10 December 2018
A review of Kiwis’ most popular Google search terms over this Christmas 2018 period – which shows trending searches for
the ‘Spyro video game’, ‘airpods’ and ‘juicers’ – are a timely reminder to retailers to be more specific in their search
terms if they want to do good business online.
CEO of Auckland digital marketing agency Insight Online, Kim Voon, says a review of GoogleTrends in the last 30 days shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were a big
feature for New Zealanders, particularly for electronics, but outdoor equipment and holiday travel advisories were also
right up there.
“So many companies make the mistake of going broad in their keyword search terms in their Google Ads campaigns because
they’re afraid of missing out if they’re too niche.
“The problem is the big companies are spending thousands of dollars on those same broad search terms, so those on a
smaller budget, or those marketing managers that prefer the DIY approach, are losing money and losing out.”
Voon says that a good example might be a shoe retailer who runs a Google Ads campaign based on the keyword ‘shoe’, which
is far too broad because bigger brands will be spending upwards of 10 dollars a click to own the traffic for that term.
“If you don’t understand your niche, you’re going to struggle. An unknown shoe brand going up against somebody like The
Warehouse or Hannah’s means it is highly unlikely your brand will get a lot of cut-through.
“It is really important to understand where your ads will sit and how the advertising will work. Equally important is
making sure your brand is well-known and supporting that awareness with a competitive offer,” Voon says.
Getting your online alignment wrong can also end up costing a company more money for less traffic in the long run.
“If somebody searches for ‘black Doc Martins’, they’ll probably want to see an ad that is talking specifically about
‘black Doc Martins’ and they want to go to a page talking about ‘black Doc Martins’ – there needs to be alignment from
keyword to advert to page.
“If your keywords, ads and landing pages aren’t aligned, your overall relevance score – on a scale of 1 to 10 – will be
negatively impacted. If your relevance score is 10, then you’ll pay up to 40% less for your clicks. If your score is one
– the relevance of the ad is not aligned to the landing page – then you’ll pay 200 -300% more per click,” Voon says.
In other words, relevant, niche keywords like ‘Spyro video game’ work well, but only if the landing page that the
customer clicks through to, is actually all about the ‘Spyro video game.’
“When you consider that about 15 per cent of searchers click on Google Ads, opportunity loss can be fairly significant.
“This is particularly true over the Christmas period when retail search traffic goes nuts for credit and loans, toys,
shoes and holiday destinations,” Voon says.
For more information visit: https://insightonline.co.nz/
Ends.