In today's competitive landscape, building an effective full-funnel marketing strategy using Google Ads is crucial for ecommerce brands. This strategy not only drives traffic but also converts prospects into paying customers, ensuring long-term growth.
Here, we’ll guide you through setting up both prospecting and remarketing campaigns using Google Ads across various networks: Search, Display, Gmail, YouTube, and Discover.
Why Create a Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy?
A marketing funnel breaks down the customer journey from the awareness stage to the conversion phase. For ecommerce brands, this means guiding a potential customer from first encountering your product to finally making a purchase. The funnel stages are generally:
Awareness: Introducing the brand to potential customers.
Consideration: Encouraging them to explore your product.
Conversion: Getting them to purchase.
Without this structure, you’re essentially targeting a wide, cold audience with the hope that someone will convert. This leads to wasted ad spend and poor return on investment (ROI).
Prospecting vs. Remarketing: The Essentials
Prospecting: Aimed at attracting new customers who are unaware of your brand.
Remarketing: Focused on re-engaging visitors who have shown interest in your brand but haven’t converted yet.
Now, let's dive into how you can set up campaigns for each funnel stage.
Stage 1: Awareness Campaigns (Prospecting)
Campaign Types: Search, Display, YouTube, and Discover
At the top of the funnel, your goal is to drive awareness about your ecommerce brand. Focus on capturing the attention of potential customers across different ad networks. Here’s how:
1. Search Campaigns
Goal: Drive traffic from users searching for relevant keywords.
Keywords: Use broad-match and phrase-match keywords relevant to your product or service.
Targeting: Choose audience targeting based on demographics, interests, and custom-intent audiences.
Example: An Indian apparel ecommerce brand may target search terms like "buy cotton sarees online" or "affordable wedding dresses in India."
2. Display Campaigns
Goal: Show your visual ads on websites and apps in Google’s Display Network.
Targeting: Use affinity audiences (e.g., fashion lovers, shopaholics) or custom intent audiences.
Creative: Use high-quality visuals of your products to attract potential buyers.
Example: You could display ads for your best-selling sarees on fashion blogs or popular Indian lifestyle sites.
3. YouTube Campaigns
Goal: Leverage video content to create brand awareness.
Ad Types: Use TrueView in-stream ads or discovery ads to get your brand in front of new eyes.
Targeting: Interest-based or in-market audiences.
Example: Create a 30-second ad showcasing your top clothing categories and display them to users who frequently watch fashion or shopping-related videos.
4. Discover Campaigns
Goal: Reach audiences across Google's Discover feed, YouTube home, and Gmail.
Targeting: Based on user interests and online behavior.
Example: Show visually appealing ads for your ecommerce store on Google Discover when potential buyers scroll through their mobile feeds.
Stage 2: Consideration Campaigns
Once users are aware of your brand, it’s time to nudge them toward exploring your product offerings. You can use a combination of prospecting and remarketing here.
1. Search Campaigns with Product Listings
Goal: Promote specific products directly in the search results.
Strategy: Run Shopping Ads (via Google Merchant Center) to display your ecommerce products with images and prices.
Example: An Indian ecommerce brand selling footwear can showcase product-specific ads such as "Men's formal shoes ₹1,999."
2. Gmail Ads
Goal: Promote your products directly in the "Promotions" tab of users' Gmail accounts.
Targeting: Leverage custom affinity audiences based on interests, browsing activity, or custom-intent keywords.
Example: Send ads for new arrivals or flash sales to users who have previously shown interest in similar products.
Stage 3: Conversion Campaigns (Remarketing)
This is where your remarketing efforts come into play, targeting those who have interacted with your brand but haven’t yet converted. Google Ads allows you to create highly targeted campaigns for users who abandoned carts, visited your website, or viewed products but didn't make a purchase.
1. Search Remarketing Campaigns (RLSA)
Goal: Serve ads to people who have already visited your site when they search for related products again.
Audience: Use remarketing lists from users who have interacted with your ecommerce site but didn’t convert.
Example: If a user searched for "blue lehenga" but didn't purchase, retarget them with relevant offers the next time they search for something similar.
2. Dynamic Remarketing on Display Network
Goal: Automatically show ads featuring the exact products users viewed on your site.
Strategy: Use dynamic remarketing ads to feature personalized product recommendations.
Example: If someone browsed your collection of sarees but didn’t buy, your ad will feature the same sarees with a special offer.
3. YouTube Remarketing Campaigns
Goal: Re-engage users with TrueView ads who have previously interacted with your website or videos.
Audience: Use video remarketing lists to target users who watched your YouTube videos but didn’t visit the website or convert.
Example: Show a special offer video ad to users who previously engaged with your product videos on YouTube.
4. Gmail Remarketing
Goal: Retarget users who interacted with your Gmail Ads or website.
Audience: Use customer match lists based on previous purchases or site visits.
Example: Send personalized ads with special discount codes to users who opened previous Gmail ads but didn’t purchase.
Step-by-Step Campaign Setup
Audience Segmentation:
Use Google Analytics to segment your audience based on their behavior (new visitors, repeat visitors, cart abandoners, etc.).
Build remarketing lists with a minimum size of 1000 users for Google Ads.
Ad Creative:
Design compelling ad creatives that reflect the stage of the funnel. For prospecting, focus on highlighting brand USPs. For remarketing, focus on specific product benefits, offers, and testimonials.
Budget Allocation:
Spread your budget across the funnel. Allocate more to prospecting campaigns initially and adjust as you build remarketing lists.
Bid Strategy:
Use automated bidding strategies like "Target CPA" for conversion-focused campaigns or "Maximize Clicks" for awareness campaigns.
Ad Testing and Optimization:
Continuously monitor the performance of each campaign, testing different creatives, bid strategies, and audience segments.
Conclusion
A well-structured prospecting and remarketing campaign on Google Ads is essential for an Indian ecommerce brand looking to scale its business.
By implementing a full-funnel strategy, you can effectively attract new customers while ensuring those who’ve already interacted with your brand are nudged toward conversion. Always analyze your campaign performance and tweak your funnel stages to improve ROI and overall success.
Start building your ecommerce funnel today, and see the power of a well-rounded Google Ads strategy in action!
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