PPCChat | Paid Search & Paid Social – Working Together | 27th Oct 2020

This week’s PPCChat discussed about using search and social together, the channels being used for generating awareness, acquiring and retargeting customers and a lot more. Hosted by Julie F Bacchini, here is the screencap of the session.

Q1: Do you do both paid search and paid social for your clients? If so, are you doing both for most, some or none of those clients?

I do both search and social advertising for clients. About half are both and half are one or the other. – @NeptuneMoon

I do both paid search and paid social for all of my clients right now. I would say in general I do both for 80% of the clients I work with and search for 100%. – @MarketingByMark

Both for most. With Google’s increase trend of automation and taking control/insight out of our hands, this year we decided to put more efforts to diversify and increase our activity in paid social – @360vardi

Yes, we do both on about 70% of our client base. Only 1 client do we do paid social and not paid search – @JonKagan

I have done social in the past but don’t in my current role. At the beginning of my career I was much more balanced but my last agency role prior to this didn’t have a strong value from social ads because strat was VERY bottom-of-funnel with no upper-funnel support. – @ferkungamaboobo

helping some friends on the side mostly on Google Ads and general consulting – @LukeAlley

As a company we do both (I personally do search). More and more we are signing clients to both so new clients are usually both older clients are mostly search – @selley2134

Paid Social and in a way, Paid Search (YouTube). I think everyone should learn paid search first as it makes you a better performance marketer, but now, I specialize in Paid Social efforts. – @RyBen3

I do both paid social and paid search for clients. – @jord_stark

Q2: Are you primarily handling B2B, B2C or a mix of both currently? If you’re e-commerce, that would be helpful to know as well (as it is kind of its own animal)!

we have everything (B2C, B2B, e-commerce). P.S I used to think B2B was not going to work in FB. Changed my mind – @360vardi

A mix of both, I think I mentioned during a #ppcchat before that there have been some great results for B2B via paid social – traditionally the common perception is just to focus on LinkedIn. Predominantly B2C though! – @AzeemDigital

I’ve got a mix of B2B and B2C. No e-comm right now. – @NeptuneMoon

85% B2C/Retail – @JonKagan

I’m 100% B2B right now and that is my current career focus, but historically about 30% of my experience is B2C – @MarketingByMark

All 3. In general, I don’t think there’s vast chasms between the groups when it comes to strategy. – @ferkungamaboobo

About 90% eCommerce – @selley2134

Almost 100% e-comm, about half DtC and half Retail. – @roysteves

Mostly ecommerce currently. – @LukeAlley

both at this point — as well as a few B2B2C models, which is fun. – @DigitalSamIAm

In-house DTC/E-Commerce. – @RyBen3

I have been shifting toward more B2B. I’m probably 60/40 in favor of B2B now. – @jord_stark

Used to be e-commerce, but now clinical trial recruitment, which is so much more complicated I want i cry at timeS. – @Jonnydoesmedia

Q3: Prospecting and/or Awareness – which channels are you using for this and why? Which channel(s) do you start with? Which has been most successful?

Little Facebook, little YouTube, toe in the water on GDN, and pushing a bit more into discovery – @JonKagan

We usually recommend Facebook (Interest/demographic/similar audiences). Sometimes depending on budgets Google Display (in-Market, Similar audiences, custom intent) & Youtube (same as google) – @selley2134

We do a mix of GDN and Facebook, for the most part. We’ve been experimenting with OTT/Pre-Roll and have seen some success with direct placements as well, but it’s largely the same concept as GDN. – @ferkungamaboobo

This is where it’s critical to have some kind of liaison between depts — the creative has to be similar enough to start building brand value ad all the touchpoints, otherwise you lose that halo effect – – @ferkungamaboobo

Display, and exploring opportunities on Snap (thanks @duanebrown) and potentially TikTok soon too – CPMs seem to have dropped hugely here at the moment! Success (what is success?) = subjective IMO – depends on how you view attribution – @AzeemDigital

Pinterest >>> website >>> 15% off popup/email collection >>> welcome email series. @KyleShurtz swears by the YT TOF strategy because, well, it works. – @LukeAlley

For awareness, social. Facebook is still the biggest % in this category. I want to move off of Facebook and IG as the primary avenues. Taking time to move that mountain though! I absolutely LOVE to use LinkedIn to seed retargeting lists for B2B. – @NeptuneMoon

I usually start with Facebook & Instagram for Awareness (dependent on client) and move to YouTube and GDN as we see success. I’ve been seeing a lot of success with Instagram as of late because it’s slightly cheaper than Facebook and users are more engaged. – @MarketingByMark

I’m loving YouTube for prospecting, along with Snap & Display w/ sequential ads. Obviously display has issues with apps & bad traffic, but if you’re diligent about it, it can be quite useful and efficient. – @DigitalSamIAm

Video is one of my favorite ways to interact with cold audiences. Whether it’s highlighting UVPs, using UGC’s, or viral type content (DR ads), I love Facebook and YouTube for Top of Funnel Prospecting/Awareness. So much you can do with it. – @RyBen3

I like display, social, and YouTube for awareness. I’ve actually been finding some success with Google Discovery as well. It’s hit or miss though when it works it’s great and when it doesn’t it’s awful. No “meh” campaigns there. – @jord_stark

Q4: Acquisition – which channels are you using for this and why? Which channel(s) do you start with? Which has been most successful?

Search is still the king of acquisition in my mind. – @jord_stark

depends on the goal, but yes, search, dynamic product ads, in stream ads, instagram stories, PLA’s, and discovery (love me some discovery). – @JonKagan

Search will forever win acquisition because it’s like, the perfect “i want-you have” Depending on the ask, Facebook is great at microconversions and intermediary acquisition. I’m less convinced of other networks for acquisition. – @ferkungamaboobo

Google search/Shopping/dynamic remarketing. Facebook remarketing/catalog ads – @selley2134

Search is still the king of acquisition in my mind. – @jord_stark

For acquisition definitely search – who does not want to capture those showing direct intent/interest? Social is trickier for this, but I like lookalikes of best customers for this stage on FB/IG and the targeting on LI can make it effective too for lead gen. – @NeptuneMoon

Paid search (both Google and Microsoft) is a go to acquisition channel. I also use LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Capterra. I’ve had the most success with search and LinkedIn for customer acquisition, but if Capterra has a spot on directory it works marvels. – @MarketingByMark

Any and all channels are welcome. It really depends on the brand/audience. FB/IG are usually the first if there’s an audience & they’re the most successful. I’ve seen others find success in Snap, TikTok & other social channels – but hasn’t worked for my 30+ yo demos. – @RyBen3

Search will always be the top acquisition channel because people are going there usually with an intent to buy. Some browse & compare, but most will find you with the intent to buy at some point in their journey. Facebook is where you create the demand usually. – @RyBen3

I’ve been toying with this idea of demand awareness. It’s the idea that people don’t know that they need your product until you explain what it does, then they realize “oh, I’ve needed that”. I see this a lot w/ Amazon products like this car organizer I just bought.- @RyBen3

search is the obvious one here, but we’re increasingly seeing success from FB/IG, Snap & TikTok on the consumer side, and LI/Bing/Twitter (yes, Twitter) & Quora (occasionally, depends on the vertical) on the B2B side. Go figure. – @DigitalSamIAm

Q5: Retargeting – which channels are you using for this and why? Which channel(s) do you start with? Which has been most successful?

I like to start with display, then YouTube, cross channel is great too. – @jord_stark

I’ve had lots of experience with GDN and retargeting and I wouldn’t suggest it – the user path makes no sense. I don’t mind YouTube retargeting but it seems very expensive for a “reminder” play. Facebook has the better inventory control, but.. – @ferkungamaboobo

I’ve VERY rarely done a multi-stage creative that matches the user path, making retargeting make any sense. Retargeting is 1 of those things that seems to get tacked on as a standard feature that really could use far more thought than we typically have the budget for – @ferkungamaboobo

Facebook is still the retargeting king… I am down on GDN with the lack of placement control and the 10,000 placement exclusion limit (is in INADEQUATE). Not that FB is without its own issues, but it is the current big player in retargeting. – @NeptuneMoon

Dynamic Remarketing for Google, Same with Facebook/Instagram, can i count smart shopping? Also testing out Bing display and their MSAN shopping campaigns. – @selley2134

Any platform where you have an on-site pixel right? I think there are diff types of retargeting in e-commerce. I usually qualify people who get to your PDP as higher intent than Homepage visitors. Then I either hit them w/ value props or dynamic retargeting. – @RyBen3

I tend to start with GDN and RLSAs, and (if I’m running it for that client) FB/IG. They’re easy to setup and see results. I also usually run retargeting on LinkedIn but it can be difficult and expensive. I will only go after certain segments because of this. – @MarketingByMark

I’m having a surprising amount of success right now on LinkedIn with only retargeting people who viewed paid search landing pages and did not convert and hitting them with a personalized demo offer. It’s usually just OK. – @MarketingByMark

I like YT/GDN/Discovery off GA, and some good old Facebook – @JonKagan

Facebook is great for retargeting, but to increase reach I would use a platform such as Adroll, to much low quality inventory and click fraud on the GDN – @Jonnydoesmedia

Q6: How do you typically use search and social together most effectively?

For us, social ads can draw a B2B prospect to a website and then search or display retargeting can elevate that interest into booking a call, etc – @heyglenns

We share audience targeting builds most commonly – @JonKagan

1. Retargeting! 2. Using audience/keyword performance to inform targeting cross-channel i.e. if targeting is working well, how do we reach a similar person elsewhere 3. Conversion barriers are more pronounced on social, take those insights and apply to search – @MarketingByMark

Couple ideas: If you’re doing a big awareness/interest push, RLSA+Focused copy. Of course, match your messaging. (please?) Reading comments and messages (even for unrelated campaigns) for customer pain points and company benefits. – @ferkungamaboobo

this is vague but create awareness with social for new brands/products and make sure search is capturing those new queries (ie have keywords for the facebook ad copy) – @selley2134

Know that they work together for your benefit & every brand is different but fuel each other. In most instances, social ads will drive up your brand search, organic search and direct traffic more than search ads will. Balance healthy awareness-to-conversion ratios. – @RyBen3

Even if you’re not advertising on Quora, it can be very enlightening as to what people want to know about things you might be selling. Pinterest is kind of the same way for stuff. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I just don’t get Pinterest, personally – @NeptuneMoon

Q7: Which metrics do you rely on most to determine if an initiative is successful on search or on social? Does it vary by your objective (prospecting, awareness, acquisition or retargeting)?

For ones with enough history, total CPA is useful to gain client appreciation for how precious a lead is. They heed our pleas to follow up, guiding our targeting & eventually lowering overall client acquisition cost – @heyglenns

We have unique KPI’s for each stage of the journey, from awareness to action, otherwise any prospecting activity will look atrocious to the client. – @Jonnydoesmedia

Varies by the goal of the campaign and its really important to get buy in from the client before launching. If creating a awareness campaign with Youtube, I do not want to report on ROAS like the rest of the Google search campaigns. – @selley2134

Sales and profit. If we get more sales, and we get more profit, we get more opportunity to invest in more ads, which leads to more sales, which leads to more profit…(repeat infinity times until profit decreases, reach diminishing returns, can’t fulfill demand) – @RyBen3

PPCChat Participants:

• Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
• Mark T Saltarelli @MarketingByMark
• Daniel Vardi @360vardi
• Azeem @AzeemDigital
• Shaun Elley @selley2134
• Sam @DigitalSamIAm
• Doug R Thomas, Esq. @ferkungamaboobo
• Ryan Bennion @RyBen3
• Jordan Stark @jord_stark
• Luke Alley @LukeAlley
• Jon Kagan @JonKagan
• Glenn Schmelzle @heyglenns
• Jonny @Jonnydoesmedia
• Roy Steves @roysteves