Using PPC Data to Build Your Digital Marketing & Business Strategy

Using PPC marketing data is the perfect way to drive your online marketing strategy.  Your PPC person or team controls information that everyone in the company from marketing to product, and customer support to PR can use.  This is because the PPC team has insight into what customers are looking for before they know about your brand, where they research this information, the demographics that engage with your ads, and the long tail phrases your customers are using.

On top of this, PPC data gives you the information needed to build a business case, complete with revenue numbers, so you can forecast the ROI of a campaign.  This can grow other budgets including marketing, logistics and customer support.

Using PPC data is always better than creating content and strategies that you think are relevant, but you can’t make projections with because you don’t have data. For the sake of this post, PPC includes Google/YouTube, Bing Ads, as well as some media buying platforms.

Pro-tip: Working with the PPC person or agency is the strategy I use to build bridges between teams, and scale companies that hire us for digital and traditional marketing strategy.  If the PPC person or team is not willing to share information, the entire organization suffers.  Not just marketing.

Here’s how using a PPC first approach can impact all departments in a company to grow your bottom line.

TL:DR: The third section is probably the most helpful in this post.  If you read that first and find it useful, then read the others.

Keywords That Aren’t Profitable But Still Convert

When keywords convert but aren’t profitable, they normally get turned off by the PPC team and that’s the end of it.  But that isn’t the best use of this data.

These keywords are still profitable for SEO because there is no cost per click, just the conversion (plus server fees and time writing the copy).  The copy can also be used to build natural internal links, and the keywords can be shared with influencers and affiliates (as long as you let them know it is a low conversion keyword.) Another benefit to these phrases that aren’t profitable for PPC, but still convert, is that they can be used by UX, customer service and social media.

By creating a resource for the topic, as people ask a question about the topic, these teams can share the content with the person asking.  This same topic could be perfect to share on social media as a lead gen campaign, and the UX team can make sure it is something featured on the website as “we do this” or “we do not do this” with our product.

Pro-tip: If your product or service does not do something, and that is a cause for returns and customer service complaints, PPC may be able to detect it first via the low conversion rate using the modifiers on the search query. That will save you labor hours with customer support and money with warehousing, shipping and returns.

And if people are actively asking about the topic or phrase, affiliates and influencers can build content around it.  This builds your company’s brand, gives your partners topics to create content around, and lets more people know about solutions you offer.  This is especially important if the branding teams won’t let you put something on the website, but it is factual and important for consumers to know when in the decision making process.

Just because it isn’t profitable on a pay per click basis does not mean it isn’t valuable for your company.  Your company can still make sales, the topics just need assigned to the right teams.

You Know Which Search Engines to Write For

Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Naver, etc… all look for different things when choosing who to display in a search result.  By knowing the quality of a conversion and by the specific search engine you can optimize the way the content is displayed to show up for the right phrases and in the right search engines.

Maybe the keyword doesn’t convert well in Google, but the same keyword crushes it in Bing.  Or the AOV in Google is 1/5 the amount of Bing, and the traffic levels are only 1/3 less.  (Making these numbers up).  Instead of focusing SEO for Google’s needs, focus on the user and Bing instead.

Knowing where the term converts is something PPC controls, and they can share this with SEO before you begin your content strategy so you can be proactive vs. having to modify the content later.  And the same goes for affiliate managers.

If the PPC team knows it converts in Bing but not Google, tell your affiliate manager which phrases to recruit listicles and bloggers into your affiliate program for and by search engine.  You’ll be saving the affiliate manager time, and helping your company make more money.  This also lets your affiliate manager create a ROAS forecast vs. just telling their boss they have to wait and see.

Answering Customer Questions & Generate More Conversions

Some PPC platforms show you a more complete query than the phrase you bid on, and the pages where your ads show up.  By having this data from the PPC team, the content team can create a better sales funnel alongside the UX, CRO and customer service team.

For example, a phrase like “blue t-shirt” could be the query.  But the person actually asked “Which blue t-shirt wicks sweat and doesn’t droop.”  And your ad that converted appeared on a guide to athletic clothing as well as a couple YouTube videos.

By knowing this the:

• UX and CRO teams can add the information about wicking and drooping to the top of a product page as a potential customer is shopping.
  • This lets the user know the product or service on the page is a solution they are looking for.
• Content can create comparison grids calling out new features, and how your products or services are better than other popular options.
• Influencer, PR and Affiliate teams can approach these sites letting them know you have a solution that converts sales and is missing from their pages.
  • We do this regularly with our affiliate management clients as long as we don’t replace backlinks.
  • The ads team can share the conversion rates from the listcicles you’re not featured in, and this can increase your chances of getting added to them.
    • If your affiliate manager is good at their job, they’ll approach the site owner or media company and say “Your potential missed revenue is $XY,000 per year based on 123 search volume at an XY% conversion rate.”
      • It is a very valuable argument that can make the difference between if you or your competitor is featured in that article (assuming all products and services are equal).
• Social Media can create new videos showing the wicking ability of the shirt, and the shirt in action (not drooping) so your content can address customer needs better.
  • This can be used for win-back and repeat purchases if the consumer didn’t know the company has a product that does this.
• Product Managers and Engineers can benefit from this data as they’ll be able to roadmap the most requested features and issues into their builds.
  • Maybe they knew wicking was important, but didn’t consider drooping.  Now they know to include it in future updates or upgrades.

Finding Opportunities to Expand Into New Niches

The last benefit of using PPC for your digital strategy is finding new niches to enter.  By using demographic data available via PPC campaigns, you can look up interests and groups that have the same demographic breakdown, but a different topic.

For example, maybe your customers end up being urban females, ages 25 to 30, and who are interested in university sports, and are likely to have pets.  Take this information and look to see if maybe that same demographic group enjoys a specific niche of yoga or Pilates.  Or maybe there are social groups and meetups nationwide with the same audience makeup.  It could be anything from a nationwide entrepreneur and booster group for female business owners, or large pet photography group online.

These become new targets to go after because your customer demographics match the same group and products or services may also meet their needs.  If it’s business vs. sports, cater your message to getting a workout after work vs. being active on the field like when they were in college.  In college their focus was studying and winning at the sport.  After college it could still be fitness, but also more about finding the time after work vs. the class.  Same group of people, same needs, different messaging.

PPC data can have a positive impact all departments in a company.  It is a matter of knowing where to find and how to use the data.  But the most important thing is being able to get the from the PPC team.  If you’re a PPC expert reading this post, try dissecting your data and sharing it.  You can become a company hero across all departments vs. someone that normally gets overlooked.