TrafficSnap Ltd

04/05/2023

It's Tash here! I hope you're doing great.

A few weeks ago, I made the switch to a Whoop band, and let me tell you, it's been a game changer.

I've tried practically every fitness tracker on the market, from Apple Watches to Fitbits, but nothing compares to the data quality and precision that my Whoop provides.

What sets Whoop apart is not only the breadth of data but also its impressively precise tracking.

It can monitor over 40 different behaviours.

Including whether or not you shared your bed – a bit spooky, right?

The impact this small device has on my fitness goals and decision-making is simply incredible.

I've always believed that what gets tracked gets improved, and that philosophy applies to PPC campaigns as well.

Many potential clients come to me desperate for MORE leads.

But here's the catch

They're not tracking their numbers.

At best, they receive a fancy end-of-month report, but that's about it.

Just as my Whoop band helps me make informed decisions about my health, tracking conversions is essential for optimising campaigns and generating more leads.

In my latest video, I dive deep into the importance of tracking and share valuable insights to help you achieve the kind of visibility that my Whoop band offers me.

I should mention that this video is a tad longer than usual, but trust me, there's a good reason for it, and you won't want to miss out.

So, whether you're a fellow Whoop user or just curious about the power of tracking, grab your favourite cup of coffee and enjoy the video.

https://trafficsnap.co.uk/need-more-leads/

Enjoy =)

Tash

23/09/2022

Autumn’s a big deal to me.

Cosy evenings are spent in front of the fire, the old favourite chunky knits re-emerge from the wardrobe, and my beloved Pumpkin Spice Latte is back in Starbucks.

I love it – which is why I felt extra irritated this morning when I spotted some mince pies in Sainsbury’s.

Not just a few packs either – an entire SECTION!

You see while I want to enjoy my favourite season before even thinking about Christmas, all the evidence suggests I’m in the minority.

Google’s research team ran a survey as long ago as May and found that 17% of consumers had already done some Christmas shopping (!!!) and more than a third had thought about what they’re going to buy their friends and family this year.

And as my lovely Autumn nights pass and we get closer to December, a lot more money is going to change hands as people look for gifts online.

So if you’re running Google Ads, make sure you’re checking in on your Insights page. In there, you can keep tabs on upcoming seasonal trends that might mean you adjust your budget and bidding strategy to grab your piece of that growing demand.

The Performance Planner will help you understand how potential changes to your ad spend might impact your clicks and conversions too.

If you haven’t already planned your PPC for the next few months, now’s the time to take a leaf out of Sainsbury’s book and get started – and if you want a hand adjusting your campaigns for Christmas, let me know.

Now I’m off to get yet another pumpkin spiced latte!

Natasha

P.S. You can read more about those stats and get Christmas Adwords tips here - https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/turn-curiosity-into-customers/

04/08/2022

During the heatwave in July, things looked very different to normal.

No exercise.

No walking the dog.

No trying to tire out my 2-year-old with endless recitals of di**le dangle scarecrow.

(LOTS of sitting around eating tip tops though.)

When temperatures are that hot, everyone slows down.

People want to do as little as they can – and if something looks like it’ll take too much time or energy, it’s probably not going to happen.

Ease of use isn’t just crucial during a heat wave though – it’s also paramount to converting prospects into customers through your website.

You and your competition might offer the exact same product, but if it’s easier to buy one than the other, you know who’ll be making more sales.

It’s one thing to use PPC to get someone onto your website, but if you don’t make it obvious what they should do next, you could quickly waste the money and effort you’ve spent.

Don’t overload them with too much information that’ll prevent them hitting “add to cart” or ask for more details than you really need to get them onto your contact list.

If you want to tighten your funnel and see fewer leaks long the way, you need to understand your target customer, identify where they’re at and create a simple journey that’s easy for them to navigate.

If you’d like an expert eye identifying the areas where you can reduce friction to convert more prospects into customers, get in touch.

Tash

27/07/2022

⭐️ A Google Ads quick win to share here. ⭐️

A new change by Google has left PPC users’ ads getting lost in translation.

Your new default language settings mean that Googlers who’ve moved to the UK from abroad might miss your ads, even if they’re searching for your exact keywords within your geographical area.

It’s the same problem for both existing and new campaigns, so I’ve been on the blower to Google to find out how to solve it.

Thankfully, the answer’s simple, so I’ve recorded this quick video to show you how you can make sure your ads are displaying to as many people who match your criteria as possible.

TrafficSnap offer a range of Pay Per Click advertising services from our team of Paid Traffic Specialists.

28/04/2022

Have you ever had an ad really fail to perform?

Times have changed and these days it seems to take longer to get a new account or campaign live and kicking. A couple of times recently we’ve got to day three on a new campaign without a single click or impression…

That’s when I get out my deerstalker hat and whip on my eyeglass.

There are tons of things that could stop ads from performing, from something as simple as accidentally having the campaign set to “paused” or scheduled to only show overnight, to issues that are more challenging to solve, like needing to change the copy because it doesn’t adhere to Google’s ad text policy.

Sometimes, the keywords are the problem.

If any of them relate to something on Google’s naughty list, the campaign won’t get permission to lift off. And if you’ve used negative keywords, it’s always worth checking you haven’t accidentally nullified your keywords at the same time.

Search volume makes a difference too.

We look at the search volume for all of our keywords and if any are looking a little low, we’ll use Google’s Keyword Planner to find related keywords with higher search volume.

Another thing that’s worth checking is that your keyword bids aren’t too high for your daily budget. If your max cost-per-click is set to £5 but your daily budget’s only a tenner, Google won’t show your ads.

Like I said, there are loads of things that can impact the performance of your campaign, but it’s not always obvious where the problem lies.

If you’ve set a campaign live recently, but you’re yet to get any clicks or impressions, have a look at the issues I’ve just mentioned - or allow me to give it an in depth health check for you.

Tash

13/04/2022

Loads of things seemed to double in popularity when the pandemic began.

Grow your own vegetable kits…
Garden buildings for home working…
Banana bread and loo roll…

But most importantly, Bing’s become more widespread too – and it could be really important news for your business.

Microsoft’s answer to Google now has twice the global market share that it had pre-pandemic, at 2.47%, which equates to rather a lot in a market dominated by Google!

More than 1 billion visits every month, in fact, making it the second most used search engine worldwide.

Now you might think it’s all just office workers who’ve never changed their default browser who are making up those statistics.

But there’s actually a completely different demographic out there, who make a very big, very accessible and very good pay per click audience for the right product or service:

Gamers.

Searches done on Xbox use Bing by default, which explains why the Microsoft search engine holds an impressive 27.6% worldwide share in the console search market now.

So, if you’ve dismissed Bing for pay per click because you think its users aren’t right for your product or service, it could be worth reassessing.

Get in touch if you’d like an honest chat about whether Microsoft Ads would be a good option for your product or service.

Tash

05/04/2022

My little boy’s turning two soon and there’s not much he loves more than pressing a button and seeing what happens.

Doorbells, light switches, TV remotes – he’s a real expert.

But I’m pretty certain he doesn’t actually understand the mechanisms that are making things happen each time, and I certainly don’t think he realises how to get the most out of the remote either!

A lot of Google Ads users have a similar experience on a much bigger scale, and it’s hardly surprising – Ads are a complex, layered beast.

If you’ve ever struggled with them in the past, I hear you.

…Which is why I’ve cut out a couple of minutes from a podcast I recently recorded, all about how complicated Ads can be, and how to really get the most out of them.

21/03/2022

Over the many years I’ve been using Google Ads, I’ve discovered a BIG problem – I wonder if you’ve noticed it too?

If you’ve ever used Google Ads to drive brochure or PDF downloads and generate leads, I’ll bet you’ve experienced this.

When Google shows you how many “conversions” you’re getting from your ads in the form of downloads…

…But you have no idea how many of those leads are then converting to sales and actual real life cash in your bank.

It’s one thing using Google Ads to generate leads (and its proven time and time again to be a fantastic tool for just that) - but if you don’t know whether those leads are ever turning into paying customers, you can’t get any real grip on your Ads ROI.

And Google simply won’t show you that data.

Lots of business owners accept this shortcoming and simply get on with the day-to-day, nurturing enquiries, pumping out more ads, making sales but not really knowing if their Ads campaigns had anything to do with it.

We do things differently at TrafficSnap.

Using different software to support our Ads campaigns, we’re able to apply closed loop attribution, which gives us real visibility on every “conversion”.

Sure, if a prospect downloads a brochure because of an ad, we know about it.

But – more importantly – if that prospect hands over some cash later down the line, we know that too, and we’re able to attribute the conversion to the original search query.

Meaning we’re not just learning about keywords that convert to leads, we’re learning about the keywords that drive the sale.

And that’s the only way you can be certain whether your campaigns are working.

Do you already have processes in place to get that same level of clarity on your marketing?

Lots of Google Ads user don’t do this, so if you’d like to talk about how we can help you really understand where your marketing budget’s going, get in touch and say hi!

Tash

10/03/2022

I rarely make mistakes when it comes to ads, but since this one worked out so well, I thought you’d find it an interesting read…

We’ve recently introduced Microsoft Ads to our offering after months of testing.

Our client Jacqueline runs Shields Buildings, selling bespoke timber outdoor buildings in the South West, making her the ideal candidate to advertise on Bing alongside Google.

As you can imagine, her target customer has more years under their belt than your average Googler. In fact, they overlap pretty nicely with the general demographic using Bing:

· More affluent
· Slightly more educated
· Average age of 45

To get started, we imported her Google campaign into Microsoft and pressed go.

And it was only after she’d received several enquiries from OUTSIDE the South West that I realised Microsoft’s geo targeting reverts to the whole of the UK… Oops.

Obviously I was very embarrassed, until Jacqueline revealed most of these enquiries were open to erecting the buildings themselves!

It’s not something she’d explored before, but it meant she suddenly had an opportunity to sell further afield WITHOUT her building team having to travel.

With clear tracking in place and research completed (albeit inadvertently!), we’re now testing more geographic areas, using clear “self-building” language in the ads.

Have you ever considered using Microsoft ads? Get in touch if you’d like to talk about whether it could be right for you.

Tash

P.S. Jacqueline said some really nice stuff about us recently – check it out…

03/03/2022

Every time I need a fresh haircut, I always go to the same place.

Not just because I trust the staff will do another stellar job, but because I know I’m going to get a good chat and some cracking life advice (or beauty tips at least!).

Only this last time I went, it was me giving the advice, because it turned out they didn’t know much about pay per click advertising at all.

We got talking all about my client Ryan, who runs a different sort of salon, specialising in fat freezing and laser hair removal.

Ryan was in the same position as lots of other business owners when we started working together last summer – he’d used Google Ads before so it wasn’t completely new to him, but he didn’t really know if it was working.

His business was doing well, but he didn’t have a clear grasp on whether his pay-per-click campaigns had anything to do with it.

And he certainly didn’t know if he should keep pouring money into Google or look for an alternative means of marketing.

Since coming to TrafficSnap, he’s identified that he definitely SHOULD keep spending his marketing budget on Google Ads, because with some hard work optimising his campaigns…

We’ve driven his CPC down from £1.20 to £1.10 so far
We’ve seen his ROI up over 100% every month (411% in October!)
And we know exactly where each sale is coming from and how much revenue has been made as a result of PPC, thanks to analytics and tracking software

We’ve loved working on Ryan’s campaigns and building on the foundations he’d already put in place, but it’s just as rewarding helping salons and other businesses get results when we’ve started their PPC from scratch.

If you’re in a similar position to Ryan and you’re keen to deliver strong, measurable results from PPC – get in touch and let me know.

Tash

24/02/2022

It’s half term in Birmingham this week which means teachers (and kids!) are getting a bit of much needed R&R.

A break from the mundane…
A chance to refresh…
MAYBE even a lie-in.

A spot of R&R does wonders for teachers, but it’s just as important in business too, especially when you switch out the traditional acronym for two different and very significant words…

Because for business owners, R&R is all about reviews and reputation.

Two key ingredients to building more trust, reaching more people and, ultimately, converting more leads into sales.

According to TrustPilot, 89% of online customers read reviews before making a purchase, and Google say that positive reviews gain you 6.47% more weighting in organic searches.

But they’re really important when it comes to PPC too.

Google’s seller ratings ad extension allows businesses with 100+ recent positive reviews to display them in their Google Ads. And they can also lower your cost per click, raise your ad quality score AND increase your click-through rate.

So the more positive reviews you receive from your existing customers, the more likely you are to attract and convert new leads.

Why not drop your customers an email and ask?

Tash

P.S. Reviews don’t just help boost your rankings and make people more likely to trust you – they make you feel good too! One of our lovely customers John left this review for us this week and it’s given me a buzz to keep pushing on (even if it’s not half term for me!)