Posted February 20, 2020
Author Vance Roush, Product Manager, AdaraGoogle Search Ads is by far the most important advertising channel for marketers. Winning the top links on the first search results page is mission critical to the growth of a business. But continued success requires specialized search expertise as the ad platform’s complexity continues to grow and search algorithm updates change the game ─ at the same time.
Did You Know?
- Google Search ads comprise a significant portion of overall digital marketing spend.
- Google continues to rank as the #1 search engine with over 90% of searches.
- The top three paid ads capture over 41% of the overall engagement on a Search Engines Results Page (SERP).
Google Ads Domination
If you search the phrase on Google, “optimization strategies for Google search,” you will find an overwhelming number of suggested strategies and tactics to improve your results, such as keyword targeting optimization, geolocation settings, dayparting customization, ad text advice, landing page relevance and more. These are important, but in this mature business, such strategies have become standard operating procedure in a highly competitive advertising environment. For industry verticals, such as travel and retail, paid search has gone even beyond the traditional ‘AdWords’ into Google-vertical products, such as Google Hotel Ads and Google Shopping Ads.
Travel: Unique Search Challenges
How does a local hotel property or hotel brand compete in an unbranded search term environment where there are three opportunities to bid on three different types of placements, just for a chance to be seen in the first 8-12 links on the results page?
A. Google Search Ads: The top of Google search results are dominated by only a few advertisers.
B. Google Promoted Ads: Underneath the ads you see Google’s metasearch ad placements.
C. Google Hotel Ads: Within Google Promoted Ads you can click a level deeper and place ads for specific properties.
To wedge themselves into these first 8-12 links means bidding directly against OTAs and metasearch companies that have 10x the amount of resources in search, in terms of staffing and budget.
So what can a property or brand do?
The Secret to Success: Audience Signals
Search marketers are hungry for differentiated and unique strategies that can provide incremental efficiency over time. Any unique competitive gains, even marginal ones, become very compelling due to the scale and importance of search to every marketer’s digital strategy.
A powerful and underutilized search strategy is the use of audience signals, commonly known as RSLA, Google Customer Match, and ‘Similar Audiences.’ Audience signals are user intent signals for a specific audience.
Why are audience signals underutilized?
- Search agencies often don’t have access, or full access, to a client’s CRM data to enable these strategies.
- There is hesitancy to pursue these strategies due to lack of understanding or insufficient tools to manage data rights in accordance with Google’s policies, GDPR, CCPA and a growing list of consent management requirements.
- There is a scarcity of differentiated data at scale outside of known customer lists, Google in-market intent audiences, and demographic data.
You may not find audience signal strategies advice on the most popular paid search blogs, but Google is already enabling them in Google Ads (if you are using Smart Bidding), because it is one of the best and most competitive differentiated ways to optimize your bids in search. All smart bidding strategies use audience signals to improve performance and increase quality conversions. How? In short, when you apply an audience to a campaign using automated bidding, you’re telling the bid strategy which people are most important to you. For example, if you are a hotel you could target “In-Market Travelers with a high propensity to spend over $500 a night” and tell the bid strategy to look out for these type of people and bid 50% higher on travelers with a high propensity to spend over $500 a night,
Get Ready Now!
As you can see, audience signals offer tremendous new strategic advantage for paid search marketers.
Learn how Adara Search Bid Optimizer works with audience signals to supercharge your paid search performance and bid optimization by applying intelligent and precise intent signals. If you are running out of options and ready to maximize one of your most important digital marketing investments, it’s time to explore audience signals and how to make the most of them.
Related Resources:
Adara Search Bid Optimizer (web page)
Google: Combining automated bid strategies with search audiences