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Just like beauty, your marketing campaign’s value is in the eyes of the beholder. For brand marketers, well-designed banners that are presented to target customers on quality website are perceived as value. It’s also the same with high click-through rates that drive qualified audience is also something valuable.

But in the world of performance display, high returns on advertising spend and return on investment is the main goal. This means that they pay attention on cost per action, or the performance of their campaign that drives favorable action, instead of impression or click-based metrics. That’s why it’s for marketers to know how to use search retargeting to lower their campaign’s CPAs.

Don’t Mind CTRs and CPCs

When it comes to performance display advertising, CTRs and CPCs don’t usually matter when all you want is to lower your CPA. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but what’s important is that you don’t limit your campaign on sites with very low CPM while optimizing your keywords for high CTR.

Take Note of Recency

Depending on your campaign and its nature, the window period between a user performing a search and a user seeing your ads on relevant search varies widely. That’s why it’s important that you understand the recency of each of your campaign, as it can help you improve your CPA.

Bid for High Impressions

Campaign performance data reveals that the best keywords could lower CPAs when targeted in the right recency windows, even it has higher cost per impression. That’s it’s important that you are not afraid to bid for high impressions. As long as it drives performance, this could help your campaign win more volume on the best performing keywords.

Consider Keywords that Fall Behind

There are keywords that don’t perform well due to various reasons. Regardless, it could still deliver favorable CPA in search retargeting when used on impressions with right characteristics. Other than that, it could also expand the reach of your campaign.

Use Look-a-like Modeling

Look-a-like modeling can provide insight on the search patterns of existing converters. This enables you to discover and test additional keywords, as well as tap other markets that are related to your campaign.

Optimize Your Campaign Automatically

While you can set up your campaign and make initial targeting parameters, you can achieve optimum performance through automatic optimization. This feature could decide in real time which combinations of impression parameters could yield a more favorable conversion. In turn, your campaign can achieve the best results.

 

Just like in any online marketing campaign, you have to learn and understand its nature so that it can perform well without costing much. If you are successful with lowering your CPA through search retargeting, fruits of labor could be sweet.

It appears that the much-anticipated day for the Google+ Pages and Google Places to merge has arrived. The Google Places has been totally replaced by the new Google+ Local pages, and roughly 80 million of Google Places pages have been automatically converted to the new feature.

Introducing the New Google+ Local

Google+ Local has converted a static Places page into something dynamic, while the search engine giant’s star rating has been replaced by the Zagat 30-point rating scale. According to Google’s Vice President for Local, Maps and Location Services Marissa Mayer, the new rating scale is used because it has separate scores for food, service and atmosphere.

There are several ways on how users can discover the Google+ Local:

• Google’s search engine result page
• Google Maps
• Mobile apps
• Search on Google+

How Google+ Local Works

From their Google+ account, users can click on the new “Local” tab, which will redirect them to a personalized homepage. This discovery page offers a mix of popular, social and recommended content, and it has various elements that go into the page.

They can either use the discovery page to browse for more content, or head on to Google or Google Maps to search like how they normally do it. Regardless, the inclusion of Zagat rating system and other social features make Google+ an arguably better local search destination.

The new Google+ Local adds richer content and functionality to local search results than what the SERP can offer. The new feature is much more versatile and “social”, giving Google a local vehicle functionality that is similar with Facebook and Twitter. Simply put, the former Google Places is now an interactive page that merchants could use to communicate with their customers.

What Google+ Local Means to Business Owners

What makes Google+ Local visually interesting is the fact that it enables presentation of a wide array of information. It allows users to build a follower base and have the social interactions that are already available on other networking sites.

Moreover, local business owners should wait for new and updated features that will be coming in the future. As posted on Google’s official blog for small businesses:

“We know many of you have already created a Google+ Page for your business, and have been hosting hangouts and sharing photos, videos and posts. We’re excited that we’ll soon extend these social experiences to more Google+ Local pages in the weeks and months ahead.”

In the era of online marketing, it appears that restaurants are the slowest establishments that embrace social media marketing. This could be attributed to the fact that they want to protect their secret recipes or they’re just reluctant to see what people are saying about their brand. Regardless, Rev Media Marketing reported that new breed of restaurateurs are beginning to incorporate social media marketing to their campaigns.

Bringing the Right Message

Delivering what their customers want is one way for restaurants to use social media. Owner of Let’s YO Yogurt Eric Casaburi shared:

“The customer for Let’s YO yogurt is just a huge demographic and the way we communicate with them … we’re just going to market so many different ways, talking to people who we know are customers because we’ve identified them. We know how to speak to them — that’s key. We have the message in the right place.”

In fact, Pew Research Center recently released a study stating that 55 percent of adults search for restaurant, bar and club information online. Majority of the respondents uses the Internet to search for that information, and 3 percent of them are using social networking sites. Therefore, restaurant owners must strategically use the power of social media for their benefit other than expanding their fans or followers.

Using the Power of Social Media

Other than amassing a number of followers, there are different strategies that restaurant owners can use social media to promote their brand. Below are simple tips on how restaurateurs can use social media to their advantage.

1. Reach out to customers who share positive feedback about your brand, and make their messages a part of your restaurant’s marketing campaign.
2. Make your customers feel a part of your brand’s success by giving them the first glimpse of what’s new from the kitchen. To make the experience even better, invite them for free tasting.
3. You can also allow your followers to promote your business page by having a “fan of the week” contest. Have them take a picture of themselves with their favorite product from your restaurant, and let their friends vote for the picture. Whoever gets the most number of votes will get a free or discounted product from your establishment.

Food industry using the social media is good news for marketers, as restaurants are starting to take advantage of this platform to make their customers’ experience the taste of their brand. As for restaurant owners, they’ve found a new and creative way of engaging their consumers.