4 Tips Industrial Manufacturers Use for Better Online Advertising ROI

Many in manufacturing job shops and other industrial sectors mistakenly believe that Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaigns are only for selling consumer products and services. That is simply not true. PPC ads are particularly effective for manufacturing business-to-business (B2B) marketing for a few reasons. The first is that online demand for industrial and manufacturing goods and services is extremely high. The second is that the competition is smaller which means that the ads are much cheaper.

The engineers and industrial buyers searching for these goods and services (who are already prepared to buy and are looking for you specifically) are also more likely to actually make a purchase than a typical consumer would. Another great reason is that through PPC ads your website will land at the top of search results faster and with more reliability than simply relying on your SEO efforts. Basically PPC advertising feels like it was tailor made for industrial and manufacturing companies who want to get into the online advertising game with a much smaller budget than they would need utilizing other advertising efforts.

How can you make sure that your next PPC campaign gives you the best return for your investment? Here are the four fundamentals you need to focus on for a more effective campaign.

1.) Keywords

Keywords, or key phrases, are one of the most vital components of your entire PPC ad campaign. These “words” can be single words or multi-word search phrases that a potential customer may type into a browser to find your products or services. Choosing the right keywords that will target just the right audience (people interested in your products and services) is your goal. Start by writing down words and phrases that you think someone would use to find your product or service, next search Google a bit to see what comes up with those words or phrases you came up with, then use a keyword planner to help you refine your list.

2.) Relevancy

Your ad must be the absolute best response to the customer’s search query and it must be highly relevant. If yours is lacking in those two areas, the person will simply click elsewhere… and buy somewhere else as well. It is also very important that the content of the ad you place matches where the ad sends your potential customer. Essentially if your ad is about metal stamping then the associated page on your website that the interested person is sent to once they click your ad needs to be about metal stamping.

One of the best ways to ensure that your ad is relevant to the person searching is through the use of dynamic keyword insertion (or DKI). What does that mean? Basically, the DKI will insert the keyword a user searches for directly into the ad which makes your ad appear extremely relevant. This feature is available in both Google and Bing and both companies do a decent job of self-regulating the relevance of ads on their platform with a “quality score.” Every ad is ranked from 1 to 10 (10 being the very best) and the ad rank determines how much you will pay for every click on the ad and how high up in the search your ad will appear versus your competition. The relevance of your ad along with the associated link are major factors that determine your ad’s quality score.

3.) Start slow

As with any new ad campaign you want to start slow, refine the process, and then grow it. PPC ads can be costly with low return on your investment (ROI) if done incorrectly. Don’t toss everything in your budget into an untested campaign on an untested platform. All of the PPC ad platforms make it easy to grow your campaign way out of control, they make money from your ads and want you to pay as much as they can get you to pay – stay in control of your ads and your budget with these simple rules. Start with one channel (Google AdWords, Bing, Facbook, etc.), a conservative budget, a reasonable number of keywords/phrases, a few highly targeted well-written ads, and a reasonable expectation of the ROI.

Also be sure to give your ad enough time to actually work for you. It typically takes 30 days from the start of a campaign to accumulate enough data to give you any sort of picture of how your ad is doing. You should run a campaign for 3-4 months, making small adjustments as necessary once a month, before you determine whether or not the ad campaign was successful. Once you have the process down, you have given the ad the proper time to accumulate enough data to allow you to measure your campaign results, you find that it is giving you at least the ROI you expect, then it is time to expand to other platforms or bigger campaigns.

4.) Measure it

PPC ads are not “set it and forget it” type of campaigns. You have to keep a close eye on them. Thankfully, PPC ad campaigns make it simple for you to measure the results. You don’t have to wonder if someone saw your ad or what the results of them seeing your ad were – those days are long past. Now-a-days you can measure every single view, click, interaction, and purchase. Just make sure that prior to the launch of your PPC campaign that you have your measurement tools in place and ready to receive data. That data is invaluable and cannot be collected after the fact. You can use any tool that works for you, many of the platforms even have built in measurement tools (Google AdWords, Bing, Facebook, and more), and you might want to consider using more than one simultaneously so that you can better analyze your ad performance. These analytics will help you further refine your ad campaigns, help you know when it is time to expand to other platforms, and get even more bang for your advertising buck. Keep in mind that all analytics platforms do require a little bit of setup, usually a code that needs to be added to your website, in order to acquire the tracking data.

Keep in mind that these campaigns can be done on your own but to get the very best bang for your buck you may want to consider hiring a professional marketing company to run your campaigns for you. Teaming up with a company well versed in industrial marketing will help you formulate a plan, nail down the right budget, locate the correct placement for your ads, and (most importantly) monitor the campaigns on your behalf and make adjustment to make them perform even better for you.

Need assistance? Let us help!

With over 30 years of experience, The Rico Group specializes in helping ambitious industrial manufacturers and job shops eliminate the stress and confusion of finding consistent new business in the digital age by developing and executing ongoing processes that generate sales-ready leads to increase and diversify your customer base, set you apart from your competition, and achieve higher year over year growth.

We are all industrial, all the time! We know how engineers think and what they are looking for. We know your processes, equipment, and materials. We also know that you have very little time to take away from your production and getting your customer’s orders delivered.

Interested to see what your current digital marketing efforts are really doing for your company?

We offer a free comprehensive analysis of your company’s online marketing to give you insights into what your true digital footprint is and how you can improve it. The report also comes with an in-depth competitor analysis and a free expert consultation to review the report with you and answer any questions you may have.

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