It’s tempting to want to save media budget by running your paid search advertising during tactical campaign periods only.
However, for almost all advertisers, I recommend taking an ‘Always On’ approach – that is, having your paid search campaign live all year round. Here’s why:
5 Benefits of running ‘Always On’ Paid Search:
1. You gain incremental website traffic, by capturing search volume throughout the year, rather than just during campaign periods
2. You can increase your brand awareness through year-round exposure on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
3. You can often decrease your average Cost-per-click (CPC); a campaign's CPC generally tends to decrease as it gains ‘history’ with Google
4. You'll have more time to conduct ad copy and keyword tests, and capture long-term data which can be used to further optimise your campaigns
5. Another benefit – for seasonal products in particular – is that by advertising during less competitive times of year, it can be possible to achieve a higher ad position and/or pay a lower CPC overall
There are a number of options during tactical campaign periods. Depending on your campaign goals, you could considering altering your ‘Always On’ campaign in the following ways:
• Up-weighting the budgets to increase Impression Share during the campaign period, in order to get maximum exposure; capitalising on your ATL advertising spend
• Replacing existing ad copy (or existing Sitelinks) with campaign messaging
• Adding additional campaign-specific keywords
If budget is an issue, the 'Always On' campaign can always be run on a low weight in between your key tactical periods.
The important thing is that you always have some level of visibility on the SERPs – after all, consumers don’t limit their searches to your key campaign periods! They expect to be able to find relevant information quickly and easily, whenever they decide to search for it.
