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You have probably heard at least once about the sales funnel, a.k.a the marketing funnel, the purchase funnel, or the conversion funnel. This famous “funnel” is a multilevel journey that people take before purchasing a product or deciding for a service. Keep in mind that no matter what your goal is, what you do, or what you want to achieve, you always need to offer a solution for the potential customer, that will encourage them to move throughout your sales funnel.
Funnels are wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, and often used to guide liquid or powder into a small opening. This analogy works perfectly in the digital advertising world since there are a lot of users on the web that can visit your website. However, just a few will actually perform your desired action and become your customers.
The deeper in the funnel your brand meets the potential customer, the more interested they will be in your offerings. The multiple levels in the funnel will allow you to focus your efforts on the people that matter the most.
The tricky part here is that you can do about anything with a little of creativity and Google Ads campaign types. However, you shouldn’t forget your advertising goals and budget. A marketing objective will allow you to take advantage of the features within campaigns, designed to smoothly achieve your goal. This is highly important because determining a campaign type is choosing where your potential customers will be able to see your ads and the content of it.
Building Awareness
Let’s begin the journey at the top of the funnel (TOFU) where your main goal is to build awareness. This is equal to being in the spotlight; you want people to see and know your ads, brand, and offerings. An effective way to reach this goal is by implementing a YouTube Campaign. The easiness to reach a broader audience mixed with the video consumption trends will magnify the impact of your marketing strategy. Even though attention spans are shrinking, last month Google reported that people watch over a billion hours of video on YouTube every day. Moreover, another report early this year showed 81% of video viewing sessions still captures people’s attention. We suggest you place your ads aided by demographic segmentation or by affinity audiences.
Fostering Interest
In this phase, people are widely searching for terms that might relate to your brand and offerings. Prospects in this stage are probably using wide/generic search terms with no real commitment or intention to purchase something as specific as you are selling. For instance, you own a flower shop, but in this stage, people are searching for terms such as “mother’s day gift suggestion”. They are not really looking to buy flowers, yet seeing an ad suggesting “Best Mother’s Day Deals | Order Yours Now | Combine Flowers, Fruits, & More” might just be enough to make someone interest enough to click your ad and find out more. Search Campaigns with generic keywords are a great way to reach potential customers and capture their interest.
Building a remarketing campaign here would be a great idea. As it is possible for someone to convert with that ad, they can also decide to keep searching for other options. Remarketing with offers and even branded ads can help you close the deal, or at least keep your brand in the consideration set. Remember, the deeper in the funnel you met a customer, the more likely they are to convert.
Talking About Consideration…
Be your own example, if you are searching for a specific product, how many options do you evaluate before you actually decide to make a purchase? This answer varies per industry, per product, per person, and even per country, however, the average consideration set is of three brands per decision. When someone is looking for a specific product they are not really interested in the benefits of the product, but on the benefits of the brand in question. Are you a retailer with free shipping? Do you offer guarantees? Do you have special payment plans? Make sure to leverage that on your ads!
People love to buy from brands that offer an incredible experience. Make your potential customer’s shopping experience easier, not complicated. Be there while they are searching for your products with the keyword they are using, not with keywords you want to be found with. If your brand appears as potential customers’ search, there’s a strong likelihood they’ll remember you. Influence consideration and drive engagement with your search ads.
Transform Intent
Your competitors are probably also going through the trouble of mastering the sales funnel to drive conversions, as people with intent are people more likely than not to actually make a purchase. A strong suggestion is to evaluate your bidding strategies. Target outranking share is a portfolio bid strategy that lets Google automatically raise or lower your bids to help your ads outrank ads from another domain. This is not magic and your quality score will influence the effectiveness of the strategy. Aid this strategy by using the auction insight report. You can also implement tips, such as using ad extensions, using clear and actionable ad copies, and of course, following Google’s suggestions. You might want to learn more about outranking in this short video.
Lights, Camara, Action!
You made it! The end of the funnel is the section where “magic occurs”. Your potential customer is about to take your desired action website. But wait a second… what if he or she leaves? Remember that tip on remarketing we talked earlier? Bring it back! Remarketing is crucial for this last stage of the funnel. Show discounts, show your brand name everywhere you can, and bid higher for this stage in the shopping experience. Most brands that use remarketing campaigns see a direct impact on conversion rate. According to Google, 20% of users are more likely to convert if they already are familiar with your site, products, or brand.
One Last Thing Before We Go
Mobile phones empower people on idle moments, meaning the path is no longer linear. In the era of the “right here” and “right now” people are narrowing and broadening their consideration set in just about any moment and expressing intent in every search is reshaping the traditional funnel. A prospect entering at any stage of the funnel is crucial. Thus, we strongly advise you to be present in every stage of the funnel. Be ready to provide useful and relevant information. Invest in machine learning technology and take advantage of the mobile experience.
