Editorial Articles

Any marketing channel can go so far working in isolation but by integrating marketing channel activity a synergy is created and results can be significantly higher.

Paid Search Marketing doesn’t sit alone. We all know that. It is just one element of a much larger picture of the buying cycle. Yet when we intelligently combine Paid Search with other marketing activity we create a synergistic outcome (where one plus one equals three).
So when a client is engaged in offline marketing how can we approach Paid Search Marketing to maximise this synergy? How can we generate the best possible ROI across the channels and what are the questions we need to ask ourselves to make this happen?

When one of our clients decided to invest in a TV ad campaign for the first time, we had to make sure that our Paid Search activity integrated fully with the TV campaign in order to maximise sales and create the best possible ROI.

The Perfume Shop wanted their campaign to be about specific fragrances that targeted their core market; they scheduled it around ITV’s The X Factor.

Before they got underway we had to address some key issues through a series of questions, most importantly of which was: was our planning integrated? What other mediums would be used? When would the ads be shown? Where would they be shown? It’s invaluable to get stakeholders talking early because the more information we share early on the better the outcome.

When it came to The Perfume Shop we knew that the medium was TV, we knew that it was scheduled around The X Factor, at specific times of the day and week, and we knew where in the UK it would be shown. Had it been a print campaign similar questions would have been asked.

We then asked ourselves: who are the X Factor audience? What do they like and dislike? What are their key demographics? Why is there an affinity between the brand and the X Factor audience? The Perfume Shop chose The X Factor because there was real synergy between X Factor viewers and their target market. Using our ability to understand the audience we saw the opportunity fit, and we began aligning our Paid Search Marketing to the offline TV ad campaign.

Next we thought about translating the advertiser’s message from offline to online. We understood that users increasingly surf the Web whilst watching TV. If they like what they see they want to find it quickly and easily through paid search and make that purchase. So we needed the online Paid Search message to mirror the offline message in both tone and phraseology. For The Perfume Shop we utilised Google Sitelinks to deliver this. Phraseology matched online with offline, including ‘as seen on TV’ adcopy and specifically created landing pages.

Offline advertising is designed to create an emotional response and generate interest. We need to reflect this in the user’s online paid search marketing experience. For TV ads we always ask: what will the voiceover say? What’s the strapline? We need to build on that emotional response in an appropriate way for online, to transform an interested customer into a buying customer. For The Perfume Shop, we converted interest into sales by reinforcing key messages.

It is commonly agreed that offline raises awareness and generates interest while online paid search closes the deal. Sometimes, however, the user isn’t ready to come searching for the brand after seeing the offline advertisement. A customer may be aware of a brand but may not feel it is for them. Brand saliency is about the customer feeling that your brand is appropriate and right for them. So how can we use paid search marketing to generate brand saliency? Placing ads on websites that have an affinity with the offline ad audience is one way. Tracking this allows us to measure the outcome back to sale. Using the Google content network is a way to do this for clients such as The Perfume Shop, placing adverts on websites that share commonality with the target audience.

As I said at the start, paid search doesn’t sit alone. But by analysing, planning and implementing, in conjunction with other channels, the best ROI can be achieved. This takes skill in each discipline and strategic questioning. For The Perfume Shop we created a staggering 280% increase, year on year, over the 2 months of the X Factor TV campaign

Sri Sharma
Managing Director, Net Media Planet
Twitter: srisharma