How to grow with Google this Afterpay Day
It’s one thing to get involved with Afterpay Day. But to really see the benefits, it’s important to let your customers know you’re involved and promote your offer in the right places.
One of those places is most certainly Google. Last Afterpay Day, more than 450k consumers were searching for the event on Google.* To help you make the most of the platform, and to give you some tips on setting up your own paid media campaign this Afterpay Day, we spoke to Cookie Wong, Client Partner Lead AUNZ at Google.
1. Cookie, why is Google a great choice for merchants looking to reach new customers this Afterpay Day?
Billions of people use the internet every day, making it a powerful platform to reach new customers and grow your business. Google is where people come to search for what to do, where to go, and what to buy. During the last Afterpay Day event, more than 450k consumers across Australia and New Zealand were searching for Afterpay.*
By advertising on Google you will have insights across 3 million sites and apps including access to 6+ consumer properties reaching over 1 billion users each. Your ad can show up in Google search results, right when those customers are looking for products or services like yours during the sale.
2. What tips do you have for merchants looking to run a Google Ads campaign this Afterpay Day?
We have a detailed online course for tips to improve your Google Ads campaign. Below are some of my top tips for your campaign set up:
Select high-quality, relevant keywords for your ad campaign to help you reach only users likely to become your customers. For example, keywords like Afterpay Day Sale or Afterpay Day Shoes can help you get in front of customers actively searching. Tools like Google Trends and Keyword Planner can help you choose relevant keywords. Remember, the keywords you choose will determine when and where your ad can appear. A great keyword list can help improve the performance and help you avoid higher prices.
Use Ad extensions to give your users more reasons and ways to interact with your business. For example, add an additional ad extension that contains information on your Afterpay Day sale offer. Learn more about ad extensions here.
To reach potential customers, search ads should be specific, relevant, attractive and empowering. Optimization Score will identify real-time, personalised recommendations and opportunities to improve campaign/account online & offline sales performance throughout the sale period. Why not try including your specific sale offer in your search ads, to clearly show customers what you’ll be offering?
3. If a merchant is looking at their first Google Ads campaign for Afterpay Day, where’s the best place to get started?
Follow the simple steps here to create your first campaign for Afterpay Day. You’ll be able to preview your customisations, see estimated costs and expected results before it starts running. We also offer free online tutorials and classes at Google Digital Garage to help you gain the right skills to grow your business.
4. We all know how important SEO is for ongoing business. Which strategies can merchants use to make the most of SEO over the Afterpay Day hype phase and event?
The best time to start with SEO is today. There’s still plenty of time ahead of Afterpay Day to optimise your site for the event and reach those customers looking for it. 'Make sure customers find you online' is a great Google course to learn how search engines and online advertising can help you connect with more customers. As Afterpay has two key phases - the hype phase and the event itself - it’s best to look at relevant keywords for both. Taking it a step further, you can look at suggestions such as building a dedicated SEO-optimised page that talks about how and why you’re participating in the event, and then links out to your best offers. However, you choose to approach it, optimising your SEO now will only help you later.
5. Do you have any best practices or tips for our smaller business merchants, to make the most of the sale event through Google?
Small businesses are often wearing multiple hats, which can lead to time pressures when it comes to setting up digital marketing campaigns. I’d recommend keeping it simple and nailing the basics - identifying which specific keywords will you be targeting for the event and what messaging is most relevant for your audience when it comes to Google Ads. For small businesses specifically, I’d recommend starting with the Digital Essentials Guide to ensure you have everything set up to be found online ahead of Afterpay Day.
Finally, complete the ‘Get started with search advertising’ course to learn all the search basics and follow the tips above to create your Google Ads campaign to maximise Afterpay Day.
* Google Trends, Jan 2019 - Dec 2021.
Not yet registered to participate? Submit your Afterpay Day offer below.
As a Client Partner Lead at Google, Cookie’s core focus is to partner with leading digital agencies across Australia and to strengthen long term client relationships. She provides transformative consulting advice and Google-caliber client services to empower key partners to use Google advertising solutions and help them set the vision and strategy to reach more users.
