Tag Archive for: online marketing news

CPC vs. CPM Bidding: Best Option For Your Campaign

/in /by

A common question that Onimod Global experts are asked frequently, “How should I bid? CPM or CPC?”

Google Ads are definitely the backbone of PPC. Within Google Ads and social media advertising, there are two main types of bidding – Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM). Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) differs from CPC as your bidding is focused and paid for on the number of impressions of your advert receives instead of the number of clicks.

So which is the right type of bidding style for you and your campaign? Read more from Onimod Global experts below.

Cost Per Click (CPC) Bidding

CPC bidding is where you only pay if someone clicks on one of your ads.

Most cases, people will use CPC bidding as it is designed for the Search Network. It’s also the recommended bidding strategy when trying to drive traffic to your website and you know how much you are willing to pay on your campaign.

Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) Bidding

CPM bidding is the most common option for advertisers that are looking for the best option to try to increase or improve your brand visibility. There is one downside that this bidding strategy brings which is the fact that you could pay for a thousand impressions but potentially receive no clicks to your website.

However, a benefit of CPM ads are that the display network is solely judged on price so if it has the highest bid it will rank at number 1, whereas CPC bids are judged on CTR, Quality Score and other relevance factors.

Where you are going wrong

Often times you may read that if your goal is brand awareness, bid for impressions (CPM). If your goal is direct response, bid for clicks (CPC).

It doesn’t matter what your goals are; your job is to generate traffic/impression/leads/sales at lower costs and higher volumes.

Even if you’re only concerned with exposing your brand to a large audience, wouldn’t you want to get that exposure for the lowest cost possible? Along that same thought, if you’re concerned with traffic, obviously you want to secure that traffic for the lowest cost possible. You have use your bid type as a lever to effect that efficiency.

There will be times when CPM bidding is the most cost-efficient bid type to drive impressions. There will also be times that CPC bidding is the most cost-efficient bid type to drive impressions, too (although this is traditionally a bad sign about the engagement rates of your ads. Check out our blog post on improving your relevance score here).

Contact Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

The Right Social Media Image Sizes In 2020

/in , , /by

With the world searching more and more online during the COVID-19 crisis, it’s important your brand and social image is professional and polished. Using images which aren’t the correct size for each platform’s requirements can impact your brand perception. Low quality and pixelated visuals make you look unprofessional or not up to date. Are you not sure if you’re using the correct image sizes? Use our image size guide to see the key image requirements for all the major social platforms.

Facebook

  • Your profile photo is representative of your brand. We recommend that is a consistent logo among all of your social media accounts. This image must be 180 x 180 pixels.
  • Cover photos are the banner behind your profile picture, and this should also be consistent across social platforms that allow for an image in this location. Cover photos should be 820 x 312 pixels, if it’s anything smaller than this your image will be stretched and distorted.
  • Images that are shared in a post, for example a blog post news update, have a recommended size of 1,200 x 630 pixels.

Twitter

  • Twitter profile pictures have a recommended size of a 400 x 400 pixel square. Keep in mind that the actual Twitter profile picture appears as a circle, so we advise you to have the proper spacing around your logo so nothing is cut off.
  • Twitter also has a cover photo, which should be about 1500 x 1500 pixels for an image size. Pick an image that compliments your profile picture and make sure it is consistent across all platforms as well.
  • Photos in tweets, when expanded, appear at a maximum of 1024 x 512 pixels and a minimum of 440 x 220 pixels. Keep in mind that on mobile, the app collapses photos which could make for an awkward crop situation. Make sure your content is always centered horizontally to avoid odd cropping.

Instagram

  • Instagram profile pictures are small but powerful. These show any time you have a new story, in direct messages, and of course at the top of your profile page. The image size is recommended to be 110 x 110 pixels.
  • Your thumbnails for photos, or often referred to as your photo grid, will appear as 161 x 161 pixels. If you’re going for a certain aesthetic, the thumbnail size is an important one to keep in mind. Individual image uploads can be square or rectangular. Square photos image size is 1080 x 1080 pixels and rectangular images should use a 4:5 ratio.
  • Instagram stories are a must for your brand to remain relevant on the platform and also where you will have the most visibility. The recommended resolution for stories is 1080 x 1920 pixels or an aspect ratio of 9:16.

YouTube

  • Your profile image for YouTube should be the same consistent branding as your other social channels as mentioned above. The image size for YouTube profile picture is 800 x 800 pixels.
  • Attractive and engaging thumbnail images are crucial to success of your videos. For YouTube, make sure your thumbnail image size is 1,2080 x 720 pixels.
  • YouTube also allows for a cover image photo in addition to your profile image. The recommended image size here is 2,560 x 1,440 pixels.

Pinterest

  • On the Pinterest homepage, profile picture image sizes are 165 x 165 pixels.
  • It is recommended to use an image aspect ratio of 2:3 for pins.
  • Pins that are on the homepage or in a board will appear at 236 pixels wide. Once a pin is expanded, it has a minimum width of 600 pixels and the height of the image will scale proportionally.

LinkedIn

  • Your company logo is very important when it comes to the identification of your brand, of course. Make sure it’s visible with the image size of 300 x 300 pixels.
  • The company background image is similar to the cover photos on other platforms, where it takes up the entire top portion of your page. The recommended image size for your LinkedIn background image is 1,536 x 768 pixels.
  • Images in your content posts have a recommended size of 1,200 x 630 pixels. Keep in mind that LinkedIn is a professional social network platform with a large focus on building relationships with industry leaders. Make sure your posts are appropriate for this kind of audience and focus less on driving sales or website traffic.

*Data from Social Media Today

More From Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

4 Ways PPC Will Rescue Your Business During Economic Crisis

/in , /by

People may be clicking, but when are they buying? Are consumers buying too much too fast? When do they really decide to convert and make a purchase? When will brick and mortar stores reopen and foot traffic resume? As some questions are answered, they are replaced by new questions under such fast-changing circumstances. The good news: Search marketing is adaptable, measurable, and when done correctly, VERY cost effective. Even with shifting data models, PPC pros can use timely trends to guide strategic decisions.

Trends Emerging

One very helpful tool for marketers during COVID-19 is the Tinuiti COVID dashboard. Here they provide a look at trends in paid Facebook media since the pandemic took hold. It requires you to sign up for free with email, and offers insights into media spend. They have discovered some emerging trends from the data across some volatile sectors. April proved far different compared to March; May will undoubtedly look far different compared to April. The following trends, according to the data shared by Search Engine Land:

Automotive: Spending plunged month over month by 41%, but surged almost 50% week over week across the past two weeks.

Travel: Spend almost evaporated, down 82% month over month, but is showing signs of a cautious uptick.

Consumer packaged goods: Up 27% month over month, and up 50% week over week.

In some cases, it seems that the natural reaction is to slash media spend. But clear thinking and data prove to prevail while figuring out the best strategies for your company.

E-commerce

Fast impact on e-commerce is dizzying to say the least, since e-commerce covers basically everything on the market.

  • Google announced search results on the Google Shopping tab will now include free listings, so any business that sells things should fast-track getting their Merchant Feed into Google. Read more about this hot topic on our news page here.
  • Product hoarding has shifted to “next best alternative” purchasing. For example, consumers got creative about toilet paper shortages, driving interest in bidets and other solutions-oriented products.
  • Market-dominating providers are suddenly prioritizing what gets shipped and when. Smaller providers that can ship fast have the potential for an edge over Amazon, Walmart and other large companies.

Here are some PPC tips from Onimod Global:

  • Make sure you are only showing the ads for things people can actually buy. There’s no point showing ads for toilet paper if none is in stock, or for your new summer shoe line launch if your warehouse is on lockdown.
  • Pay attention to setting better bids and prioritize the campaigns that can still convert.

Home services

Quarantine has people searching around the house looking for anything and everything to fix up. This includes but not limited to: Carpet cleaning, painting, dusty air ducts, spring prep for outdoors. Some are DIY projects, but many are best handled by the professionals, including emergency repairs.

Onimod Global’s PPC tips:

  • Stay on top geo-based performance that is affected by any local regulations impacting performance in your service areas.
  • There’s no point showing ads when all you can do is disappoint a prospect with the inability to fix their problem soon. Ensure your ads are suspended while your limited staff is completely booked.

Hospitality

It’s very evident as to why spend in the hospitality industry is almost completely evaporated. Remember that this is only temporary! History tells us that people will venture back out. It is human nature to do so. Travel is a necessary escape, and essential for business at times. People need hope, that they will soon be able to do this again. Here are our tips:

  • Stay on top of shifting search queries to avoid paying for ad clicks from consumers looking to cancel.
  • Keep audiences for Google Ads up-to-date with your customer/prospects database. This will ensure you’re showing the most relevant ads at the right time to the right groups of consumers.
  • Remember that there are customers who are ready to buy, just maybe unable to because of local restrictions. We suggest to consider shifting away from last-click conversion attribution.

Local brick & mortar businesses

Most likely the largest impacted in business are the brick and mortar businesses forced to close for the near future. Family-owned restaurants may lack infrastructure for delivery services at scale.

Some tips from Onimod Global for PPC are:

  • Build audiences from customer data. Even your manual customer email list in Google Sheets can be uploaded to a Facebook campaign for more effective targeting.
  • Agencies can deploy Rule Engine (for Google and Bing) to automate optimizations. It’s another way to offer lower-cost agency services that can scale.
  • If you’re new to social media advertising, contact Onimod Global to ensure your advertising budget is spent in the most efficient way possible.

More from Onimod Global

Need help from experts on PPC and how to optimize your advertising budget? Contact Onimod Global today, we are here to help you navigate this uncertain time. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

To catch up on the latest digital marketing news and trends, click here.