How PPC Ads Can Boost Your Local Sales
If potential customers can’t find you online, it’s as if you don’t exist.
In today’s hyper-competitive market, having a company website just isn’t enough, because search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo give top placement to companies that use paid advertising with them:
- The total number of Google searches exceeds 3 billion per day, according to Internet live stats.
- 72 percent of consumers who search online visit a store within 5 miles, according to WordStream.
- 53 percent of online searchers visit a business within 48 hours of searching, according to ReviewTrackers.
- 50 percent of those using smartphones for local searches made their way to a local store, according to Google Research.
Targeting local audiences with paid advertising — or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) — is a crucial component of Local Marketing Strategy. In fact, your business’ position on SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) plays a major role in earning consumer trust. This is consistent with the way Google interprets local search intent. Yet, getting your Channel Partners to invest in PPC ads can still be a tough sell — especially if your Partners are fiercely independent dealers, retailers, distributors and agents.
A heavy-equipment manufacturer recently faced such a challenge with its Partner network of about 1,000 indirect dealers. To drive leads for their dealers, who also sell competitor products, the Brand partnered with SproutLoud to create a locally relevant, branded PPC program.
PPC campaigns offered the Brand immediate and timely online visibility when their target audience was actively searching for heavy-equipment products. Here’s how it worked:
- The Brand determined basic details, such as budget and timing.
- SproutLoud simplified the entire Paid Search process for the Brand and their Partners by handling bid management, campaign optimization, post-buy performance analysis and reporting.
- Dealers participated in customizing the PPC ads by selecting which Brand products to feature, identifying their local area, and opting into a monthly PPC budget determined by the Brand.
- SproutLoud completed the process by executing the PPC program, which aligned Co-Op Funds with branded keywords, ad copy and landing pages that were customized with each Dealer’s respective local contact information.
SproutLoud’s hyper-localized Dealer PPC campaign hit a Local CTR (Click-Through Rate) of 4.98 percent, which exceeded the Brand’s national CTR by 66 percent. For the Brand, this paid advertising campaign — which involved a combination of branded content and Paid Search — achieved its goal of increasing traffic, leads and sales for Local Dealers.