1253: PPC for SaaS Companies: Everything You Need to Know (Part 1 of 3) w/ Dylan Hey

WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.639 --> 00:00:08.029 All right, everyone, welcome back to be to be growth. My name 2 00:00:08.070 --> 00:00:12.750 is Timothy Bauer and I'm on the editorial team at sweetfish. I'm joined today 3 00:00:12.750 --> 00:00:16.309 by Dylan Hey, the CEO of Ay digital and one of our B tob 4 00:00:16.429 --> 00:00:20.989 growth contributors. Today we'll be talking about what SASS companies need to know about 5 00:00:21.109 --> 00:00:25.140 PPC. Dylan, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you so much 6 00:00:25.140 --> 00:00:29.019 for having me. I'm really excited to jump into this episode and share as 7 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:32.420 much value as I can with everybody listening. Me Too, I am so 8 00:00:32.539 --> 00:00:36.210 excited to get into this. So, Dylan, can you give our listeners 9 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:39.890 a little bit of context? What problems were you trying to solve when you 10 00:00:40.049 --> 00:00:43.289 first got into PPC? Sure, yeah, that's really good question. So 11 00:00:43.409 --> 00:00:48.329 to give some context to everybody listening, at Hey digital we manage PPC paid 12 00:00:48.329 --> 00:00:53.840 advertising campaign specifically for SASS AND BE TOB businesses. And previous to setting up 13 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:56.719 this agency about a year and a half ago, I've worked for a couple 14 00:00:56.719 --> 00:01:00.039 of other SASS companies. So I worked at a company called lead feeder, 15 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:03.040 which was a sales intelligence or is the sales intelligence platform, and whilst I 16 00:01:03.079 --> 00:01:08.230 was there we we grew pretty aggressively. I joined maybe number twelve or thirteen 17 00:01:08.269 --> 00:01:11.670 and within twelve months we're up to like fifty sixty employees around the world and 18 00:01:11.989 --> 00:01:15.510 twelve different time zones or something like that. I'm previously then I was working 19 00:01:15.549 --> 00:01:19.780 at hoot sweet, like a larger SASS business that have been through this explosive 20 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:25.099 early stage growth and was now positioning more is that enterprise focus company. And 21 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:29.459 through both of those times we were seeing obviously very different challenges, from a 22 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:33.650 fast growing tech start up to a previous that whos we are tech company that 23 00:01:33.689 --> 00:01:36.969 had already been through that huge growth. But when I was at lead feeder, 24 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:41.930 like we were very heavily reliant on inbounds marketing, our content marketing efforts 25 00:01:42.010 --> 00:01:46.650 to drive new leads and new awareness around the business and the brand. And 26 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:49.159 over time, of course, of course, we were introducing PPC into that, 27 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:53.719 into that mix. And now working with the variety of different STASS companies, 28 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.159 we see that the problem that we try and solve is, okay, 29 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:59.480 if your SASS business or be to be company, is it a point where 30 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:04.709 you're consistently bringing in new whether it's trial sign ups, Demos, booked calls 31 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.550 with your sales team whatever it might be. Often that starts from content and 32 00:02:07.710 --> 00:02:13.389 from SEO focused activities, and once that's working, this can take a long 33 00:02:13.430 --> 00:02:15.740 time to scale up. So what other channels can you bring into the mix 34 00:02:15.860 --> 00:02:21.259 to help you drive new user acquisition and form for companies within the space? 35 00:02:21.340 --> 00:02:24.460 PPC has a very, very good channel to go to because it's very easily 36 00:02:24.500 --> 00:02:30.250 measurable and trackable and can really provide to investors or senior management as well, 37 00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:35.689 like a very easy to follow mix of being able to track everything from intro 38 00:02:35.849 --> 00:02:39.129 point to sign up and continuing on throughout that process. Awesome, and you 39 00:02:39.289 --> 00:02:44.050 made a great point about how important it is for these companies to be able 40 00:02:44.050 --> 00:02:46.439 to scale up. I like how you talked about the need for a good 41 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:52.879 content but it takes time, obviously, for that content to be generating leads, 42 00:02:52.919 --> 00:02:54.919 and so PPC is a great way to skill that. But for we 43 00:02:55.039 --> 00:02:59.590 dive fully in. For the folks listening that aren't familiar with the acronym, 44 00:02:59.629 --> 00:03:04.229 Dylan, tell us what PPC is. Yeah, so PPC just stands for 45 00:03:04.310 --> 00:03:08.150 paper click. So if you think about Google ads, when people say PPC, 46 00:03:08.310 --> 00:03:13.939 often people think straight to google and the Google Platform because you've always paid 47 00:03:14.099 --> 00:03:16.460 on a paper click method, right, so you're paying for the clicks that 48 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:21.419 you're driving through the way that we see PPC now, I I kind of 49 00:03:21.460 --> 00:03:24.340 encompass all of the advertising efforts that we do under the umbrella of PPC, 50 00:03:24.500 --> 00:03:29.370 although technically not everything is PPC. Like it depends on how you have your 51 00:03:29.409 --> 00:03:31.569 campaign set up. So if you're going like old school, people will say, 52 00:03:31.569 --> 00:03:35.810 okay, PPC is just Google, and then if you're looking at social 53 00:03:35.849 --> 00:03:38.610 platforms, facebook, instagram, Linkedin, etc. People would call those paid 54 00:03:38.689 --> 00:03:43.479 social. But when I say PPC I'm kind of grouping all of those together, 55 00:03:43.599 --> 00:03:46.960 because this is something that we'll talk about either further on in this episode 56 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:50.080 or if we if we do another one, about how, when you're doing 57 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:53.639 advertising, that you have to really think about this from the all the way 58 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:57.710 around your funnel and all the way around your marketing activities. You can't just 59 00:03:57.789 --> 00:04:00.789 focus on one platform. You have to think about how all the different platforms 60 00:04:00.789 --> 00:04:03.189 aiding in the experience for someone when you're trying to get them to sign up. 61 00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:05.789 or I'll get on a call with your sales team, for example. 62 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:10.340 That's great. So when most people think about ppc they just think of Google, 63 00:04:10.419 --> 00:04:15.580 but you're saying that in today's world it's a much broader definition than then 64 00:04:15.780 --> 00:04:18.379 just google. All right. So, Dylan, what are the biggest benefits 65 00:04:18.459 --> 00:04:24.019 of PPC FOR SAS companies? Yeah, really good question. So of this 66 00:04:24.259 --> 00:04:28.529 depends at what stage your Sass business is apt if someone listening to this is 67 00:04:28.610 --> 00:04:32.050 a very early stage SASS company, maybe your bootstrapped up until this point or 68 00:04:32.129 --> 00:04:36.089 maybe you've just raised your seed round of funding, PPC can be a really 69 00:04:36.129 --> 00:04:41.439 good channel to test and expand into potential for new markets. So, for 70 00:04:41.560 --> 00:04:44.800 example, we have a couple of companies that we work with who are pretty 71 00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:48.480 new on the scene and there whilst they're building out their content marketing efforts, 72 00:04:48.920 --> 00:04:53.430 those can take let's say six, twelve, eighteen months to come to fruition 73 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:56.750 in terms of driving lots of website visits and stuff like that, and PPC 74 00:04:56.949 --> 00:05:00.750 for companies like that can be a really good opportunity to be very specific about 75 00:05:00.230 --> 00:05:03.470 who you're, who you're putting yourself, your brand, your business in front 76 00:05:03.470 --> 00:05:08.019 of, being very targeted with that, and that therefore helps you to test 77 00:05:08.100 --> 00:05:12.339 new markets and to expand very quickly, test messaging, etc. And so 78 00:05:12.540 --> 00:05:15.060 for early stage like bootstrap businesses. I would say that would be the kind 79 00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:18.740 of main value prop however, at the same time I always recommend that if 80 00:05:18.779 --> 00:05:24.410 you are very early stage, I don't think PPC should be your first channel 81 00:05:24.449 --> 00:05:28.490 that you really dive deeply into. My recommendation is to make sure, especially 82 00:05:28.529 --> 00:05:31.649 for SASS companies and be to be companies where recommendation is to really focus on 83 00:05:31.810 --> 00:05:35.360 content and brand first. And the reason I say that is because when you 84 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:39.680 have a brand that resonates with people, when you have content that resonates with 85 00:05:39.720 --> 00:05:44.279 people, it makes the job of your advertising much easier. So a great 86 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:47.240 example of this is is drift, the company that many of us in this 87 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.589 world like, no and love. I was talking with Billy, or bill 88 00:05:50.670 --> 00:05:54.910 king, WHO's there, they're paid acquisition and SEO manager, a couple days 89 00:05:54.910 --> 00:05:58.670 ago on my podcast and he was telling me that his job is so much 90 00:05:58.670 --> 00:06:00.589 easier drift than anywhere else because of the brand recognition that they have. So 91 00:06:00.709 --> 00:06:03.110 their conversion rates are better in their ads. They end up paying a little 92 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:05.860 bit less as well, and so my focus for early stage companies is to 93 00:06:05.939 --> 00:06:12.100 always focus on content first, because that's also a more sustainable channel long the 94 00:06:12.139 --> 00:06:15.300 term, without having to constantly put money into it. But when we start 95 00:06:15.300 --> 00:06:18.529 talking about mid to kind of late stage as companies, once you've got your 96 00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:23.769 content marketing funnel in place, let's say you're driving tens or hundreds of thousands 97 00:06:23.769 --> 00:06:27.970 of website visits every single month and now you want to find other scalable channels, 98 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:31.529 other scalable acquisition channels. This is often really important to investors and to 99 00:06:31.810 --> 00:06:36.040 senior leadership teams. PPC is a really good channel to go into because, 100 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:40.319 again, similar to the early stage businesses, you can be very specific and 101 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:44.040 targeted with who you're putting your ads in front of, so you can track 102 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:46.149 everything throughout the funnel as well, which which helps. But it can be 103 00:06:46.189 --> 00:06:51.509 a great just a top up channel alongside those other content efforts that you're doing 104 00:06:51.790 --> 00:06:56.189 and like your sales team and whatever else it might be. And then the 105 00:06:56.310 --> 00:06:59.029 third, the third thing to add into that is, I know I said 106 00:06:59.029 --> 00:07:02.060 I wouldn't approach PPC as being like your main channel from the very beginning, 107 00:07:02.379 --> 00:07:06.339 but I do think a quick tip for anyone listening to this is that you 108 00:07:06.379 --> 00:07:10.500 should always, at the very minimum, no matter what stage you are at, 109 00:07:11.019 --> 00:07:14.500 make sure you have your remarketing ads set up because those can be very 110 00:07:14.579 --> 00:07:17.810 cost effective. Like they cost next to nothing and it's very high converting so 111 00:07:18.209 --> 00:07:23.970 within a betb sales cycle or Sass sales cycle, everyone listening to this will 112 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:27.689 know that you need to be in front of your target by like eight to 113 00:07:27.889 --> 00:07:30.480 Sixteen Times, I think the statistic is, before they're ready to make a 114 00:07:30.519 --> 00:07:34.000 purchasing decision. And if you leverage adds on remarketing, ADDS on Facebook, 115 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:38.800 on Instagram, on Youtube, these are just more ways that you can show 116 00:07:38.839 --> 00:07:42.319 a relevant message to those people and make sure they remember you and your brand 117 00:07:42.439 --> 00:07:45.550 for a very low cost, and often these are the campaigns where you'll see 118 00:07:45.589 --> 00:07:48.470 the highest return on investment to so you can do that on facebook, instagram, 119 00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:53.709 linkedin like Google search, you can set up remarketing campaigns Google display, 120 00:07:53.750 --> 00:07:57.269 you can have remarked in campaigns, Youtube, etc. And often you don't 121 00:07:57.310 --> 00:08:00.740 need high budgets for those because the audience size is a pretty small so that 122 00:08:00.819 --> 00:08:03.300 would be kind of answering that question of like, okay, wires, PPC 123 00:08:03.459 --> 00:08:07.500 good for SASS and be to be companies. Those are just a few top 124 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:09.620 level reasons why, and just a quick tip for everyone listening to to make 125 00:08:09.660 --> 00:08:13.410 sure you have those remarksing ad set up, no matter what stage. RAPP 126 00:08:13.850 --> 00:08:16.290 that's awesome, Dylan. Wow, you've really given us like a full spectrum 127 00:08:16.610 --> 00:08:22.850 explanation of the benefits. For Marketing leaders that don't have a background in PPC, 128 00:08:22.290 --> 00:08:26.160 what question should they be asking as they start to build their PPC strategy? 129 00:08:26.199 --> 00:08:31.040 HMM, that's a really great question. So there's a couple different ways 130 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:33.240 to look at this. I guess it depends whether, when you're building that 131 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.519 strategy, whether you're hiring someone to help you execute on that or whether you're 132 00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:41.120 trying to do it for yourself. If you're looking at other agencies, contractors, 133 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:43.549 freelancers, whatever it might be, or even employees that you're looking to 134 00:08:43.590 --> 00:08:48.070 bring into the team, I would always be asking questions around what you're what 135 00:08:48.190 --> 00:08:52.669 the purposes of these ads like. If you're talking to an agency or an 136 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:56.860 employee potentially, and the number one thing they default to and talk about is 137 00:08:56.019 --> 00:09:01.220 click through rates, impressions conversions like that's it's not the worst thing in the 138 00:09:01.259 --> 00:09:05.659 world, but a better signed as someone that's really focused on red the business 139 00:09:05.820 --> 00:09:11.330 or really focused on important conversion. So with SASS companies that we work with, 140 00:09:11.850 --> 00:09:15.009 usually there's only two or three metrics that we're really focus on and driven 141 00:09:15.049 --> 00:09:18.009 towards, and that is how many people have confirmed booked a call with somebody 142 00:09:18.049 --> 00:09:22.330 on the sales team, how many people have confirmed signed up to their fourteen 143 00:09:22.370 --> 00:09:28.039 day free trial and how many of those sales calls have turned into revenue at 144 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:31.720 some point for the business. So when you're thinking about planning out your strategy, 145 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.840 you always want to look to that, like what are you actually what's 146 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:37.440 the purpose of the ads that you're running? What are you optimizing for? 147 00:09:37.960 --> 00:09:39.909 Don't just take the easy way out and start trying to optimize all of your 148 00:09:39.990 --> 00:09:43.870 campaigns for awareness or driving traffic, unless that's what you want to do. 149 00:09:45.029 --> 00:09:48.070 But we're very conversion focus with the way that we do things, because that's 150 00:09:48.070 --> 00:09:52.429 how is assass marketer, founder, senior executive. That's how you're going to 151 00:09:52.429 --> 00:09:54.460 see the best results to report back to the to the wider business. And 152 00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:58.820 then I would also just think about the different funnel stages. So we might 153 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:03.779 talk about this either later on today or in another episode, but when you're 154 00:10:03.019 --> 00:10:09.289 building out PPC campaigns or any paid advertising campaigns, typically a mistake that we 155 00:10:09.330 --> 00:10:13.289 see a lot of the time is companies not segmenting their campaign. So what 156 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:16.529 they were usually have, if then new to this, is they'll have what's 157 00:10:16.570 --> 00:10:20.529 called a branded campaign set up. So that will be making sure that anyone 158 00:10:20.649 --> 00:10:24.000 searching for your company name sees your ad specifically and making sure that your competitors 159 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:28.200 aren't like hijacking your traffic. And then the second campaign we see is people 160 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:33.879 having then unbranded search terms set up, so anything unrelated to the branded name. 161 00:10:33.159 --> 00:10:35.590 Now this is okay, but best practice would be to make sure that 162 00:10:35.750 --> 00:10:41.950 your campaigns are actually segmented by funnel stage. So, for example, you 163 00:10:41.070 --> 00:10:46.830 want to have a different campaign for your bottom of funnel buying intent like buying 164 00:10:46.990 --> 00:10:50.259 ready keywords. That wants to be in a different campaign to your top of 165 00:10:50.340 --> 00:10:54.340 funnel keywords, and the reason being is that you want to let Google or 166 00:10:54.340 --> 00:10:58.419 whichever platform you're running your ads on. You want them to be optimizing towards 167 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.659 the right kind of people and the right kind of data and driving traffic through 168 00:11:01.700 --> 00:11:05.570 the keywords that are that are working in the best way. And if I'm 169 00:11:05.570 --> 00:11:09.769 running a campaign with lots of top of funnel keywords and lots of bottom of 170 00:11:09.769 --> 00:11:11.730 funnel keywords and the same campaign, everything can get a little bit confused. 171 00:11:13.330 --> 00:11:15.690 So I would make sure you separate this out, and that's why I would 172 00:11:15.690 --> 00:11:18.679 think about when you're building out your strategy. Is Okay, what funnel stage 173 00:11:18.799 --> 00:11:20.720 we targeting people are, and how does the content that we're showing them in 174 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:26.200 the ADS reflect that? And what's this person's experience like? Because it's great 175 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:28.799 anyone can pay money and drive traffic to a web page, but if the 176 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:33.590 web page experience isn't smooth and isn't set up well to aid that conversion, 177 00:11:33.070 --> 00:11:37.509 like you want to fix that before you start spending money on PPC. Or 178 00:11:37.549 --> 00:11:41.710 if someone searches for, let's say, I don't know, podcast recording software, 179 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:45.629 but then the ad copy that you show them is actually related to podcast 180 00:11:45.710 --> 00:11:48.980 editing software, for example, like that's not a smooth experience to someone. 181 00:11:50.019 --> 00:11:52.899 You want to make sure that when you are building out that strategy, every 182 00:11:52.980 --> 00:11:58.580 step throughout the process, from someone making the initial search to hopefully signing up 183 00:11:58.580 --> 00:12:00.539 for your products, will getting on a cool with your team. 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To get for free lessons 200 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:30.750 from the pros. All right, let's get back to the show now. 201 00:13:30.789 --> 00:13:33.950 I am excited to continue to talk strategy, what metrics to be focused on, 202 00:13:35.429 --> 00:13:39.190 being funnel minded in your keywords. But before we do a deeper dive 203 00:13:39.269 --> 00:13:43.059 into all that, let's cover a few basic terms for anyone who's less initiated. 204 00:13:43.299 --> 00:13:46.220 So in PPC there are things called ad networks. Tell us about the 205 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:52.100 popular ad networks and what are some of the differences between them? Yeah, 206 00:13:52.259 --> 00:13:56.210 for sure. so that's kind of touching on what I talked about a little 207 00:13:56.250 --> 00:13:58.649 bit earlier on. When we say that. Okay, traditionally PPC being this 208 00:13:58.850 --> 00:14:05.250 definition of paper click. So that encompasses different ad networks or platforms, however 209 00:14:05.289 --> 00:14:07.730 you want to call them. So, for example, that would be google 210 00:14:07.809 --> 00:14:11.360 will be an ad network, but within Google we have google search, we 211 00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:16.320 have Google display and we have like youtube, for example. Another ad network, 212 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.000 if you want to call it that with them be facebook, and of 213 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:22.559 course there's different placements within facebook. So are you's sharing your ads on the 214 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:26.750 news feed, in stories, in the marketplace, etc. And then we 215 00:14:26.830 --> 00:14:30.549 have things specifically for SASS and BEATSB. I'm thinking the other popular ones are 216 00:14:30.669 --> 00:14:35.269 Linkedin Linkedin is has always had an advertising product. It has never been the 217 00:14:35.590 --> 00:14:39.460 the best. It's definitely getting better since they had the acquisition by by Microsoft 218 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:43.940 The while ago. There investing a lot more into their ads networks and it's 219 00:14:43.940 --> 00:14:46.500 definitely improving. So if you are and B to be yours ass I would 220 00:14:46.779 --> 00:14:48.940 start to explore linkedin a little bit more. But we find that that's still 221 00:14:50.299 --> 00:14:54.809 often more expensive than let's say, Google or facebook on Instagram, paid social. 222 00:14:54.210 --> 00:14:58.610 And another care ones to mention from most people listening to this is probably 223 00:14:58.649 --> 00:15:01.169 going to be cap terror. So one of the review platforms, caped terror 224 00:15:01.210 --> 00:15:07.639 advertising can actually be very cost effective and very well converting. So the reason 225 00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:13.720 being is that on the cap terror network your advertising to people who are actively 226 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:16.399 searching for software reviews. That's what their platform is all about. So if 227 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:20.559 they see an add from you on a review platform and they click through, 228 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:24.629 there's a high, much higher probability that they are probably going to convert into 229 00:15:24.110 --> 00:15:28.710 assign up or sales call. There's also gtwo crowd. That one is a 230 00:15:28.750 --> 00:15:31.870 little bit less kind of self service. There's annual contracts that you go through 231 00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:35.139 a due to crowd to advertise on there and to be honest, for like 232 00:15:35.299 --> 00:15:39.580 what we look after for most of our customers. Those are the channels where 233 00:15:39.980 --> 00:15:43.460 we see the main success for most SASS COMPANIES AND BE TOB tech companies, 234 00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:48.379 for sure awesome. So now let's talk quality score. What is quality score? 235 00:15:48.539 --> 00:15:52.929 How do SAS companies win when it as a relate to quality score? 236 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:56.610 Yeah, really good question. So this is quality score is one of those 237 00:15:56.649 --> 00:16:00.850 metrics within a Google adds account, within a Google search account. Technically you 238 00:16:00.929 --> 00:16:03.360 now see quality scores in facebook as accounts as well, but for the purpose 239 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:08.000 of this will focus on Google. And quality score is Google's way of essentially 240 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:11.879 telling you whether you're doing what they want you to do right and they want 241 00:16:11.879 --> 00:16:15.720 your quality scores to be as high as possible. You want your quality scores 242 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:18.389 to be as high as possible because the more quality that Google season your ad, 243 00:16:18.549 --> 00:16:21.590 the more they're going to serve at to people. Therefore, the more 244 00:16:21.669 --> 00:16:23.190 conversions you're going to get, the lower costs are going to be as well, 245 00:16:23.509 --> 00:16:26.669 and so quality score is a really important metric to focus on. I 246 00:16:26.789 --> 00:16:30.029 know earlier on in the interview I said, Hey, when you're planning out 247 00:16:30.029 --> 00:16:33.940 on strategy, if someone just talks about quality score, avoid those and go 248 00:16:33.059 --> 00:16:37.259 for the people that talk about conversion and important metrics and and I totally stand 249 00:16:37.340 --> 00:16:41.980 by that. But in this case quality score is one of those like individual 250 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:44.700 metrics that as an agency, we look at, but we don't really need 251 00:16:44.740 --> 00:16:47.059 to tell you, as the client, about this too much. Kind of 252 00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:48.690 think right this is something that just goes without saying. You should be focused 253 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.889 on quality score. We actually have a blog post on our own website, 254 00:16:52.929 --> 00:16:56.610 on the hey digital website, about ten ways that you can improve your Google 255 00:16:56.610 --> 00:17:00.799 ads quality score. So if you were to just search for hey digital Google 256 00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.720 ads quality score, you probably find that pretty easily. But essentially, Google 257 00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:10.680 with their quality score, they they evaluate three different aspects of your ad campaign. 258 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:15.200 So it's add itself, the keywords that you're targeting and the landing page 259 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.549 experience, so the experience that the user has once a clickoff of your ad, 260 00:17:18.670 --> 00:17:21.829 because that's important to Google as well. They don't want you to be 261 00:17:21.829 --> 00:17:26.430 sending people to a bad landing page. So into kind of some that trying 262 00:17:26.470 --> 00:17:29.470 some this up pretty quickly as to what you should be looking for. This 263 00:17:29.670 --> 00:17:33.420 is where it's really important to take this kind of funnel specific approach to advertising, 264 00:17:33.619 --> 00:17:38.099 because if your ad copy is targeting a bottom of funnel keyword, it's 265 00:17:38.140 --> 00:17:41.140 going to be very different to to top of funnel. Right top of funnel 266 00:17:41.180 --> 00:17:45.049 is very educational content, whereas bottom of funnel add copies. You want to 267 00:17:45.049 --> 00:17:48.849 be focused on trying to get somebody to make a decision and being very specific 268 00:17:48.970 --> 00:17:52.569 to what they're searching for and what they're seeing an ad and making sure that 269 00:17:52.690 --> 00:17:55.609 ties into what they see on the landing page as well. So some quick 270 00:17:55.609 --> 00:18:00.400 ways to improve your quality score is to make sure that your ad copy aligns 271 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:03.799 with the search term or what people are searching for, to make sure that 272 00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:07.839 the landing page experience is relevant to the search terms as well. So if 273 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:14.230 someone searching for use the same example again, podcast editing software, you don't 274 00:18:14.269 --> 00:18:17.789 want to send them to a landing page that's about podcast recording software. Small 275 00:18:17.869 --> 00:18:21.430 things like that can make a difference to your to your quality score. Make 276 00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:25.869 sure you're also using the keywords and search terms within the headlines on your landing 277 00:18:25.869 --> 00:18:29.380 page. This is something that's really important. And just a couple other tips 278 00:18:29.420 --> 00:18:33.299 that you can do is you want to make sure that you can start to 279 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:36.940 match the intent of the keywords. Like I said earlier, on. So 280 00:18:37.339 --> 00:18:41.130 let's say you were targeting a competitor comparison post. For example, let's say 281 00:18:41.650 --> 00:18:47.849 we were targeting a keyword like your name versus your competitions name. So let's 282 00:18:47.849 --> 00:18:52.450 just say fresh desk versus Zendsk. You want to make sure that all throughout 283 00:18:52.490 --> 00:18:56.319 that process, in the Ad Copy, you're relating to someone that's going to 284 00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.200 be in the mindset of searching for one thing against another, and on the 285 00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:02.200 landing page you have that similar kind of experience as well. So those like 286 00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:04.400 me trying to wrap up a few quick ways that you can improve your ade 287 00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:08.559 quality score. It's a very, very important metric, but it's not something 288 00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:12.710 that you should get stuck in too much, like if your quality schools are 289 00:19:12.750 --> 00:19:15.630 low, don't let that stop you from doing other things and doing other testing. 290 00:19:15.990 --> 00:19:18.029 But it's something that as time goes on, as you want to take 291 00:19:18.029 --> 00:19:22.509 your results the next level, you really want to start improving those coupsi scores 292 00:19:22.509 --> 00:19:25.259 as you go. I love that, Dylan. I love that you highlighted 293 00:19:25.299 --> 00:19:29.460 getting into the mindset of the searcher's intent and making sure that what you're delivering 294 00:19:29.619 --> 00:19:33.220 is a good match their intent. Let's stave a little bit into click through 295 00:19:33.259 --> 00:19:37.059 rates. Tell me about click through rates at a high level and what would 296 00:19:37.059 --> 00:19:41.170 be considered good click to rates for a SASS company. What can SASS companies 297 00:19:41.210 --> 00:19:44.170 do to get better click through rates? Yeah, really good question. So 298 00:19:44.769 --> 00:19:48.609 super top level click through rate is okay out. What percentage of people that 299 00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:52.410 see your add then click on your add and go through to the landing page 300 00:19:52.450 --> 00:19:55.720 that you're directing them to? Write. So when you're running ads, especially 301 00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:59.200 on Google, your charge on a PPC, a paper click model, so 302 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.240 you're only going to be charged if someone does click on that ad, but 303 00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:04.880 you want as many people as possible to click on that ad within reason, 304 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:07.710 right, because you want to make sure that people see you add in the 305 00:20:07.829 --> 00:20:11.430 interested in it, so that when you're running Google as, you're going to 306 00:20:11.430 --> 00:20:14.589 be competing against other people. There's going to be other companies that are trying 307 00:20:14.630 --> 00:20:18.190 to grab somebody's attention for the exact same keyword, right, like we see 308 00:20:18.829 --> 00:20:22.460 a lot of the bottom of funnel buying in ten or competitor comparison keywords, 309 00:20:22.460 --> 00:20:26.539 for example, you can be up against sometimes eight to fifteen different competitors all 310 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:30.059 trying to get all trying to get that click from someone and this is where 311 00:20:30.619 --> 00:20:33.380 things like quality scores, click through rates and everything else came into play, 312 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:37.650 because Google wants to serve the ad that's seeing the best results. So a 313 00:20:37.769 --> 00:20:41.849 few like ways that you can improve click through rate kind of ties in very 314 00:20:41.930 --> 00:20:45.250 smoothly to what we're saying earlier. Abound improving your quality score is making sure 315 00:20:45.289 --> 00:20:49.799 that the experience is very much dialed into the intent of the searcher. This 316 00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:53.480 is one thing that's really, really key, but also just making it attractive 317 00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:57.440 to click through onto the AD. So maybe there's a few tips that I 318 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:00.000 can share really quickly, and we also have a blog post on this on 319 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.390 our side as well. If you just search for Hey, digital PPC ad 320 00:21:03.549 --> 00:21:07.109 copy, there's another post of like maybe ten or twelve different ways. But 321 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:12.150 a few things you can quickly implement to improve your click through rates is start 322 00:21:12.309 --> 00:21:18.269 to start to improve and include social proof for some credibility. So small things 323 00:21:18.309 --> 00:21:22.660 like number one rated knowledge based software, if your knowledge based software, or 324 00:21:22.900 --> 00:21:26.099 you can talk about the number of reviews, like five star reviews, that 325 00:21:26.140 --> 00:21:29.660 you have, for example, how many customers you have. We do small 326 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:33.730 things like trusted by over fortyzero customers. Something as small as that can help 327 00:21:33.769 --> 00:21:37.690 improve click through rates because it's a small piece of social proof. Use Emotional 328 00:21:37.809 --> 00:21:41.890 triggers in your ads as well, rather than just like the same boring copy 329 00:21:41.009 --> 00:21:44.210 that everybody is used to. You want to stand out a little bit, 330 00:21:44.250 --> 00:21:48.400 so try and play it to people's emotional like tendencies. If someone searching for 331 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:53.079 comparison between two tools, you want to really really latch onto that and know 332 00:21:53.319 --> 00:21:56.319 you know that they're about to make a buying decision or they're looking for of 333 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:00.200 how one thing stacks up against the other. So play yourself off against the 334 00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:04.109 competition, for example. And then just some things that you can also do 335 00:22:04.150 --> 00:22:08.069 as making sure that you're including the keywords that people are actually searching for, 336 00:22:08.509 --> 00:22:12.190 making sure they're included in the ad copy, because then it improves the quality 337 00:22:12.230 --> 00:22:15.220 scores as well and the relevant scores. And if I'm searching for PODCAST, 338 00:22:15.660 --> 00:22:19.740 video editing software, podcast or recording software, I want to see that in 339 00:22:19.779 --> 00:22:22.059 the ad copy itself as well. So those are a few ways that you 340 00:22:22.099 --> 00:22:26.099 can kind of make some quick changes to to bring those in and to get 341 00:22:26.180 --> 00:22:30.650 some better click through rates. And then you also ask me what will be 342 00:22:30.690 --> 00:22:34.009 a good click through rate. Now it's it's a fairly difficult question because click 343 00:22:34.049 --> 00:22:38.369 through rates really very depending on industry to industry, depending on the intent of 344 00:22:38.410 --> 00:22:41.170 the campaign. So, for top of funnel keywords, you're obviously going to 345 00:22:41.210 --> 00:22:47.519 see a lower click through rate than real high buying intent keywords. And what 346 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:51.680 the way that we structure things as we always aim for a minimum of like 347 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:55.640 we're not happy until we get at least a five to six percent click through 348 00:22:55.640 --> 00:22:57.359 rate on our ads. Often, when you first start, you're probably going 349 00:22:57.359 --> 00:23:02.029 to see numbers like three percent, maybe four percent, and with some ads 350 00:23:02.069 --> 00:23:04.869 you'll maybe even see like twenty percent, thirty percent. But it all depends 351 00:23:04.869 --> 00:23:07.349 on the volume, the amount of people that are seeing those adds as well. 352 00:23:07.390 --> 00:23:11.150 But if you want to set like a benchmark of okay, I really 353 00:23:11.190 --> 00:23:12.420 should try and get this to at least this point, I would say like 354 00:23:12.579 --> 00:23:15.019 between five and seven percent. If you can get it to that, then 355 00:23:15.019 --> 00:23:18.819 you're going to you're going to be seeing a lot better results than someone that's 356 00:23:18.859 --> 00:23:21.900 got a three percent click through rate, for example. Awesome, Dylan, 357 00:23:21.940 --> 00:23:25.779 could I just really quickly ask you to double click on emotional triggers form it 358 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:27.569 for our audience. What are some examples of this? What are you talking 359 00:23:27.569 --> 00:23:30.849 about here. Yeah, that's actually a really it's a really good point. 360 00:23:30.890 --> 00:23:34.569 So I can I can dive fairly deep into some ideas for how people can 361 00:23:34.569 --> 00:23:41.170 use emotional triggers. So you have to think about someone's intent when they're searching 362 00:23:41.329 --> 00:23:45.440 and, like people are now so used to seeing ads on every single platform 363 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:49.319 and within the B Tob World we can often be very bland with our copy 364 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:52.799 right, like we can take the safe root very often, and when you're 365 00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:56.910 paying to put yourself in front of somebody, you want to give yourself the 366 00:23:56.950 --> 00:24:00.630 best possible chance to invoke emotion in them. So if you want to become 367 00:24:00.710 --> 00:24:03.990 good at PPC copywriting, you have to use emotional triggers in your add copies. 368 00:24:04.109 --> 00:24:10.019 These can be things like making sure that you start to layer in things 369 00:24:10.059 --> 00:24:15.579 around like maybe instant gratification or a loss of version or pride. So it 370 00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:18.819 could be something like, okay, get the success that you deserve, like 371 00:24:18.940 --> 00:24:22.779 really diving into something like that, or it can be become the smartest marketer 372 00:24:23.099 --> 00:24:26.130 in your team and things like this, where it's like kind of playing to 373 00:24:26.210 --> 00:24:30.529 someone's Ego a little bit, I guess, within add copy. So most 374 00:24:30.569 --> 00:24:33.170 people go down the root of like okay, sign up now or something like 375 00:24:33.329 --> 00:24:37.170 that. But if you go with only the smartest marketers, sign up now, 376 00:24:37.569 --> 00:24:41.119 things like that, those are the kind of emotional triggers that you can 377 00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:45.920 lean into and if you're if you're targeting real bottom of funnel keywords around, 378 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:48.920 around loss of version, maybe, like we're not with the situation the world 379 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.000 right now. I don't know when this episode is going to be going out, 380 00:24:52.039 --> 00:24:56.390 but we're not playing into the worldwide situation a tool and any of our 381 00:24:56.470 --> 00:24:57.990 add copies, because I don't think that's the right thing to do. But 382 00:24:59.109 --> 00:25:02.549 you can play into, let's say you have a tool that's a project management 383 00:25:02.589 --> 00:25:06.230 software or something like that. You know that right now more people having to 384 00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:08.740 switch their teams to be working remotely, so there's more need for tools like 385 00:25:08.779 --> 00:25:12.460 that. So you can do some some kind of education in your copy and 386 00:25:12.500 --> 00:25:17.420 lean on the emotional triggers of like finding it difficult to manage your team remotely 387 00:25:17.619 --> 00:25:19.980 and things like that. So that's what we mean when we say use emotional 388 00:25:21.019 --> 00:25:23.250 triggers in your add copy rather than just copy and pasting some of the copy 389 00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:26.970 from your features page on your website into the add right. I think those 390 00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:30.890 are some tremendous examples, Dylan, and I think that's a great place to 391 00:25:32.049 --> 00:25:34.250 pause here. I'm excited to continue talking to you. We're going to do 392 00:25:34.289 --> 00:25:37.640 a deep dive on strategy. We're going to talk about metrics and keywords. 393 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:42.440 So it stay tuned in for part two of my interview with bill and Hey. 394 00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:49.509 Awesome. Thank you so much. I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask 395 00:25:49.589 --> 00:25:53.029 their listeners for reviews, but I get why they do it, because reviews 396 00:25:53.069 --> 00:25:56.990 are enormously helpful when you're trying to grow podcast audience. So here's what we 397 00:25:57.069 --> 00:26:00.910 decided to do. If you leave a review for me to be growth in 398 00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:06.220 apple podcasts and email me a screenshot of the review to James At sweetfish Mediacom, 399 00:26:06.539 --> 00:26:08.859 I'll send you a signed copy of my new book, content based networking, 400 00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:12.180 how to instantly connect with anyone you want to know. We get a 401 00:26:12.259 --> 00:26:15.700 review, you get a free book. We both win.