My Experience at BrightonSEO: Insights from the Search Advertising Show 2023
As digital marketers, we're constantly looking for new ways to improve our skills and keep updated with the latest industry trends. This year's BrightonSEO was a shining example of how powerful meeting regularly with like-minded professionals can be.
Here's what I learned.
3 minute read
16th February 2024
This was my first PPC event and I was really excited to gain useful insights into how other agencies approach PPC in today’s highly competitive market, learn about new strategy and network with other PPC enthusiasts.
It’s always nice to be surrounded by like-minded people who are all working to achieve the greatest possible results for our clients. It’s also heartwarming to see how the PPC community has come together in an “Us vs Google” approach.
Here are my three biggest takeaways on the lead generation landing page experience, tips on the latest Google Ads campaign type (PMax), and recession ready marketing strategies:
It can often be challenging to make lead generation landing pages exciting and engaging to end users. We know we need to include product/service information and of course, the ever-important lead form – but what else could help move the needle?
Why not look to the world of eCommerce for some inspiration?
eCommerce websites focus heavily on UX, and with consumers having to financially checkout on the website, trust is essential. This total dependence on high quality on-page experience enables them to set the bar for on-page content, experience and usability. It's the gold standard we should be looking to.
On the other hand, lead generation advertisers are frequently guilty of creating bland landing sites with few visual elements that attract visitors and ultimately drive engagement. This is where e-commerce shines. Eye-catching pictures and videos showcasing products – whether it's studio shots or lifestyle media – can truly bring landing pages to life. So, while we don’t have products to offer, can we lead gen experts use this method with eye-catching pictures on the landing page? The answer is yes, of course we can!
But it’s not just limited to visuals, there were some really interesting CRO pointers that make total sense.
Performance Max campaigns, Google’s latest campaign type, uses the power of automation and machine learning in an all encompassing campaign that maximises Google’s inventory.
With PMax still being fairly new, it was interesting seeing learnings from industry leaders on this. PMax has tended to generate stronger results for eCommerce clients however the use of strong creative has been proven to make the difference in driving the performance.
Using raw and authentic creative has been reported to actually drive more conversions and engagement than professional, studio taken content. So the advice here was, even if you just have an iPhone, you can still generate strong content without investing thousands on a photoshoot. If you have already invested in a photoshoot for paid social campaigns, then you can absolutely recycle this for your PMax campaigns too. Aligning this ad content with ad copy based around user pain points can really help drive engagement.
The importance of providing some form of video content is also strongly advised as otherwise Google will automatically create a video for you….and these aren’t great to say the least! Even just a 10 second video can be enough to encourage action and maximise the video placements of PMax.
With all of the current financial issues, understanding consumer psychology and how user’s buying habits change, can help us build a recession-ready marketing strategy.
During a recession, consumers tend to fall into the following four categories:
Creating a recession-ready marketing strategy can be based on combining the four categories of consumer psychology with the corresponding product categories. By incorporating these factors, businesses can develop a targeted approach that anticipates and adapts to economic downturns.
In conclusion, Improving the lead generation landing page experience has been a continuous effort in our agency. However, following the event, we will be focusing on landing page optimisations even more as part of our campaign ‘go live’ process, aiming to make the landing page as appealing as possible in order to maximise results for our clients.
We aren’t using PMax for much of our lead generation PPC accounts at present but the insights into creative that helps to scale performance was really useful. Specifically the fact that raw, amateur content can actually drive more engagement.
Finally, applying consumer psychology and buying habits into a recession ready marketing strategy was a really interesting topic. We will be looking to incorporate this into our marketing strategies as we look to tailor our efforts even further to hone in on specific consumers.