By Samantha Brustin
Nearly all businesses have been impacted in some way by COVID-19, and the PPC world is no exception. Unless your business is lucky enough to be selling hand sanitizer, face masks, toilet paper, or even vodka, the impact on your PPC accounts is likely not positive.
What you shouldn’t do is freak out and pause all of your campaigns. In fact, now is an optimal time to invest more time in further optimizing your campaigns, given that the entire world is at home and browsing on the internet for things to entertain them, interact with, and view.
That said, let’s take a look at what you can do to stabilize your efforts, and ensure that you sustain your ROI from your digital marketing budget.
Capitalize On An Online Shopping Boom
For E-commerce business owners, there is good news amidst this stressful time. Governments and health agencies are encouraging the public to take extra precautions and even isolate themselves to prevent either spreading coronavirus or contracting it. However, they still need their everyday products and some way to fill their time at home – so online shopping it is! Any e-commerce Search campaigns are likely to see an increase in volume over the next few weeks, and even months.
If you run an e-commerce business, try opening up your audience to a less targeted approach, and include overseas regions. You can even go as far as implementing a foreign language converter plugin into your landing page or website to ensure you are properly communicating to your new global audience base of potential customers.
Adjust For Increases In Keyword Volume
Coronavirus terms are likely to be infiltrating your search queries. While your account may have nothing to do with coronavirus or any terms related to it, you should double and triple check your search queries for anything out of place.
Originally posted by Kamlyn Spivey on PPCHero
Block Related Terms
Advertisers must consider blocking terms like coronavirus and COVID-19 in their display campaigns. This is to avoid displaying their brands next to stories around that topic. Adding those terms as negative keywords will help restrict the ads from showing.
Rely On Content Marketing
Those millions of businesses that rely on personal demos, such as face-to-face presentations, and trade shows, are being put in a tough spot by the sudden move away from travel and personal interactions.
Content marketing can become an effective way for you to remain in touch with your customers. With the ever-changing digital landscape, communicating and engaging with your audience can remain undisrupted – as long as you have the proper content marketing strategies in place.
“Instead of having on-site events for your business, consider adapting digital events as a practice to allow you to become storytellers of your business in a whole new way. Customers and prospects seek out content that entertains, inspires, educates, and informs – a strong content strategy will give you the opportunity to leverage important elements from experiential marketing online.” Weblinx
Review Social Accounts
Now may be a good time to do a 360-degree look at your social media marketing strategy.
“How do you market and publicize in a post-coronavirus environment where every other story is about COVID-19? Brands can’t stay silent forever, so when is a good time to inject your brand into the conversation?
We need to take this time to understand the changing needs of consumers and their emotional state of mind, and we must take that into consideration when marketing to them. If people are afraid, now is not the time to pretend they aren’t. Your audience and consumers will remember how you handle your marketing during this time.
Consider creating a social media campaign that encourages people to stay home. Italy is leading the way with this with the creation of the #IStayHome social media marketing campaign, and brands could do this on a hyper-local level.” Kristen Ruby/Ruby Media Group
Spend More Time On Strategy
“A national health crisis and pandemic is not a marketing opportunity. If your brand is heavily impacted, spend more time on strategy and less time on using this as a quick-hit PR and marketing opportunity. The bottom line is to invest time and resources in high-level strategic PR and marketing activities, online and off.
In a social media-driven world that is dictated by a rush of on-demand marketing, this is a good wake-up call and reminder to business owners that strategy still matters.” Kristen Ruby/Ruby Media Group
Consider Other Advertising Platforms And Non-Search Campaigns
“For non-search campaigns, including display, social, and video, you should make sure your campaigns are focused on targeting low-funnel, in-market shoppers who have expressed recent interest in the products and services you are selling, either through remarketing or in-market audience segments. These users, although they have not actively searched on Google, are still low-funnel and valuable to serve ads to.” Adpearance
Don’t Forget To Update Your Google Listing!
If your business is affected, we recommend updating your business hours and description in your Google My Business profile. Aside from letting people know when they can or cannot stop by your business, you can also update your description to give more information regarding any additional precautions you are taking or if there are changes in service. These changes will update your business information on Google Search and Maps.
We also suggest updating your ad copy and extensions to reflect any changes.
While we do recommend maintaining ad spend and continuing your digital advertising campaigns at this time, it’s important to do a complete assessment of your marketing channels to ensure you’re spending on the appropriate campaigns and platforms. If you would like assistance or have further questions about advertising during the coronavirus outbreak, we can help… reach out directly at info@pollackgroup.com. We’re here for you during this time and will continue to partner to help your business succeed.
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