This action-based technique will help you increase the targeting of your PPC audience. Discover how to contact your competitors’ clients who are ready to convert.
Want to increase your PPC lead-generating efforts? Consider focusing on the people who are eager to buy from you right now – your competitor’s dissatisfied customers.
This article provides actionable methods for identifying and targeting three main groups through search campaigns:
- Customers are strongly searching to switch suppliers.
- Customers try to cancel services.
- Customers seeking advice or support.
Understanding these prospects’ search intent signals allows you to specifically target the hottest leads ready to convert to your product or service at critical “action” times.
PPC audience targeting to generate leads.
Improving lead generation requires targeting certain groups:
- Individuals in your niche.
- Individuals who are interested in your services or products.
- People who are willing to purchase from you.
To reach these profiles, use a search strategy that focuses on transactional terms related to your products or services. However, this strategy may be competitive and necessitates long-term commitment.
Alternatively, you may target your rivals’ audience. Most marketers are acquainted with brand bidding, which may be an effective method for increasing visibility but comes with several drawbacks.
What is Brand Bidding?
In PPC, brand bidding is similar to putting up a sign next to your competitor’s business hoping to attract their consumers. You bid on your rivals’ names so that when someone looks for them online, your ad appears beside them.
It’s a strategy for capturing the attention of those who are already interested in your competition and maybe converting them to your brand.
A simple campaign can look like this:
You have a competitive campaign. The competitors are divided into ad groups, with each group including a single rival and many keyword alternatives.
With this configuration, you may target individuals who are currently looking for your competition or, depending on the keyword selection, your competitor combined with a service or product. It’s a simple technique to increase impressions and visibility, but there’s no guarantee of results.
Legal duties must also be taken into account. Laws differ by region and advertising jurisdiction, particularly in terms of using rival names or bidding on their keywords. To avoid any misunderstanding, avoid using a competitor’s brand in your marketing. For legal clarity, consult a specialized lawyer.
Beyond legal restrictions, your brand image is a vital consideration. Bidding on a competitor’s terms may generate clicks on your ad, directing consumers to your website.
While some may be genuinely interested in your business, others may be deceived. This might hurt your brand’s reputation, particularly if people are dissatisfied or annoyed by the perceived dishonesty.
Brand bidding can be beneficial, but its disadvantages should not be ignored. In most businesses, brand bidding may be inefficient.
An action-oriented strategy to addressing your competitor’s audience
So, how can you target your competitor’s demographic without visible brand bidding? The solution is action-oriented competition targeting. Instead of merely pursuing a brand, you must associate your competitor’s brand with an activity.
When you target an action or concept, you are addressing people who are ready to make a decision. They’re not just surfing; they’re looking for something specific and are more inclined to accept your offer.
After effectively implementing this method for several years, I can distinguish between three kinds.
- Customers who are dissatisfied and intend to leave.
- Customers who are dissatisfied and seeking assistance.
- Customers seeking an alternative, either because they haven’t made a decision or because they wish to switch.
This method is common among experienced SEOs. For a long time, the SaaS sector used rival comparison landing pages. The concept is nearly the same, and SEO and PPC work in perfect harmony.
Let’s go deeper into the three categories and illustrate them with examples. Let’s say you work in a contract-based sector like phone, cable, or insurance.
These lead generation firms are an excellent example because the industry is always changing. Consumers are almost constantly in need of certain services, yet due to a lot of competition, they are frequently receptive to
1. Targeting those searching rival options and comparisons
You may target those who are looking for alternatives to your brand or are comparing it to others.
With a simple framework, we may target customers searching for an alternative to Competitors 1 and 2. Those folks most likely scoured the market. They are actively exploring other services or providers, or they are presently under contract with a rival and want to prepare to depart and transfer contracts.
These campaigns can be effectively provided you provide a competitive offer and your items are comparable enough to compare. Assume your product is not a substitute for a competitor’s product, but rather a comparable one. In that situation, it might be a little more difficult because those folks generally
To keep it simple, it should work if your product is almost a 1:1 equivalent.
Let’s consider a second case. Think about the streaming business. Let’s imagine someone is now subscribed to Netflix and wants to switch due to cost or because they are dissatisfied with the series collection.
If they are searching for competition, other streaming services such as Disney+, Amazon Prime, or Apple TV+ may have a good chance of capturing that consumer.
If the buyer was searching for an exclusive series, it wouldn’t work since they wouldn’t be looking for an alternative.
The comparative strategy is quite similar to the “alternative” strategy. Consumers often compare when they are close to signing up for a service and are further along in the conversion funnel. They are most likely attempting to identify big variances and obtain price information.
Those customers can easily reached using a comparative strategy or “why” searches.
For a straight “competitor 1 vs. your brand” or “competitor 1 vs. competitor 2” layout, the landing page should include comparison tables that demonstrate why your product is superior.
To continue with the streaming example, you might highlight the amount of films and series you provide by demonstrating that you give the highest streaming quality at an incredible price, ensuring that customers understand you are the top supplier on the market.
The second method for asking “why” inquiries is similarly intriguing, but it only works with more well-known firms because the search traffic may be too low for emerging companies.
2. Targeting customers looking to leave a competitor
My favorite segment of consumers is those that are ready to churn. They have made up their minds to swap.
Some have already decided on a new supplier, while others do not. Often, people are dissatisfied with their existing provider, thus prioritizing customer care makes it simpler to gain them.
Your campaign structure might be designed as follows:
Again, it depends on the sector or service, but you may attempt several techniques. You can use simple terms like “cancel,” “termination,” and “cancellation,” or go further in depth with “how” and “why” queries.
Canceling is typically difficult in service-based companies, particularly those that operate online. Some even build barriers, concealing support and cancellation alternatives. While it is advertised as churn prevention, it is typically annoying for clients.
Legal restrictions differ in every region, but potential consumers may usually provide you power of attorney to manage cancellation and transfer to your service. This shows a high degree of trust and is typically automatable, decreasing your manual workload.
Taking care of everything from the start results in satisfied clients, excellent feedback, and improved patience should problems develop early in the contract.
3. Targeting people asking for help or contacting your competitor’s support
The final category to include is the support intent group. Now, this is a bit of a gamble because it might go either way.
People are looking for your rival using keywords such as “support,” “hotline,” “service,” “contact,” and so on. They might:
- Have a typical support request with no deeper significance. This implies your ad would be irrelevant to them. They were unable to find a method to contact help.
- Look for a contact who is unhappy or content with anything and wants to complain, ask for help, or propose an improvement.
The second category is valuable since they are willing to move providers, even if not immediately. You may position your brand for them, informing them that you have an offer if they are considering moving. This is an upper funnel search method for this competitive subject, but it has the potential to generate far more traffic.
You may make a favorable impression on this group by demonstrating that customer support is your top concern, that you care about them, and that you are available. Many other elements must be considered, such as price and offer competition, but support is frequently overlooked.
Customer service is sometimes considered an expense, yet it may generate revenue indirectly. Clients who are satisfied with your services are more inclined to remain longer, depart less frequently, and recommend you to others. Customer satisfaction is difficult to assess directly and in the short term, but it is extremely important in the medium to long run.
A potential campaign structure is given below:
Getting clients from your competitors’ PPC campaigns
Targeting rival audiences based on search intent and behavior beats typical brand bidding strategies that are overly wide and generic. Extending this strategy to higher funnel forms increases its efficacy.
The immediacy of search advertisements is especially useful for addressing immediate demands such as churn or customer assistance. Be sure to adjust your strategy to industry-specific behaviors. Adopting action-based targeting brings up new opportunities for interacting with consumers at the appropriate time and achieving significant results.
Source- searchengineland
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