The boot camp
Early this week two Founders headed to Amsterdam to give the attendees of the a4uexpo Europe a work out – a Performance Search Boot Camp to be exact. Dressed in the latest army fatigue, Sergeant Major (Pete) Newman and Tank Commander (Jamie) Brady presented the rules of an engagement to an international crowd of industry experts.
A4uexpo described our conference perfectly, “This session isn’t for the faint hearted. It’s Performance Search shock treatment; a jam-packed session that will exhilarate and ensure your notebook feels the burn.”
Even with such an intense description, the room filled up. Some brave souls were even standing at the back of the room. The main goal of the Boot Camp was to highlight areas where advertisers needed to do better and to draw people’s attention to the fact that Performance PPC is reliant upon absolutely nailing the essentials first and foremost.
To be effective, Performance Search needs to be done well. As a company that started life as Paid Search Performance Specialists, no one understands that better than us.
Pete and Jamie gave multiple examples of brands who fail to tailor ads to search queries and others who have poor ad text. There are also the companies who don’t target keywords correctly, and perhaps the worst offense of all, the brands who don’t appear for their own brand terms.
Are you appearing on your brand terms?
Did you know that 75% of merchants have PPC brand competitors? Getting your brand coverage in shape can:
- Give you greater dominance of inventory space
- Help to facilitate quality score across your account
- Enable (instant) controlled messaging & offers
- Help to push the competition out of easy-win territory
Don’t forget to ask…
Are you negative matching effectively?
Are you appearing on Bing?
Are you using Sitelinks?
Is your site optimised for Mobile?
It is easy to assume that at an industry conference the majority of merchants would be able to compete with Usain Bolt. Pulling from a cross-section of 25 merchants from the attendee list, Pete and Jamie discovered that the level of fitness was permissible, but not worthy of any Olympic medals.
So how can you improve your fitness?
High impact training will give you the strength and stamina needed. One of the most effective ways of getting in shape is having the right coach. That is because 95% of Performance Marketing is in nailing the essentials.
It was important to convey that taking risks and trying new things is great, even encouraged. However, you must do this correctly and not to the detriment of your core activity. You also need to stay on top of new developments like Paid Product Listing Ads and Enhanced Campaigns.
Due to the nature of the industry, building up a brand’s Search strength and stamina, requires experience and expertise. View the slides to find out more or get in touch at bootcamp@found.co.uk.
