Three Great Campaign Ideas

Here's (kind of) a system for creating your first few campaigns

We've seen some relatively new search marketers struggle to come up with good ideas for campaigns to start or grow their account with. So, here's our ideas to help you create some campaigns that will perform well and teach you how to be successful in your campaign design. Without wasting a lot of time and click money.

We've got some good ideas for campaigns to consider. But please remember that the very best place to start (when searching for campaign ideas) is with a serious analysis of what your competitors and other “associated” businesses are doing right now with Google search marketing. 

The good thing about this is that you can go online and type in some search terms and see a lot of ideas for how to do business in your industry and markets. And don’t just do the searches. Click on the ads, go to the sites, sign up for their offers and newsletters. Take advantage of the fact that you can research a dozen businesses on the internet in one hour.

Focus on the customers who already love what you do

Everyone who markets or sells anything successfully over time gets very focused on the hard work that is required to get new business from new customers. And there is a lot of art, science, and hard work (and cost) to getting people who have never heard of your company to become customers.

Funny thing is, this can cause even the most successful marketers to forget that there are people out there who (for whatever reasons they have) really want something you are selling. And they don’t need to be sold – other than to say: We do that or we carry that; We can do it now; We can get that done for you reliably. That’s what this section is about.

Virtually every business should try some campaigns that go after the customers most ready to buy. Customers who know your name or products well.

Idea #1: Your Name – Your Brands – Your Specialty – Your “Special” Words

There are words in your business (or products or services or affiliations) that are special. Your company or suppliers probably paid a lot of money to make those words special. We recommend that you consider creating campaigns that feature your “special” words. Your company name, your website URL, your featured brands or specialties.

Please realize that even the most popular internet businesses with well-recognized names and very high SEO rankings still use PPC ads and PAY FOR CLICKS. They do it to make sure that the right ad appears at the top of the page. Even though their SEO page might be right below it. While this is not exactly the way you would or should use PPC, it does tell you that even companies with very high SEO rankings will pay to put their custom PPC ad at the top of the page. Whatever you think of your SEO strategy, we recommend you use PPC for your brand just like Nordstroms, Venus, and Zappos do.

• Use keywords that contain every variation possible for your name and your site and your “special” words. You’ll find out what combinations work and it may be hard to anticipate.
• If you think SEO covers this, you’re wrong. (see footnote #2) Good examples of this are: Zappos, Nordstrom, Progressive, Venus – They all use PPC for their name and many of their key brands/products. So should you.
• Remember that if a customer searches Google using some of your special words, they are looking for YOU. Write ads that act like you’ve won – you probably have.

Idea #2: Your competitors, sites, slogans, brands, and slang terms 

You never know what will work and you never know what will violate Google’s policy. This is simply extending the concept of your “special words” to include any and all alternative “special words” that your competitors or suppliers or aggregators use. Again, the goal is to have campaigns that appeal to the people most ready to buy and you don’t want to limit yourself to just your “special words”.

Many companies respond to this idea with “is that right – is that legal?” They usually stop asking that question when we point out that their competitors are already running PPC ads for their name. Check out your name and special words and see if anyone’s ads (other than YOURS) come up.

• “Jeans”, probably doesn’t help. “Dungarees”, might. Extend the special words concept to all the possibilities your customers might use in searches.
• Your loyal customers are into differentiation – it’s not just a “water bottle” to them either – it’s a “hydration flask”
• What you CAN’T say in your ad, you CAN say on your site. If you can use your campaign to get customers with buying intent, you can “close” on your site with

Idea #3: Problems and Emergencies

People tend to use the goods and services and providers that have worked for them in the past. Or they ask people in their lives that they trust to give good suggestions.

That is, until, they have a problem and/or emergency. Then they become a LOT more open to new solutions.

If there was only one opportunity to suggest where to look for the best PPC opportunities it would be in Problems and Emergencies. We honestly believe that this is the most “underfunded” area of Google search advertising and represents (for most companies) a terrific opportunity to make PPC profit and gain new customers they could never otherwise gain access to. (See footnote #1)

There are several reasons for this “opportunity”. Together they represent some incredibly valuable campaign opportunities you should try to take advantage of.

1. Customers type in their whole problem into the Google search. “Refrigerator ice maker leaking”. “Lower back spasms”. “Dragging muffler”. “Flashing spots in peripheral vision”. These aren’t generic search terms. And they are quite indicative of problems that can’t wait for a fix.
2. PPC provides an incredible opportunity to communicate with the customer. You have over 500 characters in several fields where you can make it clear that you understand the problem, you are able to solve that problem, and you are ready to get that done quickly and conveniently.
3. The very nature of P&Es makes the customer willing to engage your services more quickly. Acting like you’re in a hurry to do business is now a huge advantage.
4. People who do not have these P&Es won’t click on your ads. You can achieve conversion rates that are simply epic. 20% or more is possible.
5. You can create a special sales process for your P&E new customers so that they become lifetime customers. Greatly increasing the value of that conversion.