Are You Paying For Consumers Who Go To Competitors’ Web Sites?

Right now, this minute, you could be spending on catalog and/or postal mail drops, DRTV commercials, print ads or any number of advertising tactics, and you could be losing potential customers to competitors on your dollar. Surely this is not something you want to hear, but it’s something you need to address.

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This phenomenon happens every single day. It happens because consumers see your catalog, ad, infomercial or direct mail piece and go to Google or Bing and type in keywords, product names or your company name. They then get a page of results that may or may not include your search ad but almost definitely will include your competitors. If their copy is more enticing, the consumer that you drove to that page via your ad may click over to a competitors’ site. This can occur for a number of reasons:

• You’re not doing paid search at all, not a good idea for most direct marketers.
• You’re doing minimal search, giving the competition plenty of fertile hunting ground.
• You’re doing a good amount of search, but there are holes that the competition can slip through:
  • You’re not live 24/7
  • You’re not bidding on all keywords that are featured in your ads
  • You’re not bidding on all products featured in your catalog, ad or direct mail piece

The first step in determining if you’re sending consumers to the competition is to take out your catalog, direct mail piece, print ad or DRTV script. Circle words that pop out at you as those that you think consumers might search on. Circle product names as well. Circle at least 10-20 words and phrases.

Go to your favorite search engine and search on each circled word. Carefully look at what comes up on the search results page, and ask yourself these key questions:

• Are you present on each search term?
  • If not, that’s a starting point. Have your search team or agency compile a list of missing keywords based on your offline materials and get them into rotation. This is particularly important prior to your catalog or mail drop, DRTV launch or print ad running.
• Is your search copy better than your competitors copy?
  • To answer this question, we often use an example to provide the answer. The objective is to ENcourage consumers to click on your ad but DIScourage all but those likely to convert. Example: suppose you own a high-end online store selling $1,000 men’s suits at 50% off, with free shipping and plenty of styles, sizes and colors. A typical ad might read: Big selection of men’s suits. 50% off. Free shipping. Hundreds of styles, colors and sizes. This ad copy would generate a lot of clicks but a very low conversion rate, since most people can’t afford $1,000 suits, even if they are discounted by 50%. A better alternative: Luxurious, designer imported men’s suits. 50% off. Free shipping. Hundreds of styles, colors and sizes. Running this copy would result in far fewer clicks, but most of them would be qualified and therefore likely to convert.
• Does your search copy have a strong call-to-action (CTA) in it?
  • Strong CTAs include:
    • A deadline (make sure to remove it from your ads after the date has passed)
    • Using wording like “exclusive online offer” is a strong CTA component.
    • Instead of “click here” use “click” as part of the CTA: “click for exclusive online offer” (the word “here” is a wasted word, which is important when writing search copy.

Keep track of the results. Repeat this exercise several times during the day, evening and early morning. Compile the results and determine what percentage of all search opportunities (total searches you did across all keywords and times) you are present on with strong copy.

If it’s not 100%, there’s about a 100% chance you’re spending money to get consumers to search on your product but they are winding up elsewhere.

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