4 minute read

What is your primary marketing objective to help your business survive the economic disaster caused by COVID-19?

  1. Get leads and drive them to the end of your sales funnel
  2. Drive traffic to your website and reinforce your brand

In order to keep up with that pesky Amazon, Google recently made its advertising tool available by including unpaid, organic listings in the Shopping search results for FREE (yes, free – no BS, no Google Ads account or credit card needed).

Retailers can now benefit from the onslaught of consumers who use Google for their shopping needs on a daily basis. You can sleep well at night helping Google reach their estimated goal of $300 billion.

In case you are relearning your motor skills after spending so much time sitting on the couch during quarantine, in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, advertisers pay a fee whenever a user clicks on one of their ads. A variety of platforms including social media channels and search engines offer some form of PPC advertising.

There are several different types of PPC ads. When you see ads that appear in the results of search engines, you are witnessing paid search advertising in action. In this form of advertising, businesses bid on ads that appear as a sponsored link in the search results. These ads appear at the very top of search engine result pages in response to searches users conduct using keywords related to the advertiser’s product or service.

Social media ads are a bit different, but they have the same desired outcome of generating clicks and conversions. Instead of appearing in Google search results, social media ads populate in different areas of social media users’ screens.

Your knee jerk reaction to the coronavirus-fueled economic fallout may be to halt or drastically cut all expenditures, but paid ads are worth investing in right now no matter what your goal is.

Here is why:

1. PPC Ads Are Cheap Right Now

The ad networks use an auction system. Small businesses submit bids for ads on this system. Under normal circumstances, competition is high in most industries. This drives up the cost-per-click (CPC). As a result, large corporations must spend more money on PPC ads.

Competition for ad inventory has fallen drastically in recent weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak. This has driven the CPC down.

2. More People Are Online

Online traffic, especially anxiety shopping, has increased as a result of people spending most of their time at home and trying to stay away from their cranky home schooled offspring. Right now your audience is connecting on social media more than ever before.

Ads are getting more attention at a lower CPC. In addition, CPCs are dropping further than conversion rates in some cases.

In this way, paid ads are delivering a significantly higher return on investment (ROI) for some advertiser now.

3. Advertise With Caution

While the current ad landscape is ideal for some businesses, others will not profit from it. The outcome varies from brand to brand. You have two options if you are not getting sales from PPC ads.

  1. Instead of focusing on sales, focus on traffic
  2. Move more of your investment to organic SEO and away from PPC campaigns

If you go with option one, start boosting your blog articles, ebooks or webinars. This investment will help with branding, educating your audience and capturing leads that you can nurture later on when they have some cash in their pockets.

If you go with option two, start planning out your onpage SEO and content strategy. It will take time to gain momentum organically via your website but it is a great long-term investement to keep you ahead of the competition when the economy improves again.

A high-ranking website that receives a lot of the right targeted traffic earns the coveted placement on the first or second pages of search results. The majority of people never look beyond the second page, landing as close to the top as possible and within the first two pages is critical. In this sense, a first page organic placement rivals the value of good ROI on a PPC ad. The difference is when you stop paying for ads, the results stop immediately, where as, if you go the organic route it will just keep going up and up.

Do not dive in by spending all of your marketing dollars on paid ads. You should carefully consider your goals and weigh the benefits of paid ads versus organic SEO to see which method would be most beneficial to your business during the new social distancing era.

Our professional advice is you need to incorporate both paid and organic strategies into your life or your business won’t survive this! The key is analyzing the data carefully and striking the correct balance.

Do Not Leave Your Business Gasping For Air – Breathe Easy With The Right Strategies

If the decision between paid ads, organic SEO or a combination of both makes you feel like you have no room to breathe, considering the following will help:

  • Think about your advertising goals; PPC ads are better for some goals than organic SEO, and vice versa
  • Make an informed decision about using PPC ads; do not do it spontaneously
  • Remember that organic listings in Google Shopping search results are free right now

If your business goals and marketing budget align with PPC advertising, it’s an excellent time to invest right now. Organic SEO has impressive benefits, as well, particularly for landing on the coveted first page of search and long-term results.

Tag Marketing is happy to offer helpful information on investing in PPC ads and organic SEO so you can get the best bang for your buck. You can learn more by downloading our FREE coronavirus marketing tips ebook below.

Ensure your business will survive the Coronavirus outbreak and go on to thrive!

I survived COVID-19 but my business is dead, now what