Christy Bella
Managing Your Online Marketing During the Coronavirus Outbreak
An international pandemic, the effects of coronavirus are becoming ever more apparent. Not just affecting our lifestyles and the way we communicate and conduct daily activities. The development of this virus has even altered the way that we as consumers are shopping.
With one element remaining static and that is the use of the internet to conduct our purchasing activities, allowing us to browse, research and complete our required purchases.
If you are a business owner and operate an eCommerce store, evaluating the way that you promote and market your products is vital in these uncertain times. With buying habits and priorities adjusting, when it comes to managing your Google Ads accounts during the coronavirus outbreak, this action requires precision and a dynamic method of thinking.
We aim to walk you through the top tips to help manage your Google Ads campaigns in these rapidly changing times while making sure that you can continue to run an effective and profitable campaign.
6 Top tips to running your Google Ads during coronavirus?
As an eCommerce store, the way that you advertise and communicate with your target audience is continuously changing. For many online retailers, the need to continue running may seem doubtful and unnecessary. This is evident and can be seen with the example of UK online clothing retailer Next setting daily limits to the amount of orders that can be completed online. By offering a set capacity for orders, this they aim, will help to keep their warehouses up and running, but their employees safe and free from COVID-19. Another online retailing giant, Amazon has also responded to the rise of coronavirus in another extraordinary way.
Amazon since the rapid spread of this virus has stopped all their paid ads. This change in marketing is due to their shift in focus. With the company’s main focus to supply and restock all essential items for customers, their definition of essential stock is medicine and toilet roll.
If you are a retailer selling non-essential items across the internet and have taken the required steps to ensure employee safety when conducting and completing their orders, evaluating your paid adverts is the next essential step.
By evaluating your campaigns on your workstations for media and entertainment, you can ensure that you are completing such marketing within your available budget and that you are continuing to generate a modest revenue even in these unsure times.
1- Review your current Ads campaigns
Before you can progress and alter your Google Ads campaigns, the first thing that you need to do is to review your current campaigns. Take the time to gather all the relevant information regarding any live campaigns that are up and running. Typically completed when hiring a paid marketing agency, the use of in app functions can allow you to check the progress and performance of each campaign. This can include the time, click type, device and network.
Make sure that all on-going adverts are in line with your strategy. By reviewing your on-going ads, you can see which campaigns are no longer living up to your expectations, the shift in consumer activity and how you can progress and develop, moving forward.
2- Adjust and alter future campaigns
You have taken the time to review the progress of all your live campaigns, moving forward, you can use this vital information to alter your strategy to ensure a successful campaign. With the need for transparent and accurate data paramount more than ever before, the way that retailers are running their campaigns are changing too.
Monitoring and changing the products that you want to advertise is also key. With our lives on hold, the online activities and shopping habits of consumers have also changed. With yoga mats, Bluetooth headphones spotted high in the search volumes, reviewing what your audiences are searching for and altering your campaigns in accordance is recommended.
3- Scheduling of your Ads
With remote working enforced and with students discovering the challenges of homeschooling, the way and times we access and use the internet have altered. With consumers no longer found searching the internet after working hours, adjusting the times that you schedule your Google Ads is advised.
Taking the time to review the data and see when your target audience is most active, you can adjust your adverts to the changing landscape. By rescheduling your peak times and switching on your revised ads during discovered reactive hours, you can guarantee a higher click rate and a higher rate of conversion within your audience. This is due to the ability to predict when the audience is most receptive through the spike in traffic.
4- Review changing search behaviour
As touched upon previously within this blog, the way and the products that the public are searching has changed. To ensure maximum success when conducting and scheduling your ads, taking the time to review the changing search behaviour of your audience is key.
By reviewing and adjusting your strategies in line with these changes can be the difference between success and failure of your advertising campaigns. With visibility, traffic and leads important, make sure that you choose keywords with high traffic and low competition. If you are unsure of where to start, it is recommended that you review the actions of your competitors to see how they are altering their adverts.
When optimising your Google Ads, it is not just the keywords that have to be reviewed, but also the products that you choose to promote.
As previously mentioned, interest in yoga mats and Bluetooth headphones have skyrocketed, re-evaluating your Ads and smart shopping campaigns is essential.
Sites that are witnessing higher volumes of traffic:
-Entertainment sites
-Religious sites
-Gaming sites
-Well being sites
-Productivity and software sites
Sites that are witnessing lower traffic volumes:
-Sports sites
-Educational sites
-Business sites
-Travel sites
-Housing and DIY sites
-Money saving sites
If you are an entertainment site with an exciting new bundle that you want to shift, promoting and incorporating this product into your advertising strategy is recommended to target bored gamers looking to spend some money.
5- Ensure that your site is optimised for mobile shopping
Another top tip to help manage your Google Ads during coronavirus and that is to ensure that your site is optimised for mobile shopping. Use this time of lower traffic and fewer sales to focus on the health and functioning of your site. Take this much needed downtime to tidy up the backend, making sure that the tracking is in check and that your site’s user experience is as good as possible. With online shopping and traffic due to rise and pick up at the end of this epidemic, use this time to be prepared and optimise your site for that expected pick up in sales.
6 – Check if you are eligible for Google and Facebook Ads Credits
Being offered by both Facebook and Google to small and medium sized businesses, it is recommended that you review to discover whether you are eligible for these grants. Allowing businesses to continue promoting and advertising their products, this added lifeline for small and medium businesses can be used throughout 2020 on either search, display and YouTube adverts.
There are criterias that need to be met, such as the business needs to have its own active Google Ads accounts that has been registered since 1st January 2019.
Conclusion
There you have it, top 6 tips to help you manage and optimise your Google Ads accounts during the coronavirus outbreak. Along with making sure that you have reviewed the performance of all current campaigns, as well as analysing the shifting search and keyword trends, it is recommended that you discover, if not done so already, whether you are entitled to the Google and Facebook Ad credits.
With priorities and interests adjusting to meet our change in lifestyle, making sure that you are targeting the right keywords as searched by your audiences is paramount more so than ever.
It is recommended that you check, check and then check again your chosen keywords and reviewing the activities of your competitors, you can ensure that you can keep targeting a reactive and responsive audience.
While these times of uncertainty may be a worrying and a new experience for many small and medium businesses, using this quieter period to conduct much needed maintenance to your site could be added lifelong once we emerge from lockdown. With your site prepared for the spike in traffic and ready to convert interested leads onto the newly optimised site, you can hit the ground running.
We would love to hear from you and discover your first hand experience of running Google Ads campaigns during the coronavirus outbreak and any noticeable changes that you have witnessed and the search pattern of your audiences. Comment below and share your experience with us today.
