Semalt: Managing PPC After The Coronavirus Outbreak



Your business, like many others, got hit by the Coronavirus Pandemic. This meant a lot of things for many businesses. We were forced to reevaluate how we hug our friends or even be in the same room with them. The effects of the pandemic were also felt by online businesses. Marketers had to learn new ways to manage paid campaigns during this period. 

The market became so unpredictable it was almost impossible to predict what was coming next. But the good news is things are getting better. We can now go to school and stroll on our streets. Businesses are being reopened, and now more than ever, your PPC campaigns and targeting must be the best. 

In this article, Semalt is showing her clients how we can help your business get back on its feet. These managing techniques will help you reach your audience and show your customers that you're still in the game. 

How Can Semalt Help Your PPC Campaign After The Coronavirus Outbreak?

Pivot To Normal-Ish

Thanks to the coronavirus vaccines, many countries around the world have begun relaxing lockdown and prevention laws. Sports, office life, gatherings as well as social sites are gradually being reopened. 

With all the various bans and restrictions being lifted, consumers are eager to get outside and catch up on all they've been missing. While we are yet to determine if it will be the same as it was before the pandemic, we are really happy to see a friend and talk without a screen separating us. 

While it may take a while for things to return as they use to be, marketers can begin re-establishing contact with consumers. In fact the Coronavirus gave us an opportunity to get to know our clients better. Throughout the pandemic, we spoke to clients to see how they were doing, and we gave regular updates on how they could maintain traffic during the crisis. In that light, as things continue to return to normal, we help our clients advertise with compassion as their audiences are still recovering and rebuilding. 

We start with research to have a good idea of what your audience for your local SEO is experiencing. We use this data to change our messaging and creative approach so we can speak to their needs as their condition evolves. 

While things are getting better, we hold their hands and walk them back to life before the outbreak. This way, they know your brand cares, and they will no doubt become very loyal customers. 

Evaluate Business Value Propositions And Messaging

In many cases, businesses will continue promoting their products or services, which are currently in more demand. As the Coronavirus gets behind us, the question becomes how can your product or services be positioned to service the new trends? 

Currently, the main trends that will get you clicks and traffic includes:
As long as you can get your products or services to meet any of these needs, you are on the right path to having a successful PPC campaign. If your products or services do not fit exactly into any of these, we can try modifying them so that they do, and then we create a temporary plan to promote these initiatives. 

We also ask our clients to consider shifting virtual services or virtual consulting to a hybrid model, so safe gathering would be possible. We would love to review your current PPC and digital campaigns, so we can determine if your messaging stencils are still good fits. With the changing landscape, we will correct any deficiencies or improve your messaging so that you can attract more traffic. 

For example, we can:
We can use some of these messages in the primary ad copy. We also fully utilize ad extensions like site links and call-outs to convey information. 

While optimizing your site, we include these messages clearly on the landing pages. 

It is important that the brand's presence is retained so it can continuously feed the upper funnel, as it may be harder to recover if momentum is lost. 

Optimize Budget And Spend

Most businesses have already reevaluated their budgets, and if you haven't, you probably should. Now may be the best time to shift more funds into manufacturing those products or services that have more relevance to consumers during this transition. You must account for any geographical burst of activity as more places open up. 

Shifting your budget to the best performing campaign so you can maximize results. You can check through some tips on managing your PPC here.

Review your PPC budget versus your actual spend to find nuggets of your budget that may not have been properly used through the year and use those nuggets to the campaigns that need it the most. 

Instead of daily budgets, you should consider setting lifetime or monthly spend limits, so we can pace the campaign speed better. Doing this, however, depends on the platform. Nevertheless, doing this frees up more time for us to perform other important account management tasks. Since automated bidding features are becoming a norm, we can consider implementing them in Google Ads, Microsoft ads, and other platforms as your competition begin to pick back up. Doing this allows the platforms to automatically adjust the CPC bids so your advertising goals can be matched in real-time. 

Having this feature makes you the most agile competitor as you stay ahead of behavioral changes in users. We will do a review to reevaluate your maximum CPCs while using these features. 

Consider The Evolving Behavior Of Searches

While social distancing is still practiced, people will still like to buy, research and live their dreams online. It is important that we communicate which services can be delivered virtually and the turn-around times for these service deliveries for your PPCs to stand out. 

Using extensions or ad copies, we can communicate the benefits of your services like fast deliveries, curbside pickups, free deliveries, and porch drop-offs. 

It is likely that you will see major or minor changes in the search queries targeting your ads. We can handle this in one of two ways:
  1. Proactive: this approach means we will predict searches with the highest possibilities of triggering your ads so we can create a negative keyword archive that can be easily updated and distributed among all campaigns. 
  2. Reactive: this approach means we review the search terms and campaign display placements in real-time for coronavirus, safety keywords, vaccine, and content. 

Conclusion

The amount of consumers that are ready to get back to their normal lives is at an all-time high. Rather than seeing this as a pandemic, consider the opportunities it provides. Consumers are anxiously waiting to reengage, so you should meet them with the ad messages they are desperate to see as they scroll through social media to while searching. 

Interested in SEO? Check out our other articles on the Semalt blog.