Struggling to come up with new content for PPC ads?
Not sure what else to add to your landing page to help convince users to convert?
Wondering how to expand your ad targeting in a strategic way?
Your best ideas may just come from the individuals who are most in tune with your product: your customers.
You might even already have this content handy, in the form of surveys, reviews, and other customer feedback.
In this article, you’ll find nine ways to incorporate information from customers into your PPC advertising strategy.
1. Customer Survey Data
If you conduct customer surveys, you can include data from those surveys both within ads and on landing pages. For instance, if you find that 98% of your customers are highly satisfied with your product, that stat is something to be proud of.
Here are specific suggestions for places where you could test highlighting a stat like the one above:
- Search ad headlines.
- Responsive display ad headlines.
- Callout extensions.
- Landing page headers.
- The graphic accompanying a Facebook or LinkedIn post.
In addition, use survey data to identify the benefits customers cited most about your products, as well as pain points they felt were best solved. Incorporate these items into your ad and landing page copy.
For instance, if you see multiple customers raving about the response time of your support team, highlight support capabilities.
If people frequently mention your generous return policy, mention that front-and-center in ads.
2. Customer Reviews
Customer reviews can be a gold mine for grabbing quotes that you can incorporate directly into ads, onto graphics, and within landing pages.
Your brand may have existing reviews on third-party sites such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc. B2B brands might have reviews on sites like Capterra, SoftwareAdvice, or TrustPilot.
Additionally, you might ask customers to provide reviews as part of a check-in and retention process.
However you obtain reviews, spend some time reading through them for mentions that stand out for potentially marketing your brand.
Just as with surveys, pull out the benefit points that people mention the most to include in your ad messaging.
3. Customer Support Logs
Don’t ignore internal sources that may fall outside the marketing department. Support teams are the frontlines talking with customers.
Data from chat and phone support logs can help hint at what those individuals care most about doing with your brand’s products or services.
Listen for both pain points and the areas where people are finding your brand’s solutions the most helpful.
You can highlight the features that people call out, and you can also combat challenge areas in advance by providing basic walkthroughs in the marketing stage on your landing pages.
4. Keyword Research
Learnings from surveys, reviews, and even customer support logs can help guide your keyword research for paid search campaigns.
Be on the lookout for common words, phrases, and features mentioned.
For example, if you’re marketing a project management system, and people frequently cite using the project timeline feature, you could look for keywords such as “How to create a project timeline.”
If you have a page on your site that includes customer reviews, enter that URL into Google Keyword Planner to view recommended keywords based on that content.
While you’ll likely have to weed through queries to determine what is actually relevant, you may identify some additional potential searches to bid in that you wouldn’t pick up elsewhere on your site.
5. Star Ratings
In addition to directly quoting customer reviews, you can also include results from aggregated ratings to highlight third-party credibility.
For instance, if your software platform has a 5-star rating on a major review site, include that rating within display ad graphics.
If possible, cite ratings from multiple sources on your landing pages for added credibility.
Additionally, linking to the original sources for those ratings can help provide extra proof. Some review sites may allow you to directly embed their ratings (sometimes for an added fee).
6. Video Testimonials
Ad platforms are increasingly incorporating more video features, and many brands stand to benefit from testing video ads as part of their arsenal.
According to Databox, 60% of marketers found that video drives more engagement than images in Facebook ads.
Even if you don’t have the budget for high-end motion graphics production, a simple smartphone-recorded testimonial carries the weight of coming from a “real” customer and sometimes can even perform better than a more polished video which may appear more scripted.
In addition, a vertical-format video makes for the perfect placement within Facebook/Instagram Stories, as well as for other social platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok, depending on your audience.
For a focus on lead generation, combine a video testimonial with a lead form on Facebook or LinkedIn to offer users a direct method to enter their contact information.
If you’re targeting a cold audience, you may want to offer a downloadable asset behind the form.
If you’re retargeting people who have been viewing your content already, you could test offering a trial, demo, or quote.
7. Customer Photos
For retailers of physical products, customers may post photos on social media of using those products “in the wild.”
For instance, a backpacking brand might see customers tag them in hiking photos. A home improvement brand might see homeowners sharing photos of completed projects.
You could incorporate these photos (with proper permission from the owner of course) into graphics for social ads, in addition to featuring them on landing pages.
Incorporating a testimonial quote from the same person would help round out an ad to include a highly personal view of your product, as opposed to just your own marketing messaging.
Even if you don’t have a physical product to showcase, including a photo of a person whose testimonial is being quoted can help to add a personal feel and draw attention to an ad.
Faces often perform well in social graphics to “stop the scroll” and get people to take a second look at the offer being presented.
According to a test run by AgoraPulse, Twitter ads with human faces had a 21.55% lower CPC than ads with regular graphics.
8. Customer Counts
If your customer base is large enough for the number to sound impressive in your industry, cite customer volume as part of your messaging.
For instance, try including “300K Customers and Counting” as a headline in an ad.
You could also include a block of text on your landing page that auto-updates to show the current number of customers.
Or, you could cite the number of customers served within a set timeframe. For instance, “250,000 Customers Served Per Year” or “50 New Members Each Day.”
A software platform might focus on promoting the volume of active users.
If you are running regionally targeted ads, you could also cite the number of customers in a particular area. For instance, for a campaign targeting the London metro area, ads could mention “10,000 Customers in London.”
9. Demographic Data
Use your current customer database to get an idea of common characteristics among people who actually are using your products or services.
From age and geography to more granular attributes like job title and industry, you can use these elements as clues to build potential targeting for the future.
In addition, you may identify gaps in your current customer base. For instance, you may be targeting the financial industry and realize you’ve only made in-roads with local banks, but you have the opportunity to start building rapport with credit unions.
Conclusion
In short, if you’re looking for additional ideas for messaging and targeting, your current customer base may be your best source of data.
Take some time digging into what your customers are saying about your brand, what media resources they could give you, and what demographic characteristics can help inform future targeting.
You’ll likely find creative and copy ideas you haven’t previously thought of, along with identifying new keywords and audiences to target.
More resources:
Featured image: Shutterstock/Montri Nipitvittaya
