What are the digital strategies we should be adopting during the Coronavirus crisis?
Dear ad publishers, many of you have been asking yourselves whether you should be cutting your ad budgets and what digital techniques you can deploy to maintain your business. We’ve identified the following opportunities that could help you take on the Covid-19 crisis:
1. If you are an e-merchant still able to deliver to your customers and have some stock: start by analysing your most popular products at this time and then create specific campaigns. On Google Ads, bid on the names or the categories of your best sellers. Or on Facebook, showcase the products, for example, in a carrousel.
2. If you haven’t launched your Google Shopping campaign yet, don’t wait any longer! This type of campaign is generally very successful both in terms of sales generated and return on investment. To get going, open a Google Merchant Center account and create a product feed. A new feature has just been launched to make this easier: you can now create a feed without going through your webmaster or other technical solutions. The functionality lets you manually add your products one by one on the Merchant Center interface by filling in all the required fields.
3. Focus on highlighting products that your customers might be needing during this period:
- essential items, like food or bathroom products
- products that can’t be bought in brick and mortar stores, like computer accessories, animal feed or baby furniture and accessories
4. It is highly likely that your competitors will be reducing their media budget or even totally cancelling their campaigns. This will, therefore, result in a drop in competition and therefore the average CPC. If you can maintain your campaigns, do, as this represents a real opportunity to acquire new customers at a lower cost.
5. Had you previously tested Search, Display and even Facebook campaigns, but found the performance wasn’t up to scratch? This could be the time to launch them again and put them to the test. In fact, everything is leading us to think that users interested in this or that product today will buy it in the coming days. We think that the time before making a purchase will be shorter in this extraordinary time. What’s more, while in normal times, most users ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline), there is currently no other option but to order online. Therefore, audiences on the Google market (inMarket) are far more inclined to place their order in a much quicker timeframe. Test your audiences and test different types of campaigns.
6. Expect to see a significant variation in your conversion rates, whether that be positive or negative. If this happens, you can create a seasonality adjustment in Google Ads. This advanced tool lets you optimise bids on your campaigns using smart bidding strategies. It works particularly well in the short term: one to seven days.
7. If you have no other choice but to reduce the number of your campaigns or put them on hold, seize the opportunity to focus on your natural referencing (SEO). Optimise your site on the technical and semantic level and create new content. Have you thought about the problems your audience are facing during this period of isolation? How your products, your services could help them during this trying time? Share positive content, tips, to do lists, advice and bits of fun!
8. Offer your services in a different way: think, for instance, about putting a delivery system in place or organising online training.
9. Keep your customers and prospects updated on how your situation evolves. Grab users’ attention on your social networks and invite them to follow your pages. This is the perfect time to strengthen your connection with your followers. Though distance doesn’t allow you to have a physical connection, social networks enable you to stay in touch. Think about using videos and live content to make you seem closer.
10. Show your solidarity by making a commercial gesture or offering your services free of charge. Be inspired by Canal+ which decided to help French people in self-isolation by offering access to their channels free of charge.
Suisseo is here to offer you the support you need during this difficult period. Get in touch if you have any requests and if you need any help regarding your strategy or operations.