Paid acquisition campaigns : how can you boost their performance by combining them with marketing automation ?

The deployment of acquisition strategies based solely on primary KPIs is self-evident for most advertisers. We will see that highly effective strategies can be deployed on the basis of so-called “secondary” performance indicators (newsletter subscription, resource download, webinar registration, etc.).

A well-designed lead nurturing strategy makes it possible to engage in conversation with internet users (prospects or customers) and move them forward through the conversion funnel. Objective : increase the performance of your Google advertising campaigns.

With this objective in mind, two types of typical scenarios can be defined depending on whether they concern customers or prospects. Of course, approaches can also be nuanced depending on whether you are targeting the B2B or B2C market. But the first step is to identify, or even create, these new indicators.

Identify the best “secondary” objectives

2 main elements must be taken into account in order to maximize the chances of success of such a strategy:

• The potential of KPIs in terms of volume : there is no point in trying to leverage
  indicators with search and impression volumes that are too low. This is even more true
  if it requires creating the indicator.
• The relevance of KPIs with regard to the advertiser’s objective : there is no point in wasting
  time and money on indicators that would not be qualitative enough.

Once these indicators have been identified and created, the next step is to implement a robust and reliable tagging plan. The best solution in this area remains Google Tag Manager, which can be deployed across all the main advertising platforms: Adwords, Facebook, Bing, etc.

Finally, and contrary to “primary” performance indicators, these new indicators can be analyzed by direct reading or in a “native” way.

Upsell or cross-selling scenarios

In almost 100% of cases, paid Google Ads acquisition campaigns target so-called primary objectives or KPIs (key performance indicators), that is to say priority business objectives : purchase on an e-commerce site or generation of sales leads on a service-oriented site (request for a quote or request for sales contact).

Many paid clicks naturally do not result in the desired primary conversion. It is the whole job of an experienced SEA agency to optimize the conversion rate, with the goal that as many paid clicks as possible are converted into purchases or business inquiries.

However, the work of optimizing acquisition performance does not stop there. This effort can be extended thanks to the implementation of a relevant marketing automation strategy that helps build customer loyalty and turn them into loyal, repeat customers.

Let’s take an example in B2C. For a travel e-commerce site, this may, for example, involve creating an email sequence based on the products purchased by the customer, and on the lifespan of a product.

For example, it may be relevant to offer a series of tourist destinations on the eve of the anniversary date of the previous year’s purchase or around the time of the children’s school holidays if this data has been provided.

The complementarity of offers is obviously an interesting business opportunity. In service businesses, it may be wise to offer insurance against the risk of unpaid invoices to a company that has already taken out insurance for its offices or liability insurance, for example.

Nurturing scenarios

Likewise, nurturing so-called secondary conversions can prove extremely beneficial for increasing the performance of your Google Adwords campaigns.

Leads such as newsletter subscriptions and resource downloads on your site, following a paid click, should receive all your attention. This is a business opportunity that will require little effort from you – internet users already know you and have shown, even indirectly, an interest in your brand.

Marketing automation tools allow you to fully automate the conversation with them, which can, in the best-case scenario, turn them into customers.

One example is worth a thousand words ! As part of a B2B acquisition strategy for a company supported by the agency Adwords Ekko Media, deploying a well-designed marketing automation strategy makes it possible to support the visitor’s maturation by offering them appropriate content.

Thus, an internet user who has expressed simple interest through an initial newsletter subscription will be integrated into a conversion funnel enhanced with targeted content and calls to action (document downloads, visits to certain pages, clicks on certain links, watching a video, participation in a webinar).

These actions throughout the journey are tracked and make it possible to identify the visitor’s level of maturity, move them forward or support them through the purchase journey or Buyer Journey (awareness, consideration, decision) up to the purchase or sales contact.

A long-term but foolproof technique for increasing the conversion rate and the performance of your Google Search and Google Display campaigns.  Note that, as part of your paid search campaigns, pursuing secondary objectives also helps increase the audience pool and optimize bidding. On this subject, see the article Conversion rate and visibility: how can secondary performance indicators be used to boost them?

As you will have understood, the synergies between marketing automation and Google Ads campaigns are strong when it comes to the performance of your advertising investments. This is naturally also true for your other acquisition channels, Social Ads or organic search.