Buyers Not Researchers

The shopping season is here, it’s time to make sure that your targeting strategy is at the top of its game.  Avoid those researchers and make sure you get the attention of users ready to buy!

Know the Buying Cycle

In a nut shell, the buying cycle covers ‘browsers’, ‘researchers’ and ‘buyers’.  Your keywords and ads will be adopted to suit each stage of the buying cycle depending who you want to target.  Generic keywords are used by browsers and researchers, for example; ‘mobile phone’ would be a generic as the user has not decided on brand or specification yet.  Users at the buying stage will use long tail keywords, so for this industry ‘nokia 3210 on Vodafone’ would be an appropriate long tail keyword.  By utilising long tail keywords you are avoiding spend on generics that are unlikely to convert, this will allow you to aim spend towards traffic that is likely to buy once they reach your site.

Know Your Market

Knowing your customer is paramount.  If you are targeting the top end of the market, keywords and ads saying ‘cheap’ will only generate traffic that will not convert when they get to your site because the goods will be out of their price range.  For this reason, by qualifying your traffic in the ad text you are more likely to get traffic you want and save your budget for those that will buy from your site.

We also need to think where your customers are and when they will be shopping.  B2B and B2C buyers have very different purchasing patterns.  For instance, do not waste budget bidding in the evening for business customers as more than likely it will be a waste in spend.  Also, if you only operate in the London area, there would be no point targeting the whole of the UK.  Using the geographic targeting tool will save you money and concentrate your budget on the market you want to gain.

Hopefully these tips will help you achieve better return on investment over this festive buying season.  Remember to use all tools available to deliver ads to the ‘ready to buy’ traffic and home in on your target market at the right time.

Tanasé Rivers

PPC Account Manager

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