Key Takeaways
- While many SEM marketers consider how to create flashy new landing pages to drive traffic to, they often miss a low-cost, high-reward strategy of examining and using existing content on the site.
- Explore the content that already exists on your website to determine which types of content would be most aligned with your campaign goals and may be most likely to drive new site traffic.
- Test a variety of content types and formats to identify and expand on the highest-performing ad-campaign landing pages.
- As you sift through content types to include in your ads, make sure they align with your campaign goals and use strong CRO strategies to maximize results.
The Value of Repurposing Content for Your Paid Search Ads
Consistently identifying the best direction to route customers through your paid search ads can be a challenge. While it’s easy to get caught up in creating the perfect landing page to pull in leads and drive them to convert, sometimes the best approach is to work with the content you already have.
If your site features blogs, varied landing pages, and informative resource pages, you may have plenty of great content to pull from already. Incorporating existing site content into your ad strategy could expand your horizons and widen your reach, even at a lower cost.
Using existing content, and a wide variety of it, for your paid search ad campaigns can bring you quality leads at a lower cost, allowing for more niche targeting and stronger conversion opportunities. This article dives into how we think about our SEM opportunities and how we leverage different content types to maximize reach and ad campaign performance.
Why You Should Look to Existing Content for Ads
Using the most recent content may seem like a necessity, but there is plenty of value in using content that already exists on the site. Resurfacing existing content provides a strategy that’s mutually beneficial across multiple channels, from granting you access to topics that may spark the interest of new search audiences to driving more traffic to valuable assets on your website.
Repurposing content in your search engine marketing offers all the following benefits:
- Increasing engagement with other channels, like blogs
- Providing another opportunity for ongoing testing strategies
- Surfacing new short and long-tail search queries
- Offering the potential for high ROI with a low-cost investment
- An existing content piece may be more targeted and pertinent to someone’s search than a generalized landing page
- Driving traffic to content that is struggling to perform organically
- Revealing new keywords that can be used to create campaigns or new audience segments
I’ve seen some interesting trends that have caught my attention with a few of our clients, including one home services client. By introducing a Dynamic Search Ads campaign targeting blog content, we increased non-brand leads by +6% while reducing cost per lead by about $2.
Non-Brand Campaign Performance Using Existing Content
This jump in performance has led me to start trying different types of content across varying clients and to be more open-minded when crafting campaigns, and it’s been promising, in some cases showing a 50% lower cost per-lead compared to other campaigns.
How to Make This Strategy Work for You
Making this strategy work for your organization is as simple as being mindful of the content you use for your Google Ads campaign pathways. I recommend taking these steps for a low-risk, high-opportunity way to broaden your campaign horizons.
1. Look at Your Full Content Portfolio
To find new opportunities for your paid ads, zoom out and look at your full content portfolio. Think about the varying content styles you have on your site, from informational blogs to conversion-focused landing pages, and the value they may offer.
Consider some of these opportunities:
- Blogs
- Whitepapers
- Digital assets
- How-to guides
- Resource pages
- Video content
Then, begin thinking about what your customers are looking for and what content or resource pages make the most sense for them to land on. As you review your portfolio, consider your users’ search intent, your campaign goals, and what content topics and types support these goals.
Are your customers looking for a specific product? Do they want to learn more about a home service? Are they looking to buy now, or are they conducting more research before they buy?
When everything is going well, your site likely has a robust library of existing content, including blogs, videos, templates, or other assets. These questions will give you context for which types of content will best accomplish your campaign goals, fulfill users’ search intent, and turn prospects into converts.
2. Experiment with Different Types of Content
Once you have narrowed down to the content pieces that align with your goals, you can start experimenting with using varying options in your ads. Don’t get caught in a box—test different content types, topics, and keywords across your varying headlines to find out which are more likely to captivate and retain your customers with the most leads. A/B testing different types of content to identify what is driving more clicks, longer time-on-page, or the greatest number of conversions.
Keep these points in mind along the way:
- Consider using content that has performed well in the past but has recently seen a drop-off in traffic.
- Try to use a variety of content types to determine which performs best, and use this to alter and adjust your campaigns.
- A/B test different types of content to see which performs better and what types of ads are getting better click-throughs or increased time-on-page.
- Monitor relevant search queries to determine the most relevant and content.
These findings can tell you which content topics, types, and styles are most valuable to your audience, guiding campaigns later and empowering you to identify new opportunities. They may also inform a cohesive strategy between the SEO and content teams in the future, potentially sparking the development of new content that can serve campaign goals down the road.
Implement SEM Strategies That Convert
We thoughtfully tailor strategies for each client to optimize campaigns for increased engagement. See how our commitment to data-driven insights and thinking outside the box brings results like a 35% increase in revenue for our clients.
3. Continue Exploring Themes
Trying varying content types across your site will reinforce the value of Dynamic Search Ads; as you use different types of content, you can develop a more refined picture of what audiences are engaging with. Testing the many different content types will allow you to gather information about what’s working and what’s not, strengthening your audience-based targeting strategies.
Conversion tracking and analytics help you identify what’s working and what’s not to guide your ongoing campaigns. Consider all of the following:
- What audiences are engaging with which ads and content pairings, as well as their search queries
- User search intent
- What keywords are the highest performing
- Whether broad or specific topics are more efficient
- The most pertinent consumer needs
These themes can then be used to guide your future efforts for stronger campaigns, such as new keywords to use, new audience segments to build, and new audience targets to try.
A Few Considerations To Keep in Mind
As you begin expanding out your landing page potential, temper your expectations and position yourself for success by being aware of the strengths and limitations. When using existing site content for your ads, consider the following:
- Full-funnel strategy – As with other SEM campaign landing points, ensure that the content you use in your campaign and its page design follows strong CRO practices to effectively move audiences down the funnel and support your ad goals.
- Campaign alignment – Be sure the content you choose for your ads aligns with the campaign’s goal and theme. For example, if a campaign focuses on increasing newsletter signups, your blog content should tie back to the benefits or purpose of accessing a newsletter.
- Limits for scaling – Of course, there is a finite amount of content on your website, so this method may be difficult to scale once you’ve explored all your options.
However, if you’re looking for a way to experiment, get out of a low-performance rut, or simply expand on your options for fortifying your paid search campaign funnel, this strategy can be a great way to do so. The key takeaway is that you receive a small-budget, low-risk, and big-opportunity strategy.
Enrich Your Paid Search Ad Strategies with collystring
Building an appropriate funnel for your paid search strategy can be a difficult art form to master, and considering all your opportunities is important for driving meaningful clicks and pulling in valuable leads. Structuring effective ad campaigns with thoughtful content can make a big difference in driving value at low cost.
Our Paid Search team at collystring is geared toward turning ad spend into results, infusing ourselves into your campaigns to turn them into high-performers—using a blend of strategy and creativity, we build foundational campaigns that speak to the unique audiences you’re targeting bring you the best possible return on ad spend. Along the way, we analyze ad spending to determine how to best use your investment, keeping our finger on the scale to adjust budget for better results for your Google Ads and other search platforms.
Schedule a discovery call with the collystring team and see how we can help you advance your Paid Search strategy.