I’ve managed all types of paid search campaigns (Google Ads)… from eCommerce to Consumer Lead Gen, but I had never managed a campaign for a multi-location business before I joined Position².

Over the last few years, multi-location PPC has quickly become one of our “in-house specialties” that we offer our clients.

In this post, I’ll share some tips and tricks that I’ve learned over the last few years that’ll benefit those who are managing marketing efforts in a multi-location business.

Hours of Operation

Save your budget for when you have staff to answer the phone – be mindful and turn your campaigns off when your office is closed.

Call Tracking

Third-party call tracking is mandatory to measure results from phone calls. CallRail is one of our favorite providers of choice. It’s incredibly powerful, reasonably priced, and user-friendly in both setup/execution.

You’ll be tracking two types of calls: People who call your extensions right from the search results page and people who visit your site and then call from there. We recommend your business set up full source-to-close tracking where all inbound calls (and all form fills, if relevant) get recorded in your CRM and are tied to a unique GCLID tag.

These “leads” will be tracked through the funnel and data from each stage gets pushed back into Google Ads. When the leads “close”, those closes will also be pushed into Google. When your CRM shares data with Google, it trains the algorithm to find prospects that are more likely to become leads and closed sales.

We know that not every business is set up to do full source to close tracking, however, if your company can at least track all inbound leads and tie them to paid search it will generate an accurate cost per lead and the investment in a call-tracking solution will be justified.

Performance Max / Smart Campaigns

For each office location, we typically run unique Branded and Non-Branded Search Campaigns along with an office-specific Performance Max Campaign. We don’t recommend creating Performance Max Campaigns to cover multiple offices because it can lead to an increased likelihood of showing an inaccurate office location to a prospect. Office ads overlapping each other can happen but that is fairly normal and not a negative.

Display Campaigns

Although generating direct lead volume is never guaranteed, Google Display Network Traffic is affordable and if targeted aggressively within a small local area you can attain great brand recognition that will help generate interest from other marketing channels. We recommend that you allocate between 5-10% of each locale’s marketing budget for Google Ads on the Google Display Network.

Response time

During business hours, your prospective customers expect quick responses to their inquiries (or within a reasonable time during off-hours). Not responding promptly, could drive those prospects to choose a competitor. We’re recommending you set and commit to a service level agreement (SLA) for all inquiries – and ensure it’s executed in every communication/engagement. It will help prevent a loss of down-funnel revenue.

We hope you found these tips useful, we think Google Ads is an essential tool for keeping your multi-location businesses visible and profitable. Following these steps, will help your business will get more business.

Google is bringing their ‘Ads Experts’ to manage campaigns. “We’ll focus on your campaigns, so you can focus on your business,” says the email Google sent to some advertisers in the last week of January.

Before we start getting paranoid about AI and machine learning taking over the advertising agencies, let’s understand more about this new feature and how it may change the advertising ecosystem.

1. The Opt-out Option
   Although advertisers are auto opted-in to the program, Google will give them the option to opt-out and be in full control of their ads. This feature is useful as agencies are better integrated with their clients and therefore more in tune with their needs.
2. The Multi-channel and Cross-channel Marketing
   Apart from Google Ads Campaigns, agencies manage multiple other channels for their clients like Facebook, LinkedIn and programmatic ads, to name a few. So, agencies need a broader view of how their clients’ ads are performing across channels. The integrated reports from multiple channels allow advertisers to gauge the overall performance and decide whether to pause, activate or increase the exposure of these ads.
3. Siloed Approach
   Companies relying solely on Google’s recommendations will have a siloed approach to digital marketing. And as Google has carefully mentioned, “advertisers are still responsible for the results of their campaigns.” Agencies are far better equipped to control the performance of the ads as they work closely with their clients and have access to their entire marketing portfolio.
4. Less Grunt Work, More Strategic Thinking
   Google indicated that their experts will help identify the structural changes to ad groups and modify the keywords to adjust bids and ad text for greater impact, without touching the budgets. This means the agency’s roles will evolve into focusing more on strategy and less on time spent on day-to-day repetitive tasks.
   If Google’s words are anything to go by, they have clearly stated that they do not “guarantee or promise any particular results from implementing these changes”, so agencies still have complete ownership of the campaign and its results and while the recommendations from Google will be helpful, they should not place complete faith in the optimization efforts.
5. The announcement might have given a bit of a shock to agencies initially, and the changes could potentially lead to some organizational restructuring at their end, but the future is clearly a lot more worry-free, strategic, and impact-oriented for them.

Three quarters of the people who do a ‘near me’ search on their phones visit the store within a day.

Google introduced Location Extension in 2009 to help advertisers drive more footfalls into their stores. This year Google is testing a new beta ad extension called ‘Affiliate Location Extension’ (officially announced on Google+ on Oct 20, 2016) for some AdWords accounts.

What is an Affiliate Location Extension?

The purpose of launching this ad extension is to help manufacturers drive traffic to third-party US retail locations that sell their products. For example, if you are a TV manufacturer, you can use this extension to help someone searching for a TV to find the nearest retail chain where he or she can buy the product.

Some AdWords accounts have been enabled with Affiliate Location Extension, in the coming weeks this will be rolled out to other accounts.

How will Affiliate Location Extension Help

As per Google, CTR tends to improve when ad extensions are included in an ad copy. Having an affiliate location extension will help manufacturers drive customers to the locations near them where they can buy the product they are looking for.

Setting Up Affiliate Location Extension in AdWords

You can easily select Affiliate Location Extension in the Ad Extensions Tab. Simply add the new extension and select the 3 categories: ‘Relationship type,’ ‘Country’ and ‘Chains.’ The ‘Relationship type’ states the type of retailer. ‘Chains’ lets you choose the retail chains where the manufacturer sells his/her products (Refer to the images below). In contrast to standard location extensions, Affiliate Location Extensions do not require you to link to a Google My Business account.

How Affiliate Location Extension Works

1. The User searches for a product on Google
2. Your ad shows up with Affiliate Location Extension
3. The user sees the nearest retail store that sells your product, either as an address or on a map
4. On mobile, the user can tap on the extension to get directions to the store
5. The user heads right to the nearest store and buys your product

Conclusion

By promoting retail location on search ads, the ads get more functional and give customers relevant information to drive store sales and visits. Since the end goal of a manufacturer is to drive more sales, Affiliate Location Extension enables manufacturers to reach their goal. Additionally, Google says that using this extension may enable some manufacturers to be eligible for ‘Store Visits Data’ in AdWords Currently, Affiliate Location Extension has been rolled out in the US only. We will learn over time how this extension actually works and how successful it is in driving product sales.

Sources:

1. ‘About affiliate location extensions’
2. ‘For manufacturers selling in retail chains, Google launches affiliate location ad extensions’
3. Store Visit Conversions

‘Change is the name of the game’ and who can advocate this more than Google? They have played a major role in the rapidly evolving world of online marketing and advertising with their regular innovations and strategic thought leadership.

Google has earned the majority of the global market share [72.48%] by constantly updating and innovating their solutions and services.

As a continuation of this process of constant evolution, Google rolled out new AdWords updates that are likely to impact your advertising ROI in a positive manner:

1. Expanded Ad Format
2. Bidding Metrics – Conversions and Converted Clicks

Make the changes now as you’ll no longer be able to create or edit standard text ads after October 26th, 2016

2. Conversions and Converted Clicks

Google AdWords uses the basic bidding metrics to measure your ad conversions. Converted clicks is a metric that counts the number of clicks leading to one or more conversions. For example, if one customer clicks on your ad and then completes two conversions, converted clicks will consider it as one click.

On the other hand, conversions are the recommended metric for bidding and reporting, as this gives you a clearer picture of how many conversions you have from AdWords. With this bid metric, you have the option to include cross-device conversions and factor them into your automated bid strategy.

Starting in September, Google will remove converted clicks as a conversion bid metric and later will remove this from reporting as well. So, all accounts need to change their bid metrics to conversions and if you have not done it yet, you will find it automatically migrated to conversions.

Here’s a comparison of the metrics that will give you more clarity on the impending change.

With so many swift changes in the online advertising world, you need to be updated to beat the competition and win the game. Stay tuned to get the latest from the digital marketing world!

References:

1. https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/6372468?hl=en&authuser=0
2. https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/7048854?hl=en
3. https://adwords.googleblog.com/2016/07/adwords-editor-expanded-text-ads-mobile-app-engagement.html

Position² is a full service digital marketing agency that has been working with top brands in the B2B space for over a decade. Our Demand Acceleration (DA) framework is the result of years of experience in serving a diverse range of clients of every size and type. It is an integrated approach that combines the key enablers—Content Marketing, Paid Acquisition, and Marketing Technology—to deliver significant results across the Awareness, Engagement, and Purchase stages in B2B sales.

Over the past two years, Position² has been engaged with SiriusDecisions, the thought leaders in B2B marketing frameworks—to adopt best practices in our services and processes.

THE DEMAND CREATION ECOSYSTEM

Demand Creation is a concept laid out by Sirius Decisions that provides a highly detailed model to plan, manage, and optimize the B2B marketing process.The DC ecosystem revolves around the interactions that buyers have with the marketer. B2B buying behaviour is different from B2C, the key differences being longer sales cycles and multiple buyers. Let’s look at some of the key players and concepts in this ecosystem.

Demand Waterfall

The Demand Waterfall, originated by Sirius Decisions, illustrates the flow of buyers across different stages of the B2B buying process. The key elements in the waterfall are the different stages that leads pass through before they convert to a sale or become a customer.

 

Buyer

The buyer is defined as the entity that consumes the product or service. Buyers are further classified based on their role in the buying process, as well as in the consumption of the product and service. Important concepts that are considered in relation to the buyer are personas, buying types and lead lifecycles.

Product/ Service

The product or service that is being sold forms the other element in the Demand Creation process. The key concept related to the product or service is Demand Type.

This helps marketers design programs that are best suited to their product or service.

The Buyer’s Journey

Position²’s Demand Acceleration framework looks at the buyer as being at the core of the process. The aim is to move the buyer from an initial stage of non-awareness to the final desired stage of purchase. The DA framework leverages the key enablers—Content, Technology, and Campaigns to accelerate the buyer’s journey, thus providing more and faster sales for the company.

THE ENABLERS

Content Marketing

Content Marketing covers all the activities and planning required to develop content that drives interactions between marketer and buyer. Various types of content need to be developed based on buyer persona and stage in the buyer’s journey. These could be in the form of short video clips, whitepapers, case studies and infographics, to name a few. The Position² DA framework incorporates a detailed template-driven process across four key stages—Audit, Creation, Curation, and Measurement.

Marketing Technology

Marketing Technology functions both independently, as a channel (e.g., Marketing Automation, Website and Email) as well as an enabler for Content Marketing and Paid Acquisition. Given the rapid pace of development, this is the area that draws a lot of attention and effort. In the DA framework, we clearly distinguish between technology as an enabler and technology as a channel by focusing on the core functionality of the process, rather than the process itself. This allows our framework to adapt and evolve with the latest technologies.

Paid Acquisition

While the other two enablers are primarily infrastructure-related, Paid Acquisition is more outward and tactical. It essentially operates as a feeder to the other two enablers. This is also the area which sees the most amount of optimization and scalability, and has the potential to help significantly scale up growth for our clients. Paid acquisition covers all the key channels—Search, Social, Display, as well as newer strategies such as content syndication and sponsorships.

Position²’s Demand Acceleration framework brings together a calibrated combination of Content Marketing, Marketing Technology, and Paid Acquisition services to produce the best results for our clients in today’s competitive digital marketing arena.

Contact us if you would like to learn more.

Mobile marketing has evolved to become an integral part of our digital lifestyle. Smartphones are now used by two-thirds of the US population, and they are increasingly being used for email and social media, photos, navigation, financial transactions, ordering meals, entertainment, and more.

Mobile’s growth over the past few years has been well documented, and it continues to cross major milestones that illustrate its immense popularity. In 2015, app usage surpassed desktop usage to account for half of all US digital media consumption. In March 2016, the number of mobile-only adult internet users exceeded the number of desktop-only internet users for the first time. This milestone shows just how far mobile has come in overtaking desktop’s longstanding dominance as the primary gateway to the internet.

Just a year ago, desktop-only internet users accounted for 19.1 percent of all users, while mobile-only users comprised 10.8 percent of the total. This year, the share of mobile-only users has climbed to 11.3 percent, while the desktop-only population has drastically declined to just 10.6 percent. Of course, these numbers also tell us that the vast majority of the digital population is multi-platform and goes online using desktop as well as mobile platforms. Even then, this mobile-only milestone is meaningful because it signifies how smartphones and tablets (particularly the former) are becoming—or rather, have already become—our primary access point to the internet.

There’s no doubt that desktop computers are highly practical and efficient when it comes to accomplishing complex and information-heavy tasks, which makes them crucial for workforce productivity. They still play an important role in our digital lives, and won’t be phased out anytime soon. Let’s not overlook the fact that consumers still prefer desktops when shopping online, with 87 percent of total digital commerce coming from the platform, despite mobile accounting for 60 percent of total time spent shopping online.

All signs indicate that the desktop computer is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and that mobile usage will continue to grow. With more mobile-only internet users than desktop-only users today, it’s safe to assume that digital marketing will continue to evolve towards a “mobile first” approach.

Position² attended this year’s HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, which was held in Las Vegas in early March. The conference attracts more than 40,000 people each year, with 1,300 vendors exhibiting. Through the course of the event, attendees have the chance to take in keynote speeches from thought leaders in healthcare IT, and take part in discussions, webinars and workshops to drive innovation in this space.

HIMMS is an important event, and it showcases myriad products and solutions in cutting edge healthcare markets. It also provides a snapshot of the market as it is today, and showcases new opportunities that IT providers can exploit. Our team came away with fresh insights into the opportunities this unique market presents, as well as a new understanding of the importance of our work in delivering engaging content to patients and businesses.

Key Takeaways from HIMMS 2016

At Position², we came away from the event with four valuable takeaways that describe the state of healthcare IT right now. Across all of the products that were exhibited, these principles stood out.

1. A Need for Efficiency

Users engaged with healthcare IT are increasingly looking for efficiency in the solutions they select. And it’s not just the healthcare providers that are seeking cost and resource savings. Increasingly, we’re seeing consumers looking for healthcare IT solutions, and they are also likely to be interested in cost-effective answers to their questions. We’re seeing both B2B and B2C products growing in parallel, which presents an interesting evolution of the market compared with traditional medical companies.

2. Patients Are the Focus

As the market has evolved, we’re seeing more service users engaging with the IT solutions that provide healthcare information. This is particularly prevalent in the US, where it’s the patient that engages directly with the care provider in many cases. Patients are the focus of the work we do at Position², and it’s important to maintain this focus.

3. Mobile is a Growth Area

Right now, figures suggest that 70 per cent of patients are using mobile devices to log on to service portals. This is an increase on last year, and it ties in with the opportunities of mobile retargeting, which can be used to reengage consumers on their journey. At HIMMS 2016, we saw a strong interest in video ads that are clear, digestible and engaging.

4. Position² is excited to be part of this industry

Position² had a prominent spot in one of the key vendor’s booth at HIMMS 2016, both on the posters and the video screens displayed to delegates. We continue to support and inspire healthcare companies in delivering effective solutions, contributing to their ongoing growth. As the market continues to boom, Position² will continue to deliver value to the most important people: a community of patients worldwide.

The Future of Healthcare IT

Again and again, IT proves itself as a transformational force. Healthcare is no different. As patients become more in tune with their own care, they will be more interested in using mobile technology to quickly access the services they need. Position² is at the forefront of this rapidly evolving market. Get in touch to find out more.