the florist
industry this is significant because
mother's day doesn't occur in the prime
flower growing season for all countries
yet it is still popular item to buy in
those countries in celebration of the
holiday
other important e-commerce holidays
include back to school events and cyber
sales week the off season is the period
where customers tend to take more time
in making purchases especially if it's
for a larger ticket item the off season
is also a time when businesses
experience a period of relatively low
site traffic and revenue
let's go back to our sandal industry
example
during the winter people choose to wear
sandals less
due to the harsh weather this period is
generally considered a period of poor
performance or inactivity which is
called a slump
it's important to note that the
off-season doesn't mean that a business
has nothing to accomplish
on the contrary the off-season is one of
the most valuable times of the year for
businesses to focus on off-season
marketing strategies the goal of
off-season marketing is to put your
business ahead of the competition by
building a strong brand awareness that
will directly drive customers to your
site during your on season
here are a few approaches the first is
to grow your database
during the off season is the time to
target new contacts and attract new
audiences while it may sound strange to
create additional campaigns when you are
in a financial slowdown
growing your database during the
off-season is important
when your new campaign leads to a
conversion you can obtain customer
information and use this information to
follow up with new promotions during the
on season
second
increase your social media presence
in order to gain more customers during
your peak time of the year you have to
increase your awareness
one way to do that is through social
media
use this time to interact with your
customers and create social media posts
engaging content
this helps you stay connected to your
customers and leads throughout the year
if you're curious on how to grow your
social media presence i recommend
visiting an earlier course on social
media marketing
third
create quality content great content
takes time effort and creativity to
cultivate and make memorable it's often
measured by how many people interact
with it and how much it leads to
conversions
this will help your business stand out
from the crowd
you can utilize your site's blog feature
to write interesting and
thought-provoking posts this is helpful
for building a community that your
audience feels connected to
it also builds interest for additional
products related to the article
for example sports is a hobby that
connects citizens globally
a soccer apparel company could conduct
an interview and post an interview with
a professional sports player about their
career during the off-season
this article would be a great
opportunity for the company to share an
interesting story
it can also draw customers to current
discounted jersey promotional sales
and lead to their brand being remembered
during on season
another off-season marketing strategy is
to promote less popular products on your
site if they're available
turning the attention to less popular
selling products on a business's site is
a great way to keep your business
profitable during the off season since
doing so will help recover the revenue
lost from the decrease in sales to your
popular items to do this businesses
feature the less known products on their
homepage
create marketing campaigns for them and
develop creative branding
and finally there's geographic
segmentation geographic segmentation
refers to the grouping of customers with
regards to their physical location
this is important since depending on
your industry on season and off season
may occur at different times and
locations
remember the sandals industry example
although sandals might currently be in a
weak financial period due to cold
weather
boots are experiencing an on season
so using geographic segmentation a
business that sells a variety of shoes
might decide to target sandals to
potential customers in warm locations in
the world
and boots to potential customers who are
in cooler locations okay that's it for
now
coming up we'll explore more about
strategizing to reach customers i'll
meet you in the next video
[Music]
understanding seasonality is a great way
to know what is coming ahead for your
business
since it allows you to recognize common
trends in your industry now that we've
explored the basics let's examine how to
use google ads to plan ahead of seasonal
events as we mentioned before google ads
is an online advertising platform
developed by google where advertisers
bid to display brief advertisements
service offerings product listings or
videos to web users
as an e-com specialist you'll likely
measure efficiency often and a good time
to revisit goals and demand trends is
during the off-season to start you'll
need to determine your bidding strategy
for the on season or seasonal events
to do this you'll use smart bidding
smart bidding is a subset of automated
bid strategies that use machine learning
to optimize for conversions or
conversion value in each and every
auction
to prepare for seasonal events you can
adjust smart bidding settings manually
or use seasonality adjustments
with the seasonality adjustment tool in
google ads you can set a time and date
for when you expect to see a short spike
in conversion rate
this will inform the smart bid tools
when to change its bidding behavior
for example
imagine that a small business owner in
singapore creates festive party
decorations
her business has been open for five
years and sales are steady year-round
however she notices every lunar new year
a time of great celebration for her city
the demands for her decorations spike
for an entire week before the
celebration begins
this year in anticipation of this spike
the owner of the company can build a
seasonality adjustment that increases
the conversion rate by up to 50 percent
for the days leading up to the new year
celebrations once the period is over
smart bidding will immediately go back
to pre-sales performance with smart
bidding you can choose which automated
target strategy you want to go with the
first smart bidding strategy is to
maximize your conversion value or cpa
this is a fully automated bidding
strategy which means that google will
adjust your bids automatically to give
you the highest number of store visits
be aware that this strategy will always
spend the full daily allotted budget
so if you have multiple shopping
campaigns you'll need to decide if each
campaign should have their own daily
budget assigned or one shared budget
you wouldn't want all of your budget to
be spent on one campaign the second
smart bidding strategy for shopping
campaigns is to set your return on ad
spending also called roas
it means that google will optimize your
bids based on your daily budget to meet
the target that you set with roas
targeting if google ads determines that
a user search is likely to generate a
conversion with
high value
target roas will bid high on that search
if it determines that the search isn't
likely to generate a high value
conversion
it'll bid low
for this strategy google needs to have
enough previous conversion data to be
able to make smart decisions
this will depend on your previous
activity if you don't have enough
conversion data then the algorithm can't
make informed decisions
if you choose a roas strategy remember
to start off with a realistic target and
with a goal a little lower than what
your performance has been recently
then slowly raise the target over time
to achieve a more profitable roas
no matter which strategy you go with
you'll need to consider new customer
acquisition with the increase of
ecommerce activity beginning in 2020
customers are more willing to try new
brands and products
historically holidays have been a great
time to gain new customers so google ads
has options for you to plan ahead for
that under the settings menu you can
choose your conversion goals in the
settings of your campaign you can add
the value that your new customers are
worth versus your old customers
this way the campaign will optimize more
for sales for new customers
okay
now that you know how to use bidding
strategies and focus on converting new
customers the next step is using the
google ads performance planner to
prepare for the on season
as you know during certain periods of
the year consumer intent can be higher
which means customers know what they
want to buy for example during the
winter instead of waiting around to see
an ad for a new coat customers are more
likely to search for a new coat directly
on the internet this leads to more
conversions for winter apparel business
the performance planner is a tool that
allows you to forecast the impact of
different spending scenarios and events
during upcoming seasons
it also allows you to determine perfect
bid and budget settings for campaigns
that run year round
how does it work
it examines previous campaign
performance and seasonal trends for your
target industry and region
using the performance tracker you can
set the conversion rate estimate to
match the one for the prior year during
this time
or
you can also set a custom conversion
rate at the plant level you can even
individually define conversion rates for
relevant campaigns in your plan
the choice is yours
have fun planning
for information on getting started with
your own google ads seasonal planning be
sure to check out the readings in this
course
[Music]
at some point or another every
e-commerce specialist must evaluate what
they can do to boost traffic on their
site and get customers to buy now that
you know more about planning for
seasonal trends and events it's time to
learn about how to improve your
ecommerce sales efforts in this video
i'll guide you through a few effective
techniques ecommerce specialists use to
optimize their e-commerce strategy
the first is to conduct more research on
the industry's booms and slumps
knowing when you'll experience a spike
or slowdown in e-commerce traffic is
vital for planning ahead
one way to determine this is by using
google trends a google tool that lets
you explore what citizens around the
world are searching for on google
simply enter words or topics related to
your ecommerce products into the
interface
and you'll get access to the amount of
search interest on that topic
the stats are relative to the highest
point on the chart for the given region
and time
so you can determine how much the word
or phrase was searched for
here's an example remember when i
mentioned that mother's day is the
busiest day for the floral industry if a
florist wanted to identify another peak
day during the on season
they could type flowers
in the google trends forum they are met
with statistics on the amount of time
the word flowers were searched in the
last year the largest spike on the chart
is around may as i mentioned before
mother's day is the busiest day for
florists and this spike confirms this
since mother's day falls around the
month of may in most countries
but can you guess when the second spike
happens
the google trends timeline suggests that
this spike happens around mid-february
this correlates with the popular holiday
valentine's day
where loved ones and friends commonly
exchange gifts of flowers this is just
an example
florists and other e-commerce analysts
can use this tool to identify other
possible peak days for their industry as
you become aware of potential spikes you
can create promotional events that
correspond with the spikes to help drive
sales these can include incentives like
limited time deals discounts or free
shipping the next optimization technique
is to simplify the buying process have
you ever been a shopping cart abandoner
that's when you start a checkout process
for an online order but never complete
the purchase lots of time this is due to
the complexity of the buying process you
may have had an extremely hard time
finding the checkout button
or
there may be multiple unnecessary steps
to purchasing your product the process
may make you so frustrated that you
leave the online store and never return
these issues are called pain points
in e-commerce a pain point is defined as
a specific problem faced by current or
prospective customers while interacting
with the site
resolving pain points improves the
buyers experience with your brand and
could help bring customers back to your
site in many cases companies hire user
experience designers to target the issue
customers are facing and redesign
aspects of their site
as an entry-level designer you'll likely
be charged with identifying where in the
process the shopper decided to leave the
shopping experience
also called a shopping cart abandonment
if you own your own ecommerce business
we don't expect you to hire a user
experience designer right away
instead many small businesses determine
their customers pain points by
conducting and analyzing simple research
like customer surveys or focus groups
once they identify the source of the
problem they can use resources provided
by their ecommerce platform to simplify
the purchase experience okay moving on
the last technique i have to optimize
your ecommerce strategy is to reconsider
pricing i get it this is definitely
tricky we learned in previous courses
that to maintain a successful business
you need a good return on your
investments meaning
it's essential that you bring in more
money to your ecommerce business than
you spend when setting the prices for
your items it may be tempting to set the
value of your products at a high level
in theory if you set your product value
as high you'll earn more money when
customers buy
right
however high prices can turn away
customers from choosing your products
i'm not saying that you should
undervalue your products but it's
important to make your product listing
price reasonable for new and returning
buyers
to take it one step further you can also
choose to make your products price
competitive with other retailers this
means adjusting certain product prices
so that they match or are lower than
your competitors when your products
appear on the google shopping tab their
lower price point will help them stand
out if you decide to use this technique
make sure that you have calculated
reasonable roi data
remember optimization is an ongoing part
of the ecommerce industry
make sure you consistently check in with
how your optimization efforts are doing
if you notice something isn't going the
way that you would like don't be afraid
to try a different approach
congratulations on finishing this video
from the google digital marketing and
e-commerce certificate
access the full experience on coursera
including job search help and start
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clicking the icon or the link in the
description
watch the next video in the course by
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