Who said the retail industry is dead?
According to statistics from the British Retail Consortium, physical retail stores increased by more than 4,000 stores in 2017.
For each company, one store was closed and 2.7 companies opened their stores.
While department stores remain the same, super stores thrive.
E-commerce sales in 2017 grew 24.8% compared to the previous year, marking my words that it is booming.
But consumers still flock to local stores. The main reason is when buyers prefer local stores rather than online stores which is the problem of online shopping they face, some of the common problems are listed here :
- They can’t actually check the items.
- Lose power to negotiate a better deal
- Shipping costs
- Logistics (Pending Delivery)
- Enter personal information online
- Difficulties in returning items
And sellers in 2018 cannot ignore one of the biggest trends, which is the increase of ROPO.
Retail Sales in the UK alone reaching a whopping £67.38 billion
Stadista.com
Online research, offline shopping.
This is the habit of bargain hunters and thrifty buyers looking for better deals locally.
The purpose of these marketing campaigns is to promote people to stores and shopping venues so that they can take advantage of local promotions or services.
Google AdWords has launched new innovations that you can incorporate into your ad campaign.
These innovations can help you improve your CTR and make sure your ads are profitable.
Local traffic remains a crucial part of retail you need to make sure you make the most of it as this will be key to save you budget and increase performance.
How to Drive More Local Traffic Through Adwords
Hack 1 – Implement Promotion extension
You don’t have to create complex marketing campaigns to bring more traffic to your store.
Adapting to the needs of mobile users, you can drive more sales.
You can also increase local traffic by implementing promotions in your online campaigns.
The Promotional Ads extension shows your store’s current promotions in your ads.
This will show details of a percentage discount beneath your ad as showcased in the image above and it can also show prices on products in-text ads like in the below image.
You can add additional details to your promotion, such as a promotional code or a minimum order value.
The use of promotional extensions in advertising can increase awareness of your products/services and promotions. You can also choose which device you want to show ads, for example, for mobile users.
The ability to schedule a campaign to a specific time or number of days can result in higher click rates during large foot traffic.
Wordstream reports that its customers see a nearly 10% increase in CTR from the use of the promotional extension.
To add a promotion extension to your AdWords campaign, follow these steps.
First, sign in to your Google AdWords account.
Then follow the steps mentioned in hack #1 to navigate to the ad extension dropdown menu.
This time you must select “Promotion extension”.
Next, you’ll be prompted to set up your promotion.
For this example, I’ll set up a Mother’s Day promotion on flowers.
You will then be prompted to set up a promotion.
For this example, I’m setting up a Mother’s Day promotion in flowers.
Click on “Occasion” and select from the drop-down menu.
You will then be prompted to set up a promotion.
For this example, I’m setting up a Mother’s Day promotion in flowers.
Click on “Occasion” and select from the drop-down menu.
Then enter the promotion details.
You can choose the promotion type, whether it’s a percentage, currency or “maximum _” discount.
Enter the project and URL of your website.
Then select the date you want to run the promotion for.
Under Advanced options, you can choose to target mobile devices only or expand your promotions.
Additionally, you can also optimize your ad store hours and traffic with the largest population for specific times.
Once you save Google will then review your ad. Once confirmed, your ad will be online.
Running AdWords promotions can also improve the relevance and quality score of your ads, by improving your CTR, you will have a better chance to show your promotion to your ideal customers.
Raise awareness about promotions within the store and attract more customers to your store.
Promotional extensions only apply to the new AdWords interface. These new innovations are designed specifically for the new AdWords experience.
Google also provides best practice guides to help you get the most out of the new interface and optimize your ads.
Hack 2 – Click-to-text message extension
Providing instant communication with potential customers is a great way to drive the local traffic.
According to Google data, 65% of consumers consider using messages when scheduling face-to-face appointments.
or search for information about a product or service.
Grand view perspective studies predict an increase in the use of chatbots as the value of the chatbot market is expected to increase to $1.25 billion by 2025.
Innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies will improve the functionality of chatbots.
Click on the message extension (or simply on the message extension) is an additional link included in the ad. This link connects customers with their business via SMS.
Here is an example of an ad in the message extension “Car Dealer”.
If customers want to make an appointment, they can easily click on the link and then be taken to their messaging application to send SMS for the appointment.
Alternatively, if your company receives a large number of phone calls using this method, you can turn that traffic into local traffic by having it schedule an appointment.
Not everyone likes to call, and the ability to text messages, not to give their customers another channel of communication. Let them feel in control.
To create a message extension in a campaign, you must first sign in to your Google AdWords account.
Then follow the above steps to the ad extension dropdown menu and then click on ‘Message Extension’.
Creating a message extension that can be configured with appointments or queries is a simple and effective way to get the right people into your store or business.
Message reporting allow you to record performance information from clicks to message activities.
You can see how often people chat with you after viewing an ad, also known as “chat percentage.”
Wordstream shows a creative way to use message ad extensions as a way to generate leads.
This method uses the message extension to get the lead on the phone instead of answering the question directly.
By showing click extensions to messages for keywords and/or brand words in AdWords campaigns, you’re basically targeting more popular leads.
This type of activity should be aimed at attracting potential customers and allowing them to speak directly on the phone, you can configure the click extension on the message to automatically answer your questions.
Hack 3 – Optimize ads during store open-hours and high-traffic hours
Don’t link your ads to the correct landing page or don’t group the right keywords and ads on the right adgroup are key fundamentals for any Google Adwords account, you want to show your ads to customers you really want to see.
As well as more effective time for these people, for example, in the opening hours of the store or the lunch schedule. This is often called day parting.
Using the ad scheduling feature, you can set the number of days and hours of the week you want to serve ads.
Advertising scheduling is not an exact science. However, by deploying it, you can prevent poor performance of your ads.
Do this with bid adjustments by increasing your ad budget during these specific moments.
Bid adjustments allow you to serve ads all day, but increase as the number of hours set. In addition, there are scripts that help you automate the process.
Here is how it works.
First, you need to create a campaign, and you can also apply the plan.
See this article to create a campaign.
Once you’ve created one, go to the campaign you want to edit.
Then click the Campaign tab.
Then, click on your campaign.
Your next step is to click on the “Ad Schedule” tab.
ou’ll need to focus in on a precise time during the ad week – ”Day,” or even “Hour.”
For this example, I’ll select “Hour.”
Here you can see how many people click on your ad during your business hours. You can also determine whether these patterns match higher volume of traffic times.
Check the patterns to make sure they are consistent.
Once you know when is the best time to serve ads, you can now set your schedule.
Select “Ad schedule” again, and then click “Edit ad schedule”.
You will arrive at the next screen, where you can enter manually when you want to adjust your bid.
You can apply the change to every day or a single number of days by selecting from the drop-down menu.
For this example, I will make adjustments for each business day between 14:00 and 17:00.
You can set bid adjustments for a specific time interval.
You can increase your bid amount when your campaign is showing at its best.
Click the check box to the date and time you want to adjust. Then select the hyphen below the Bid column below.
The best practice is to track the results of your activity.
Take note of the days and hours you receive the most traffic on foot and finally use this information to evaluate whether your campaign requires further bid adjustments.
To Summarize
People love the convenience of online shopping, but they are also attracted to the tactile shopping experience in stores.
Research tells us that 54% of online buyers read reviews online before buying.
Even more interesting, 39% of buyers in stores read reviews online before buying.
Trends also tell sellers and marketing professionals that customers prefer to look at diferent options online prior purchasing in the store.
With this information, it is essential to meet these needs in advertising campaigns.
Adding AdWords campaigns (for example, the physical store address) can build trust among buyers.
Let them know when the promotion starts at no additional cost.
It includes a click-to-message extension so your customers can send text messages directly, and you can eliminate the fear of calling certain customers.
Optimizing your ads to target consumers at a set time of day, or targeting consumers more locally, can have a huge impact on driving local traffic to your store.
When customers search for a nearby product, listing a local inventory ad can show the products available in the store.
Registering customer behavior data and using them in your Adword activity will give your store a big advantage in driving local traffic.
Especially competitors who do not.
Bridge transition from online shopping and navigation to in-store shopping, offering your customers a choice. Let them feel in control of their shopping experience.
