How retailers can protect their CPCs

Following Google removing the right hand side PPC ads we shared some potential scenarios. In this post we’re focusing on how retailers with a high street footprint and ecommerce capabilities can protect themselves from increasing CPCs, one of the scenarios we outlined. Everyone wants cheaper CPCs, right? Local is at the heart of search… One in five searches now show local intent – Google Near me searches have increased by 34x since 2011 – Google Looking at the SERPs, not many retailers answer local long tail queries. Query: 32″ Samsung smart tv in Enfield Retailers either serve the store locator page or the product page, most choose the latter. By including the location in the query we can assume that the user has indicated that they are looking to go in store. Not one of the PPC ads is localised. There may be few monthly searches for this query but across retailers’ entire product range combined with each location the cumulative volume could be thousands if not tens of thousands of clicks per month (depending on the size of the retailer). Websites are not built in a way to cater for these queries and if the retailer has hundreds of stores and hundreds of products it is difficult to build the number of page combinations required in to their site structure. This is where a digital media agency with a technology vein running through it – such as ourselves – can help. We have proprietary landing page software, PAGEtorrentÔ, that helps target long tail searches with deeply relevant content that includes a retail option of hybrid landing pages combining products and store location info. In some businesses ecommerce and retail can work in silos. This solution appeases both parts of the business by giving the user the choice of buying online, the click and collect option, or obtaining the store details of where the product is stocked and visiting the store. The benefit for your PPC campaigns is that you have keyword rich URLs, page titles, H1s and meta descriptions. By answering the query, you can be more relevant than the competition, have a better quality score and control ever increasing CPCs. Giving the user the choice of buying online, clicking and collecting or visiting a store invariably produces a better user experience and a better conversion rate. Phase 2 is for these pages to be indexed within the organic results. If your local search is executed correctly, you could dominate the SERP with three touch points, PPC, local and organic. For more information on how to transform your digital strategy with our landing page solution and our local search product please contact the team.