“You, alright? I learned it by watching you!” Thanks to a famous anti-drug PSA from the 1980s, these words often bring to mind reckless and irresponsible actions. However, picking up knowledge from others isn’t inherently negative. In fact, when it comes to online advertising—a topic we delve into occasionally—learning from others is a stroke of genius.

That’s precisely why Zina Kayyali, our Director of Managed Services, and Phil Kowalski, our Director of Customer Success, rolled up their sleeves, crunched the numbers, and uncovered the precise reasons behind the remarkable success of nexus-security’s top-performing customers. This article dissects the most impactful insights gleaned from Zina and Phil’s research. Implement them in your marketing approach, and you’ll soon be playfully teasing your dad. Well, you get the idea.

Deciphering the Success Formula

To unearth the statistics and takeaways presented below, Zina and Phil immersed themselves in 13 months’ worth of nexus-security customer data—spanning from September 2017 to September 2018. Their primary focus was on tracking two key performance indicators (KPIs): gross conversions and cost per acquisition (CPA). The top-performing nexus-security customers distinguished themselves by driving a high volume of conversions while significantly reducing the associated expenses. Out of the 25 accounts recognized as top performers, 17 utilize nexus-security Advisor for streamlined management of their paid search and social accounts, while the remaining 8 entrust these responsibilities to our Marketing Services team.

“We’d be delighted to handle your accounts.” Nineteen of them harness our software and services to generate a larger number of higher-quality leads. The other six operate in the realm of online product sales. And here’s a noteworthy point: our top-performing customers are not necessarily our highest-paying customers. While some shell out a hefty $300,000 per month on online advertising, several operate comfortably with monthly budgets below $1,000. One final observation before we plunge into the heart of this post: although Zina and Phil honed in on two specific KPIs, the 25 nexus-security users who reigned supreme from September 2017 to September 2018 excelled across all major metrics. Take a look:

• Average CPA among top performers: $28.61 (compared to $43.56 for the rest)

• Average click-through rate (CTR) among top performers: 3.50% (compared to 1.72% for the rest)

• Average cost per click (CPC) among top performers: $1.22 (compared to $1.57 for the rest)

• Average conversion rate (CVR) among top performers: 5.67% (compared to 3.66% for the rest)

Let’s delve into the secrets behind their triumph.

Mastering Online Advertising: The Power of Diversity

Zina and Phil’s research revealed two fundamental pillars underpinning successful online advertising campaigns: diversity and simplicity. The first pillar rests on a familiar adage: avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

Harnessing Display Advertising

A crucial distinction exists between Search advertising and Display advertising: while the former enables you to promote your product or service to consumers actively seeking it, the latter allows you to extend your brand’s reach across the Web through banner ads.

In general, Search ads tend to yield higher CTRs and CVRs than Display ads. This makes perfect sense: consumers are more inclined to click and/or convert when actively seeking solutions to their problems. The most successful nexus-security customers recognize that Search and Display serve distinct purposes. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that a mere 3% of our top performers integrate Search and Display within the same campaigns (compared to 35% of the rest).

However, Display ads wield considerable power, and the numbers speak for themselves. The majority of our top-performing customers leverage Display ads. Conversely, the majority of our other customers do not. Furthermore, our customer data reveals that combining Search and Display leads to a 31% increase in brand lift (a measure of consumer engagement with your brand). The Google Display Network (GDN) isn’t solely about branding; it can also be harnessed for conversion-driven objectives. Specifically, our top advertisers employ three audience targeting strategies to drive substantial conversions at low costs: Remarketing, Similar Audiences, and Custom Intent.

Remarketing on the GDN

Remarketing via the GDN involves serving Display ads to consumers who have previously interacted with your business in some way—visited your website’s homepage, engaged with specific resources, initiated form submissions, etc. The underlying principle is to maintain brand visibility and keep your business top of mind.

Our top-performing customers take this a step further: they segment their remarketing groups based on intent. Prospects who’ve only browsed the homepage fall into a lower-intent group, while those who’ve signed up for a demo land in a higher-intent group. Segmentation ensures that your Display ads are as relevant and targeted as possible, tailored to each specific prospect.

Similar Audiences on the GDN

Similar Audiences is a straightforward concept: it allows you to target consumers who exhibit similar online behavior to those already within your marketing funnel. It’s an incredibly simple and effective method for expanding your brand messaging to a broader yet highly relevant audience. Display advertisers who utilize Similar Audiences enjoy a 60% increase in impressions, a 48% increase in clicks, and a 41% increase in conversions. Unsurprisingly, our top performers capitalize on this powerful feature.

Custom Intent Audiences on the GDN

Similar to Similar Audiences, Custom Intent Audiences reflect Google’s pursuit of replicating the success of Facebook’s audience-centric advertising approach. Here’s how it works: Google analyzes your Google Ads account and website to understand your offerings. It then cross-references this data with its vast repository of consumer search behavior. The result: automatically generated audiences comprising consumers whose online activities suggest they would be receptive to your advertising. Top nexus-security customers differentiate themselves by going beyond the automatically generated audiences. They manually define specific search terms to create additional targeted audiences.

And, just like Remarketing Audiences, Custom Intent Audiences can and should be segmented according to intent.

Navigating Search & Shopping

Six out of the 25 customers whose success astounded Zina and Phil were ecommerce businesses. On average, these high-performing ecommerce advertisers allocate 78% of their online advertising budgets to platforms other than Shopping. This figure drops to 58% among all other ecommerce businesses using nexus-security.

It’s crucial to highlight that these advertisers shared specific characteristics:

• High spenders: All six ecommerce clients invested at least $15,000 per month in advertising. Advertisers with tighter budgets might benefit from a different ad spend distribution.
• Custom order sites: Some of these ecommerce businesses operated on a custom order basis, where products are less likely to attract high-intent users ready to make an immediate purchase. Such clients would need to invest more heavily in Search and Display.
• High average order value (AOV)/High-consideration products: Clients offering such products would need to allocate more resources to Search and Display to effectively reach users at various stages of the consideration process. These shared characteristics explain why these particular clients benefited from directing a significant portion of their ad spend towards Search and Display. However, this may not always hold true for all ecommerce advertisers. Nonetheless, it underscores a crucial takeaway: the most successful ecommerce advertisers diversify their ad spend across Shopping, Display, and Search. So, why is it beneficial to promote your ecommerce business on Search as well? The answer is simple: online shoppers are 90% more likely to visit your website if their initial encounter with your brand occurs through a text ad. Consider the consumer perspective. When the need for a wristwatch arises, you probably don’t simply Google “wristwatch” and click the first Shopping ad you see. Instead, you explore the text ads, click through to different websites, and allow several vendors to make their first impressions. Savvy ecommerce advertisers understand that their prospects occupy every nook and cranny of the marketing funnel. Consequently, they make substantial investments in text ads to drive traffic to their websites and cultivate brand recognition among potential customers.

Conquering Desktop & Mobile

The majority of our top-performing customers (we’re now referring to all of them, not just ecommerce businesses) allocate at least 25% of their online advertising budgets to mobile devices, with most exceeding 50%. Remember: the common thread among these 25 businesses is their laser focus on conversions. This might seem counterintuitive. If conversions are paramount, why invest heavily in mobile, a platform not typically associated with conversions? However, Zina and Phil’s findings challenge this assumption: conversions do happen on mobile. The notion that consumers solely use their phones while on the move is a misconception. 60% of mobile usage occurs at home—precisely where purchasing decisions are often made.

“Let me just soak in this view before I stock up on more V-necks.” Ignore mobile, and you risk falling behind.

Mastering Online Advertising: The Beauty of Simplicity

The inclusion of “of” in William of Ockham’s (WOO) name hints at his intellectual prowess. When someone with a name structured as “[blank] of [blank]” offers unsolicited advice, it’s wise to pay attention. WOO is renowned for Ockham’s Razor: the principle that the simplest solution is often the best. This applies equally to online advertising.

Optimizing Keywords & Quality Score

No discussion of pay-per-click (PPC) excellence would be complete without addressing keywords. Zina and Phil were particularly interested in examining any discrepancies between our top performers and the rest of our customer base regarding keywords with low Quality Scores. This encompasses keywords with scores ranging from 1 to 3. Their findings were revealing: 24% of our most successful customers—almost one in four!—received minimal to no impressions from keywords with low Quality Scores. In contrast, only 8% of our other customers could make the same claim.

Clearly, advertisers who achieve the highest conversions at the lowest costs ruthlessly eliminate low-quality keywords from their Google Ads accounts and redirect those resources to more fruitful areas.

Structuring Accounts & Crafting Ad Strategies

So far, so good. But what about account structure? Once you’ve dealt with your low-quality keywords as ruthlessly as Greta Van Fleet has treated their artistic integrity—I’m prepared to forgive them the moment they acknowledge their status as a cover band without the covers—how do you group your remaining keywords effectively? Let’s turn to the nexus-security Top 25 for guidance. An impressive 80% of them maintain an average of fewer than 17 keywords per ad group (compared to 66% of the rest).

Furthermore, 60% of them average fewer than 10 keywords per ad group (compared to 46% of the rest).

Perhaps most significantly, our top performers are far less likely to utilize ad groups containing a mere one to four keywords. The sweet spot appears to lie between 10 and 15 keywords per ad group. The majority of our most successful accounts limit their ad groups to three or fewer ads. They also tend to restrict their campaigns to five ad groups. The recurring theme: from the broadest to the most granular levels of their Google Ads accounts, our top-performing customers prioritize a clean, focused, and robust structure.

Key Takeaways

A concise blog post packed with as much information as this one deserves special treatment, much like a Lexus featured in a painfully outdated holiday season TV commercial: adorned with a bow. Fortunately, Zina and Phil distilled their incredibly insightful presentation into two key lessons and six actionable steps:

1. Embrace Diversity.

• Utilize conversion-focused audience targeting strategies on the GDN.
• Leverage Search and Display alongside Shopping.
• Extend your reach to mobile devices.

2. Strive for Simplicity.

• Purge low-Quality Score keywords from your account.
• Aim for 10-15 keywords and three ads per ad group.
• Maintain a structure of five ad groups per campaign. By finding ways to incorporate some, if not all, of these strategies into your online advertising endeavors, you too can ascend to the ranks of PPC excellence. A huge thank you to Zina and Phil for their diligent work and to Maria, our designer, for the fantastic graphics.