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Customer Journey Mapping for PPC Campaigns: How to Use It?
September 6, 2022
16 min
Digital advertising is on the list of the most popular marketing tools, the spending on which grows tremendously. In such a way, digital advertising spending reached $521.02 billion worldwide in 2021.
According to the estimation of the Statista Research Department, it is likely to have a boost up to $876 billion by 2026.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the most widely used types of digital ads. However, we have some bad news for companies and marketers – the cost of such advertisements tends to grow. For instance, the Cost-per-click (CPC) increased from $0.52 in 2021 to $0.62 in 2022. That is why the cost of any mistakes may turn out to be very high, and an intuitive PPC campaign is inappropriate.
We have a great solution for you to increase the effectiveness of the PPC campaign. Customer journey mapping is a beneficial methodology, allowing proper planning and implementation of marketing activities at different stages of customers’ interaction with the company.
Firstly, let’s view the meaning and essence of customer journey mapping.
A customer journey map is an illustration on the diagram of a customer’s step-by-step experience with a company.
Even though the customer decision maps may vary for different industries, business sectors, or even companies, the approach usually includes the major stages:
Buyer journey mapping provides marketers with numerous benefits, namely a deeper understanding of customers’ needs, wants, and concerns; predicting consumers’ behavior; as well as influencing their purchase decisions. However, one of the key advantages is the appropriate implementation of various marketing tools that can boost the customer experience and improve the overall efficiency of the marketing strategy.
So, why is customer journey mapping essential during the PPC campaign? When potential different customers google information, all of them are in different stages of their customer’s journey. And it matters!
For example, some of them are only identifying their problems and needs based on existing pains (awareness stage). Others have already passed the consideration step and are about to make a purchase decision. So, can we affect all these customers with the same PPC campaign? Definitely, not! This is exactly the case where digital marketing budgets are not being spent wisely.
Therefore, all potential customers need to be affected by different types of PPC advertisements based on their stage in the customer journey map to reach the highest effectiveness of the campaign.
Customer journey mapping provides an opportunity for marketers to understand the needs, wants, and expectations of customers that are in different purchase stages. As a result, brands can properly motivate their target audience to move to the next step.
Adapting the PPC campaigns to a customer’s journey map allows for determining the major touchpoints of the customer and the company at every stage. The potential customer may need multiple interactions with the firm to make the final purchase decision.
Demonstrating the appropriate advertisement content by the prospects’ stage in their buyer journey allows for minimizing gaps in PPC campaigns as well as budget waste. Thus, the offered tool can decrease the CPC of advertisements implemented.
During the implementation of the PPC campaign using customer journey map marketing, it is essential to consider three levels of the funnel that are also relevant to the stages of the map. Let’s view the aspect of a potential customer’s journey map of an online fragrance store.
The top of the consumer journey funnel refers to the stage of awareness. The target audience is not acquainted with your company. For example, a husband needs to find a birthday present for his wife. At this point, he needs the present, considering various types of gifts, such as perfume, although he does not know the market well, most popular brands, and prices. That is why, at this stage, the main goal of the PPC campaign is brand awareness development. The following PPC tools can be used:
Display advertising is a text, image, or video type of advertisement used for attracting the audience of a website, social media platform or other digital mediums to take a specific action. For this matter, apply keyword contextual targeting. In such a way, a man who is looking for a present will be encouraged to click through to a landing page where plenty of information about the brand, range of fragrances, their characteristics, and prices are presented. As a result, such a method increases the brand awareness of potential customers about your company.
Another tool to be applied in the top funnel is Google Ads. Looking for a birthday present, a male is likely to Google this type of information first, e.g. “best birthday presents”, “best women perfumes”. That is why the adaptation of the keywords range at each stage of the customers’ journey mapping may increase the PPC campaign’s effectiveness significantly.
Social media networks have billions of customers. Depending on the characteristics of your audience, you may launch ads on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest. Social media ads have huge potential for brand awareness growth through PPC promotion.
When the customer is entering the middle funnel, they have already identified their pain and are looking for a solution by comparing alternatives. The customer researches fragrance brands and compares features, feedback, and prices. Your task is to stimulate potential clients with the proper PPC tools and focus their attention on your brand. That is why the PPC ads need to be more specific and targeted.
Google Ads is one of the most widely used tools in the middle of the funnel stage. However, take into account that the keywords need to be more specific compared to those used at the top of the consumer journey funnel, for instance, “Chanel No. 5”, which is a certain aroma of a brand. In such a way, the customers will find your store among those that offer such a product.
Customers become more and more exacting. They often choose a company which is easy to use and simply the fastest to find. For example, those that appear in the Performance Max section in Google.
Performance Max is an updated version of Smart Shopping, which is a very effective tool that automatically pulls product data from a feed to the Shopping ads section designed according to the customers’ inquiry.
Going back to the examples of the fragrance store customer journey map, a potential client is likely to click on the image of Chanel No. 5 with the price below that appears in the top section of Google Search. It’s a comfortable and fast shopping tool to use.
Promodo has already successfully used Smart Shopping working with the UK Hi-Fi & home cinema equipment retailer called Premium Sound. Just look at our results below. Premium Sound appeared in 3 out of 5 top categories of Smart Shopping. Here you can study the case in more detail.
One more PPC tool to consider on the consideration stage of a customer’s journey map is DSA ads. It is a type of search ad that is created automatically based on website sections. The campaigns generate 5.5x more associated conversions than direct ones. This makes a significant advantage in a specific niche.
The bottom of the funnel is relevant to the decision phase of the consumer journey. The customer has already identified the problem, researched for the information, and is only one step from making the purchase decision. Now, your task is to convert the lead to a customer. For this task, various touchpoints can be used, including the website, mobile application, conversations with the sales representative product catalogs, emails about the abandoned cart, etc. At the same time, the most effective PPC tools for the BOFU stage are:
If you implemented the first two stages of the funnel successfully, the customers with high brand awareness are likely to type your brand name in the search bar. This is why you need to include specific search phrases that also include your brand name to your PPC parameters, e.g. “Chanel No 5 perfume in Boots”.
The potential clients on the BOFU stage are likely to add high-intent search terms such as “buy,” “the price of” or specific location. This is why you need to make sure to add such terms to your PPC campaign settings, e.g. “buy Chanel No 5 perfume in London”.
Remarketing is a beneficial component of PPC marketing to be applied to the third stage of customer journey mapping, namely the decision. It can be applied to website visitors, blog readers, or customers with abandoned carts.
Here’s the sample of dynamic remarketing in Google Ads that we used in the case of Premium Sound.
The Customer Journey Map is the basis for your PPC campaign. Study the needs, wants, and peculiarities of your target audience. Predict motivation and challenges that the clients face in the process of their customer journey.
Use the PPC tools at every stage of the consumer journey map. The more touch points you have with the prospects during their journey, the higher chance is turning them into paying customers.
Check the results of the PPC campaign. If one tool does not work well, try another one. There is no single “solution” for all companies and industries. Customer Journey Mapping for PPC Campaigns
Are you considering creating a customer journey map for your PPC campaigns? More information about why you should and how to do it.
Finally, take into account that the development and implementation of the PPC campaign is a complicated process that requires considering hundreds of details. Sometimes, it is better just to ask for help from professionals in the sphere. Pay-Per-Click management is one of Promodo’s key services. Hence, if you want to receive high efficiency of the implemented PPC campaign, ask for consultation from Promodo.
Team Lead of Content for promodo.com
Content marketing manager at Promodo with 7+ years of writing.
When creating valuable business content, I always seek fresh data, interesting facts, the expertise of professionals, and meaningful insights to bring relevant ideas to the audience. I believe that good content can enrich the experience of marketers, empower business owners to make data-driven decisions, and enhance companies in growth.
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