What Geotesting Means When It Comes to Digital Ads

Digital advertisements have become the make or break for marketing in the modern age. Successful marketing means meeting your consumers where they are, and, in 2020, they are on their cell phones, laptops, and smart devices. It is essential that a company’s marketing strategy includes a strong digital ad plan and an effective analytic tracking method.  

“People know they need to grow and there is some understanding (but not necessarily trust) that growing can occur through digital strategies,” says Crimson Advantage co-founder and CEO Louis Amira. 

“However, it is not uncommon to work with a business where 20 to 50% of the analytics aren’t there or understood.” Ensuring that the ROI, ROAS, and other data points are accounted for leads to strong business decisions down the line. 

Return on investment (ROI) is important, but, when it comes to digital marketing, the return on ad spend (ROAS) is crucial. Geotesting, understanding consumer responses to various ad techniques, and ROAS are synonymous with strong marketing efforts. However, what can this method really offer in developing a powerful strategy? Louis shares his insight to what geotesting really means when it comes to digital ads and how every company should begin utilizing this method today. 

The Digital Ad Landscape

Digital marketing is a cost-effective and sophisticated method as you glean major insights (i.e. data) into how consumers interact with your brand. There is a vast array of different digital marketing methods, and some popular ones include: 

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

• Social Media Marketing

• Pay-Per-Click Advertising 

• Affiliate Marketing

• Display Advertising 

• Content Marketing

Digital marketing is crucial for any business attempting to reach new consumers in an already crowded landscape, and advertisements are a major component of such. Consumers are exposed to thousands of digital ads every single day. That type of noise means that a business should cater ads in a compelling way, speaking directly to the consumer to cut through thousands of other voices. 

Digital ads include display, video, search, and email marketing. Any one of these methods is trackable, meaning you hone in on valuable analytics that can pave the future of your marketing strategy.

“Finding the thing that moves the needle and shows that your spend is actually working is the power behind digital advertisement,” Louis discloses. 

Many companies don’t know where to begin in the digital ad space, and geotesting prompts the way forward. 

A Simple Understanding of Geotesting

Geotesting is a marketing experiment that provides valuable insight on how consumers respond to different marketing treatments. Louis explains, “running tests and seeing materially different results, whether moving the revenue needle or not, brings significant data to life.” This method works across different company sizes and industries, though a business must spend enough in the experiment to ascertain results. 

Randomly selected metro areas, also known as geos, undergo different marketing treatments during a predetermined amount of time. Revenue is tracked in these geos and drastically different numbers show that a market is responding favorably or unfavorably to the treatment. 

Louis encounters many businesses who are unfamiliar with this strategy yet wanting to try new things. 

“Companies may not know that they need to geotest, but they want to see how launching something new will affect their revenue. That is what a geotest is, and understanding of that is how we demystify the process.”

Benefits of Geotesting

Geotesting is a top method for digital marketers to test new ads. In its origination, geotesting was how marketing agencies would track different responses to commercials or print ads in legacy publications. Years later, geotesting is an advanced strategy that tracks consumer responses and informs businesses how to best share their ads. 

Geotesting makes for stronger digital ads that speak more directly to consumers in particular markets. Some benefits of geotesting include: 

• Tracking revenue effects with significantly more or less ad spend behind it

• Understanding consumer responses to different ad treatments 

• Seeing how digital ad frequency plays a role in responses 

Digital ads take on a deeper revenue significance when cultivated from geotesting analytics. A business more deeply understands what type of ads work well in a market, what level of ad spend produces positive results, and what the best reach and impression rate is for increasing sales. 

Geotesting has direct effects on ROAS as a brand sees how far a marketing dollar will take them in a specific geo. A dollar that can produce greater results in one marketing treatment should be replicated to encourage a company’s growth.

Targeting and Testing Digital Ads 

Modern technology has led to incredibly complex digital marketing, and brands now have the power to run geotests themselves. 

“Ad targeting allows a company to restrict where a digital ad is run,” Louis declares. Honing in on a single metro area with a specific treatment highlights differences in consumer responses. Marketing treatments can include: 

• Different ad spend 

• Different digital ad structure (display, email, search, etc.) 

• Various treatments applied to one digital ad structure (copy, graphics, etc.) 

Louis explains, “Let’s take 5 or 10 randomly selected cities and spend significantly more or less in those areas. What happens in the span of 4 to 6 weeks is the experimental data that a company can use to launch new products, change ad strategies, and make strong ad spend decisions.”

Digital advertisements are only becoming more common in the marketing game. Businesses can level up their ads by utilizing geotests and making stronger, smarter decisions on ad spend, quality, and targets. Boosting consumer responses directly correlates to a heightened ROAS, and geotesting is the strategy that will get you there. 

How to Conduct Google Surveys

Google Surveys are digital marketing’s secret weapons. Because validation from a target market is key for any business, Google Surveys (sometimes called Google Consumer Surveys) provide the ability to survey a target audience for the questions you most need answered, which is why we at Crimson Advantage swear by it. We use it and many of our clients use it, and we believe it’s a powerful tool to strengthen your digital marketing presence.

 Some reasons that Google Consumer Surveys are a popular choice: 

• They’re cost-effective

• They can survey anyone in your target market across multiple geographical locations

• They’re easy for businesses and consumers 

• They take significantly less time than typical market research surveys

• They’re web based so no need for in-person surveys 

You may have seen Google Consumer Surveys pop up in your own time surfing the web, such as before a YouTube video starts. Multiple choice options guarantee ease in soliciting data, and pinpointing the ideal target audience can transpire easily to YouTube videos of choice.

Getting Started with Google Surveys

When looking to garner insights from the minds of your target market, first consider which insights are the most valuable to your company. The more your goals are at the forefront of the surveys, the more focused the action can be. At Crimson Advantage, we recommend the following example questions as a good starting point: 

• Who is our target demographic? (age, gender)

• Are they more price or quality conscious?

• What is our brand awareness? What is it for competitors?

• What are we looking to accomplish with the information?

Setting Up a Google Consumer Survey

Once the company goals and target demographic have been solidified, plug this information into the survey creation process. Google offers specific targeting measures such as general population targeting, iPhone or android specific targeting, website traffic targeting. 

Google also offers the option for “screening questions,” which are essentially qualifying questions to determine if the respondent is within your target audience. Respondents will first see the screening question, then depending on their multiple choice answer, may or may not be shown the main survey questions. This technique of filtering respondents helps to ensure that the survey responses are not diluted.

Budget plays a role, too: Google charges based on number of questions asked, but Website Satisfaction surveys (when you can survey your website visitors for their feedback) are free. Play around with the number of responses you want, too. That’s a personal preference, but Google also makes a few recommendations based on what’s worked best for their other clients.

Crafting Questions and Answers

It’s important to be as specific as possible when writing the survey questions. 

For example, rather than asking, “Do you buy kombucha?”, ask, “When’s the last time you purchased kombucha?” 

That way, you get the most out of your answers: rather than consumers choosing a simple “yes” or “no,” they’ll be prompted to choose a time period if they have purchased kombucha recently, or could select “never” if they never have.

Or, if crafting a question about brand recognition, invest some time in researching the other competitive names for your target market. Then, you can ask, “Which brands have you heard of?” and choose a multiple choice format that allows for the selection of multiple options. Make sure to also add an option for “none of the above.” The more inclusive and specific the possible answers are, the more valuable your insights will be. 

Additionally, make sure that the questions are phrased in a neutral fashion as to not bias the answers. For example, rather than starting a question with “How much do you like…?” which assumes the viewer likes something, start with something more open-ended, such as “how do you feel about…?” 

Final Tips

It’s also recommended to randomize the order of your multiple choice answers. Sometimes, consumers just want to clear the survey off their view or choose the answer closest to the top. If your answer order is fixed, you may find that the answers listed at the top get the most hits. 

However, you can fix the order of just one answer, such as “all of the above” or “none of the above” as the last option. 

As always, tweak as you get more data. If certain questions aren’t yielding specific enough answers and insights, make changes. Get feedback from consultants, your team members, or rely on Crimson Advantage when crafting your questions and answers to ensure you get the most out of Google Consumer Surveys.

5 Ways Blog Content Can Instantly Boost a Brand's Online Presence

The rise of e-commerce and smaller brands means that companies have to be more strategic than ever in how they market online. The increase in potential avenues for placed Internet advertisements are great, sure - but when everyone is doing them (especially your competition), these ads can become a bidding war for that prized top slot on a Google search, meaning you’re always having to keep your eye on your analytics, being reactive, rather than proactive about your marketing tactics.

But, many brands have chosen to take the marketing game back into their own control. The rise of blog content, which can establish brands as thought leaders in their niche area of expertise, has proven to be highly successful. First, choose a topic that coincides with your product or service, so it’s a natural and easy tie-in. For example: If you’re a vegan snack company, create blog content on nutritious recipes for vegans, or if you specialize in products for infants, create blog content for new and expectant moms. The key is to plug your own product or business into the content subtly.

Here are five ways that this blog content strategy can instantly boost a brand’s online presence.

1. It’s easily shareable. Simply put, if a blog is well-written and has good advice, a potential customer who stumbles across it may be likely to share it. Contrast this with a potential customer stumbling across a classic advertisement - there’s no way they’re sharing it on their Facebook page or retweeting it, unless it’s something like Apple’s commercial with the Cookie Monster and Siri. Make sure that each blog post includes a “Click to tweet” and links to make it easily shareable on the reader’s social media.

2. It’s less expensive. You know that bidding war we mentioned? Thus is the life of brands who are solely focusing on ad space, and it can get expensive for common keywords such as “golf balls” or “flower delivery” or “mascara”.... And the list goes on! Blogging, however, costs only a fraction: A brand already has a website, so all they need are content writers on their team, or to outsource for a couple hundred dollars per article for prime content. It significantly decreases the spend on marketing.

3. SEO, SEO, SEO. Perhaps one of the most compelling ways blog content can boost online presence is by improving a brand’s SEO. Tech Client found that a brand has a 434% higher chance of being ranked higher on a Google search if it has a blog. 434%! A no brainer - and, that number continues to rise the more that content is published.

4. It forges a new frontier of a relationship between the brand and potential customers. Customers choose to try new brands if they trust them. By receiving valuable content and information from a brand’s blog, they’re more likely to return to the blog and have a more positive view of a brand. This type of communication between a brand and a customer far outweighs the typical advertising slogans that brands have historically used to try to capture a customer’s attention. Leading them to water with insights, stories, recipes, interviews - you name it, any of that good content they’re looking for - keeps the brand top of mind for them.

5. It creates more, and more engaging material for the brand’s social channels. A brand can only post a product so many times in so many different ways on social channels, but with fresh blog content published weekly or even monthly, brands have more material to post on social, and customers have a reason to continue to engage on social channels. Think about it: Do you really want to follow your favorite laundry detergent on Instagram if they’re only posting photos of the detergent bottle? Probably not. But, you’re likely to follow your favorite laundry detergent on Instagram if they’re also sharing tips from their latest blog post on how to get Cabernet out of your favorite pair of white pants...because we’ve all been there. And while you’re reading, it will remind you to restock.

Believe it or not, the list goes on. So, get out your pen and paper, and get to writing! Your brand will be more recognizable and trusted than ever before.

What Most Companies Miss When It Comes to E-commerce Analytics

Hubspot recently shared an ultimate list of marketing statistics for 2018, and reported that only 22% of businesses are happy with their conversion rates. Only 22%.

Of course, most businesses desire astronomical conversion rates - but a well educated entrepreneur is aware of what a fair conversion rate looks like. There are many ways to try to tweak aspects of a website and marketing strategy to improve a conversion rate and increase sales, but most companies miss the following considerations when conducting the necessary analytics to make these educated changes. Here are the most frequent mistakes companies make when it comes to analyzing their ecommerce analytics:

1. Most companies place an emphasis on sales rather than tracked customer behavior.

It seems reasonable to analyze the performance of a company based on sales, right? But, solely placing focus on which products are doing best negates the role the website plays in the buying experience for a customer. Companies should instead install heat maps on their website’s pages to understand customer behavior when they online shop.

For example: If a cell phone case company is solely focusing on the recent increase in sales on their hard-cover case, they may promote it as a bestseller on their homepage. But, imagine that their heat map shows a majority of customers take time to look through the leather case options, but never add one to their cart. This is critical information that a company cannot find by solely looking at sales.

2. Most companies assume rather than research.

In the phone case example, there are a number of assumptions that the company may make about the behavior, such as, “Our customers must prefer hard-cover cases over leather cases in the summer months.” While this may sound like a legitimate reason, it’s only an assumption. Talking with customers to understand their behaviors beyond the analytics is a crucial step that many companies miss.

In this example, perhaps the customer base would prefer to buy a real-leather phone case at the price point of their other products, but the company only sells synthetic leather cases, which is negatively impacting the conversion rate. Analytics must go beyond assumptions and take companies into the field to speak to their customers. It’s the companies that listen to their customers that outperform the competition.

3. Most companies focus their attention on all potential customers rather than their few committed ones.

Many companies seek to cast a wide net to many potential customers, thus focusing their online shopping experience to appease first time shoppers. But, the lifetime value of repeat customers is significantly higher than the lifetime value of an average customer, so tracking repeat customers in e-commerce analytics is a must.

Understanding repeat customers’ motivations and behaviors in navigating the site can lead to masterful placement choices to ensure they have the best shopping experience and continue to up their lifetime value. It’s the repeat customers who are doing more than just browsing. They are most easily tracked through payment methods, coupon codes, and purchase history.

4. Most companies compute absolute difference instead of relative difference.

One of the most common e-commerce analytics mistakes is in the math! Imagine that the cell phone case company is analyzing their conversion rates on their wallet cases from April to May, and have noticed that it went down from 6% in April to 4.5% in May.

The analytical mistake is to call this a 1.5% decrease, because that would be the absolute difference, and truthfully, doesn’t sound that major. However, the relative difference is calculated by dividing the difference (1.5%) by the original conversion rate (6%) which would equate to a 25% relative decrease. The difference between a 1.5% and 25% decrease is significant, and this simple math error could incorrectly shift priorities away from analytics that should alert the company to potential red flags.

It can overwhelming to analyze the vast array of numbers and analytics when managing an ecommerce company, but by being conscious and aware of these typical oversights from most companies, you’ll be at an advantage in analyzing and re-adjusting your strategies for a more successful quarter.