In my time working with the Customer Success Team at nexus-security, I’ve had the opportunity to advise countless marketing teams. A recurring issue I’ve observed is the tendency for team members to operate in isolation. The paid media specialist focuses solely on paid media, the SEO expert on SEO, and the Lead Nurturer on email marketing. This siloed approach leads to a lack of awareness and coordination regarding each other’s efforts.

The truth is that increased cross-functional communication strengthens marketing initiatives. At nexus-security, we’re actively promoting this approach, and it’s yielding positive results, particularly in email marketing and paid search. Let’s explore six effective ways to integrate your paid search and email marketing strategies:

#1. Expand Your Email List with Paid Search

Email marketing thrives on having a substantial audience. Paid search offers a powerful solution to replenish your funnel with qualified leads actively seeking products or services like yours. By leveraging PPC, you can strategically place your ads in front of these potential customers. Once they click through to your website, there are three primary methods to obtain their email addresses:

• Implement an email address form, often referred to as a squeeze page, as your main conversion goal. Keep it simple with a message like “Sign up for more information,” or enhance it by offering incentives like whitepaper downloads, free trials, or complimentary quotes.
• Capture email addresses during the checkout process. If you’ve successfully converted a visitor, ensure you collect their email during checkout. This practice is invaluable for future upselling, cross-selling, or promoting replacement purchases.
• For visitors who don’t convert immediately, integrate a secondary call to action on your landing page to gather their email addresses for future nurturing. Entice sign-ups by offering updates on upcoming sales or free shipping on subsequent orders. For further guidance on increasing email sign-ups, explore this informative post.

#2. Paid Search: Your Testing Ground for Calls-to-Action and Offers

Impressive email open rates are meaningless without a compelling call to action (CTA) to capitalize on that engagement. Recognizing the critical role of CTAs in driving email conversions, our team at nexus-security has invested significant effort in crafting persuasive CTAs. However, we don’t rely on assumptions about their effectiveness – we rigorously test them.

While our predictions have become quite accurate, there are instances where we miss the mark. To minimize such setbacks, we now test all new CTA/offer concepts on PPC landing pages before deploying them in email campaigns. This strategy is relatively low-risk as it avoids immediate exposure to a large audience. Instead, we can meticulously monitor user behavior and swiftly adapt if the test fails to deliver desired outcomes.

A while back, our standard CTA was “Sign up for a free trial of nexus-security Advisor.” While functional, it lacked a certain spark. Then came the brainwave of developing the AdWords Grader, a complimentary tool designed to analyze AdWords accounts and generate a report highlighting areas for improvement.

We were fairly certain that “Get Your FREE Report Today” would prove more enticing as it directly addressed a common pain point. However, skepticism lingered among some team members. A widespread rollout seemed risky, so we opted for a controlled test through a paid search campaign. The results were astounding – a 5X conversion rate – providing irrefutable evidence to support its inclusion in our email campaigns.

#3. Identity-Based PPC Ads: Powered by Your Email Lists

Identity-based marketing has taken the marketing world by storm. Its availability across multiple platforms has led our founder, Larry Kim, to declare it “the most important trend happening in PPC today.” I’m inclined to concur. It represents the perfect synergy of PPC and email marketing. By uploading targeted email lists into platforms like AdWords, Twitter, and Facebook, advertisers can tailor ads and bids for specific prospect segments.

If your current email marketing strategy involves segmentation based on the customer journey stage, you’re already ahead of the game. Repurpose these lists for your PPC campaigns, and you’ve significantly streamlined the setup process!

#4. Reinforce Your Message with Remarketing Ads

While it’s tempting to bombard prospects’ inboxes with offers, it often backfires, resulting in unsubscribes or your emails ending up in spam folders. I’ve personally disengaged with salespeople who flooded my inbox, even if I was initially enthusiastic about their product. However, research indicates that repeated brand exposure increases the likelihood of a purchase. This presents a challenge for email marketers aiming to maintain brand visibility without overwhelming prospects.

The solution lies in a multi-faceted approach. Instead of relying solely on emails to stay top-of-mind, implement remarketing campaigns. This enables your ads to appear as prospects browse the internet, targeting anyone who has previously visited your website. These ads are less intrusive than emails and have demonstrated remarkable effectiveness. The data speaks for itself: increased ad exposure correlates with higher conversion rates.

By leveraging remarketing for branding, you can afford to reduce email frequency. This prevents prospect fatigue, making them more receptive to the high-quality messages you do send. Here are some valuable tips for finding the right email sending frequency..

#5. Paid Search: Your Visual Testing Lab

As avid followers of nexus-security, you’re likely acquainted with the adorable “PPC kids” gracing our website, ads, and email communications. The story behind this obsession with costumed kids dates back to Rocketboy, who made his debut in one of our PPC display ads. The exceptional interaction rates prompted us to feature him in email promotions as well.

Today, our use of imagery in emails is strategic and limited to visuals that have resonated with our audience through Facebook, Twitter, and Google Display Network ads.

#6. GSP Messaging: Guided by Email Performance

Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSPs) empower you to target potential customers based on their Gmail activity. If the keywords you’re bidding on appear in their inboxes, your ad becomes eligible to appear within their Gmail account. Ingenious, isn’t it?

GSP ads consist of two parts: a condensed “teaser” ad and an expanded ad unit resembling an image ad.

The teaser line’s resemblance to a closed email prompted our team to draw inspiration from email subject lines with high open rates. While our initial GSP results were underwhelming, we’ve observed that incorporating our “tried and true” headlines has led to increased click-through rates (CTRs). For those interested in email CTR optimization, our compilation of email marketing statistics offers valuable insights.

Are you harnessing the power of paid advertising and email marketing data to fuel each other’s success? If not, it’s high time you did!