Quick Tip Episode – Marketing During COVID-19, Should You Keep Your Ads Running
In the podcast:
00:26 – Episode Overview
01:27 – Case to Case Basis Approach
03:20 – Gyms & Fitness
04:12 – Events & Conferences Industry
05:04 – Restaurants Industry
06:58 – Service Type Businesses
09:19 – Audit Your Ad Campaigns
Episode Overview
Welcome back to another episode of Teach Traffic. I’m your host, Ilana Wechsler. And in today’s episode, it’s a little bit of an unfortunate topic, but we’re going to be talking about what you should do with your paid traffic campaigns during this current crisis of COVID-19 or the pandemic and I am currently recording this on March 23.
So if you’re listening to this somewhat around the time of this recording, then you’re probably like me going through the throes of uncertainty and a lot of fear and confusion in the market.
And I just thought I would record this episode to talk through some things that might be going on through your head as a business owner or somebody working in the online advertising space in regard to what you should do with your campaigns that are possibly currently running.
Case to Case Basis Approach
Now, the answer is, is complicated, I think and it obviously is on a very individual and case by case basis. And what I’m going to talk about in this episode is is very much my opinion.
And it’s because it’s so individual to give, you know, to advise people with the right answer because it’s so specific to their situation. So if you’re in Australia, and if you’re in a country like me where we are currently in lockdown and working from home, then you find yourself situation, which might be different.
And therefore there are a few things that you need to be aware of. And obviously, with these lockdown laws that have been in place necessarily to stop the spread of this terrible virus, they’ve been a number of industries, which have obviously been hit really hard.
And if you’re in, you know, the travel or tourism industry, if you’re, you know, run events and conferences, and you’ve got a gym, for example, and all those obvious businesses, then yes, I feel your pain and these are very uncertain times.
And in times of change, then they are possible opportunities to explore to pivot slightly. So since this situation is going to be around for a little while, and especially if we observe what’s happening in Europe, they’ve been in lockdown for some time and it looks like it is unlikely to change anytime soon, I believe we are looking at a period of let’s say at least people working from home and being home a lot more.
In my opinion, it’s just my opinion, it will be, I think, for at least a couple of months. And so, therefore, as I said, it’s might be a possibility and an opportunity to pivot somewhat.
Gyms & Fitness
So for example, if you’re a gym, I know there are a couple of yoga studios where I am in Sydney, Australia, which are offering yoga classes online, which is an amazing initiative.
And a friend of mine actually has been doing them and she’s been loving them in her living room. Yes, she doesn’t get the added benefit of being able to get adjusted with her particular pose by her yoga teacher.
But she’s still able to get instruction from her favorite yoga teacher that she religiously goes to, and it’s the same for gyms really. So this might be an opportunity to offer some kind of online gym session.
And it’s really relevant for people right now that they are, you know, keeping active whilst at home. So this is potentially an area of opportunity.
Events & Conferences Industry
Events and conferences are another industry, which is not really happening in its current form right now.
But possibly people might explore ways to transfer that dissemination of information online. And they’ve been virtual summit’s been going on for many, many years already. So this is not new. And people still want to consume this information.
I mean, you’re listening to this podcast, right? People still want to and need to consume information. And in fact, it actually got a lot more time now to consume information.
So if you have a way of converting that event and conference and getting that particular speaker to talk online, and they can still consume that in their own time or even live and be able to ask questions, then there’s no reason why that can’t happen in this current day and age.
Restaurant Industry
Another obvious consequence of these restaurants for example, in the cart note, they can no longer go to restaurants, but many restaurants are delivering a takeaway.
And obviously, you might find that you start doing a very, very small campaign advertising the fact that you are doing that delivery, showcasing the meals that you can deliver to people in the suburbs.
I know. I’ve also seen some restaurants, advertised a voucher, actually, that can be redeemed when they do but opened back up in let’s say, you know, June maybe which is scary to think.
And it’s some kind of offer, which if I reduce, by this offer, now I can redeem at a later date. And I think that’s actually been really clever of some restaurants to do this.
I’ve also seen butchers offering a standard package of meat for families, I have a bit of a large family that likes to eat. So that was, I saw that advertised on Facebook and I actually bought it and they showed the suburbs that they delivered to I rang up in the morning, and they’re delivering it in that same afternoon, which is an amazing service.
So it’s all about thinking somewhat differently and thinking outside the box, a little if you are in those types of businesses, and obviously, there are businesses in which you cannot do that.
And it’s just unfortunate and completely unforeseen, that something like this would happen, but it will pass and life will resume in in some form and I’m sure a different form, once we do make it out of this crisis that we are all in together as part of being part of the world.
Service Type Businesses
A couple of things, so many sorts of service. Type businesses have now obviously moved to working from home.
So a couple of things I want to highlight to you is to make sure that you are redirected your phone number to your mobile device or your home landline, if you’ve got one, and make sure that someone is that has been redirected.
And if it has not, then if you are running, have that phone number, which is not being redirected in your ads, then definitely lookout for changes that might be an opportunity to try what’s called coal only ads in your campaign so that people aren’t even going to your website.
They’re just clicking on that call button to get in touch with you. And maybe it’s a time for doing this. I have a couple of dental clients for example, and we are running campaigns like they are still open they are considered emergency services and so we’re really kind of focusing on emergency type work because people are not really going to get their teeth cleaned right now, as you can, it’s not really a high priority for people at the moment are for that thing is, generally speaking, that lots of people are stopping their advertising, which poses an opportunity, I believe, because the cost per clicks has decreased.
And it all works by how much competition there is. So with less competition means cheaper traffic, generally speaking. So this might be a real opportunity for your business.
If it does make sense for you to advertise. Online, maybe you sell products online, maybe you sell information online, people are going to have definitely more time on their hands to learn something that they’ve always wanted to learn maybe some guitar lessons or something.
So if you sell that kind of information, then I think it’s actually an amazing opportunity for your kind of business.
To people will have more time, they don’t have the excuse of not be able to fit in their lives. And also there is cheaper traffic as well.
So this might be the silver lining of the cloud that’s definitely hanging over us and every single person in this world.
Audit Your Ad Campaigns
So one last parting thought I would also like to say that this now might also be an opportunity to really take a good hard look at your campaigns and audit your accounts, to find areas of wasted ad spend.
Doing an audit is something which I know many people don’t enjoy doing. They don’t even like the process of you know, really going into the weeds of their account, which I understand.
And I look in my experience, I’ve audited hundreds if not thousands of Google and Facebook ad accounts and we always find areas of wasted ad spend. An example might be in your retargeting In campaigns, you’re spending money inadvertently on mobile apps, you definitely want to make sure you’re excluding mobile apps, especially now, as more and more kids are home from school and are on their mobile devices.
You want to reduce the chance of those inadvertent mobile clicks on the apps. You want to make sure you’re always cleaning up your negative keywords and continuously trawling through your search term reports to see for any additional negative keywords to add any excluding any placements that your retargeting campaigns might be showing.
We actually provide a whole bunch of negative placements that you can copy and paste into your account for free you can just go to TeachTraffic.com/exclude and you can download that for free just copy and paste it into your account.
Because really now’s the time to be. I believe focusing on campus panes that are working and identifying campaigns that are not working and turning them off and really just focusing on what is working.
I’m not sure if you realize but in TeachTraffic.com, I do free account audits for people. They are called “Peer Over My Shoulder” sessions, where I do a screen share going through people’s ad accounts, showing them what they’ve done wrong and what they’ve done well and what to do. But really, you absolutely can do this yourself.
And it’s, it’s definitely a worthwhile exercise in doing I’d also suggest people to really hone in on their retargeting campaigns right now across the board.
That is low hanging fruit for your business. So now’s the time to maybe possibly revisit those, the ad copy or the offer that you’re running for retargeting, maybe you make it sort of relevant to today’s environment and really focus on converting those retargeting audiences now because that is the cheapest traffic that you will possibly find as well.
So that’s all for now in this particular episode of what to do with your paid traffic campaigns in this current environment.
I hope you’re doing well. Please stay safe. Please look after yourselves and your family. And if you need any more information or resources on this episode, you can check out TeachTraffic.com and by all means, if you’ve got a question, feel free to email me I’d be happy to help you.
My email address is ilana@greenarrowdigital.com and in times like this, I would gladly assist. Hope you will and take care.