Why Work With a Marketing Optimization Agency

Let me guess, you have a digital marketing campaign running right now, however you aren't getting the results you would like?

You have come to the right place.

Hi my name is Ian Binek, and I have been in the digital marketing space for nearly a decade.

I started Optimize Your Marketing with the intent to help small to medium sized businesses grow through digital acquisition.

So in this article, I am going to go in depth on how I would optimize different kinds of strategies, while also explaining the logic behind my decisions.

Strap in, and get ready for some good nuggets to take back to your team.

Different Kinds of Marketing Optimization Services

There are numerous things that can be improved with any marketing strategy.

• Social Media Campaigns
• Paid Social Ads (Facebook & LinkedIn Ads)
• Pay Per Click Ads (Google & Bing Ads)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Email Marketing
• Landing Page Optimization
• AB Testing
• Brand Identity

The list could go on, however in this article we are going to focus on Pay Per Click ads, SEO strategies, Landing Page Optimization, AB Testing, and Social Media Marketing.

The idea behind Optimizing Your Marketing, Versus Spending More

You have already tentatively made the decision that optimizing your current marketing is a better allocation of your money compared to just spending more on ad platforms.

However if you aren't 100% sold then I am going to attempt to now.

When you have a not optimized campaign, you are getting an inefficient return on your ad spend.

We call this ROI or ROAS in marketing.

Return on Investment or Return on Ad Spend are what we base all of our marketing optimization off of.

So when you not optimized campaign is running, it is probably getting somewhere between a 1-2 ROI.

The only way to improve this is with marketing optimization. This means if we make the process more efficient then we can get that ROI up to 2-3.

How does an increase in ROI help my business?

For every $1 that goes into a campaign, $3 will come out.

This effectively increases your ad spend, without you actually having to spend more money.

Take this example for instance.

If you spend $100 then you would get $300 back in ROI.

Comparing this to your not optimized campaign at a ROI of 2, then you would have to put in $150 to get $300 back.

This is a 50% increase in ad spend to get the same results.

So as your marketing scales, you will be spending 50% more than you would have if you just optimized early on.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Most companies looking for marketing optimization services are already doing search engine marketing.

Search engine marketing is both pay per click advertising and search engine optimization.

Both of these digital marketing services have to do with ranking higher in the search engine.

Why does your Search Engine Marketing need Optimized?

To put it simply, everyone wants to rank higher in Google.

And the easier you can rank higher, the better.

Oftentimes, "easier" is interpreted in the marketing world as "less effort" and "better ROAS".

This being said, when you work with a digital marketing agency with a track record of digital marketing optimization, you are getting "easier" marketing.

Your business's pay per click campaigns will achieve better return on advertising spend with iterative testing.

You will also not have to manage the campaigns!

The key for effective marketing agency management is to save, or enhance the client's advertising spend so that their return is higher than simply spending the money on the digital campaign.

Think back to our example early with the 2x ROI vs the 3x ROI.

At a point it becomes a better use of your time and capital to work with a digital marketing agency.

How easy is it to run Paid Search campaigns?

From a time perspective, setting up PPC ads or paid search campaigns is super easy.

All you need are keywords, ads, and landing pages.

So it doesn't take much time to setup.

Where working with an agency helps, is with the marketing strategy and the overall marketing efforts.

Depending on your business growth, it may make more sense to learn through trial and error on the ad platform.

However, I strongly urge all small to medium size businesses to work with a digital marketing agency from the beginning because you will hit the ground running with best practices.

You won't be spending money to figure out the ad campaigns.

Not to mention, managing ads is not the only thing you are managing inside of your business.

So working with a digital marketing agency to run your Google Ads makes sense from a cost efficiency standpoint, as well as time saving standpoint.

Why Should You Work With an SEO Agency?

SEO is almost the complete opposite when directly compared to PPC or PPC ads.

SEO is "free" whereas PPC is paid advertising.

SEO strategies are more elaborate and extremely time consuming whereas PPC strategies are less elaborate and more about the management.

So why work with a marketing agency or search engine optimization?

You are going to save a lot more time and you will almost certainly have better results right from the jump.

I spend roughly 100 minutes every day writing content that ranks well for Optimize Your Marketing.

This is all part of our content marketing efforts.

Imagine if you were stepping into those shoes for your business?

If I spend 100 minutes to write decent content that is optimized, and I have a great understanding of how content will rank in the search engine - then how long will you have to devote to learning SEO, while also actually performing the SEO strategies?

I am not trying to make a point about how great at SEO we are at Optimize Your Marketing.

I am simply trying to be realistic with the massive effort that is needed to write compelling and optimized content.

Basic SEO strategies You Can Do Today

Writing effective content that helps you rank higher in Google falls in the search engine marketing bucket and is truthfully one of the hardest strategies to do well in digital marketing.

But what other SEO strategies can you do to increase brand awareness and appear higher in Google?

1. Increase website speed - This can be done in many different ways, but I would advise my clients to use PageSpeed Insights to get an understanding of what is slowing the site down.
2. Ensure Responsiveness - Most websites I audit have poor mobile experiences. Since most website traffic comes from mobile nowadays, it's not surprising that Google has incorporated this into their ranking algorithm.
3. Elaborate On Your Website - Simple is better, but there is a time and place to write out more content on your home page, about us page, and services pages. This extra paragraph or per section can drastically improve how your website ranks.
4. Incorporate an Explainer Video - Another awesome SEO hack is to incorporate a videos on your website. Google is smart enough to transcribe video audio and relay that back as SEO material. So incorporate an explainer video a couple times on your site and you will be shocked at how much better that can help you rank.
5. Review data driven insights - The best decisions are backed by data. Be sure to review your Google Search Console and Google Analytics to see how your website is performing.

Wrapping up Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing should be prioritized by business's who want to see short and long term business growth.

Whether your goal is to continue to grow your brand and consistently have leads, or just to sell in the future - SEM cannot be ignored.

Having this acquisition channel thriving will ensure you always have consistent lead generation while also showing up higher in the search engines.

Showing up higher in the search engines has an amazing effect on your business growth overall, as well as your valuation.

So focus on search engine marketing so you can make it easier for your target audience to find you.

What is Landing Page Optimization?

Landing pages are probably the most important part of your digital marketing strategy.

All of your traffic that you drive to your website through PPC, SEO, Social media marketing, and Email Marketing efforts are all going to lead to your landing pages.

It's crucial to make sure these landing pages are optimized.

Optimize Your Marketing holds landing pages at the cornerstone of every successful marketing campaign.

So what is landing page optimization?

It's simple, iteratively testing your website landing page with new, noticeable changes that will in theory increase your conversion rate.

You conversion rate is a simple metric we use in our marketing efforts to describe efficiently describe how the number of people who enterred your landing page, to the number that actually took action on whatever you wanted them to do.

This is usually a form submission or phone call.

These calls to action are the most basic, however also the most effective.

An introduction to Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization describes the actions taken by marketers to improve ads and landing pages.

These are the two primary methods that increase the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.

Companies that focus on conversion tracking in their digital marketing services ultimately perform better and have a higher ROAS.

The idea of constantly testing and tracking results from these tests is called AB Testing.

At Optimize Your Marketing, we use AB testing on our paid advertising and landing pages, which is why we can boast that almost all of our clients achieve long term success and a conversion rate of 3% or higher.

Conducting Marketing Optimization Tests

I have discussed this at length in another blog, but most marketers who conduct AB tests focus on small changes that aren't really that noticeable.

The difference in button color or button typography aren't noticeable enough nowadays with how short our tolerance for media has gotten.

So at Optimize Your Marketing, we use tests like changing the design of a Hero section on a landing page or shortening the entire page 1 section at a time.

These are noticeable enough changes that will affect the way prospects interact with the site.

Within AB testing, we are just trying to get the right combination of actions with the marketing campaigns or landing page variation we are running.

We continue to iterate tests for key conversion points in the marketing funnel every two weeks.

This ensures consistent improvements over time which ultimately helps increase the marketing efforts efficiency.

Wrapping up Conversion Rate Optimization

The customer journey is long and sometimes complicated.

Use CRO to increase campaign performance and enhance the opportunity for your target customers to take action.

A data driven approach will allow you to understand how your digital landscape is performing and what that means for your expected leads.

How to Optimize Your Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is oftentimes overlooked and misunderstood by busineses.

Most businesses view social media marketing as a waste of budget and an inefficient way to acquire new leads.

However that couldn't be further from the truth.

As with all marketing channels, strategy and execution will determine the overall effectiveness of the marketing.

How Optimize Your Marketing Enhances Paid Social Media Campaigns

Instead of focusing on higher vanity metrics like impressions, we like to focus on click thru rate and leads.

We do this by placing social media marketing campaigns strategically in front of individuals that have already visited our website.

This means, the user has had to have already been exposed to the brand.

We get users to visit the website through direct messaging, referral, and SEM campaigns.

By doing this, we see much higher click rates on our ads and as a result, more efficient lead generation.

These kinds of social media marketing campaigns would fall in the middle of funnel and bottom of funnel messaging.

This means that these ads display testimonials, case studies, and a calls to action.

Since the user is exposed to the brand, we want to help them make a decision to work with us by placing enough social proof and reasons for them to buy.

What about Optimizing Free Social Media Campaigns?

Let's not forget, that all social media posts have the opportunity to bring people back to your optimized landing page.

So with our social media posts, I like to place center the content around the following topics:

• Educational content
• Informational content
• Testimonials
• Case Studies
• Most Popular Services
• Bonus Opportunities For Existing Customers

By placing these kinds of content in front of prospects and customers, we are increasing the chances of them becoming leads or referring more leads to the business.

How we use Data to Validate Success

With a posting schedule in place and the appropriate tracking pixels the opportunities to understand the buying cycle has never been easier.

At Optimize Your Marketing, we use Google Analytics 4 and UTMs to effectively track what steps a person takes before becoming a lead.

If we use UTMs on our social media posts, as well as with our ads, emails and direct messages, then we can track how many times someone viewed our website from the various marketing channels.

For example, a lead may have visited the website from a social media post, then a retargeted ad, filled out a form for a piece of content, then direct messaged by a sales representative, before finally deciding to purchase.

This kind of data at scale helps our clients marketing strategy with tangible evidence of what is working and what's not.

Wrapping up Social Media Marketing

Social media optimization can not only enhance the leads you get for your business over time, but also increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

Every marketing campaign can benefit from supplemental media campaigns.

Wrapping Up How to Optimize Your Marketing

As you can see, there are many ways to ensure efficent and optimized marketing.

Working with a digital agency to make your marketing "easier" has never been a better choice.

With the increases in data driven insights and the ability to hit your target audience with media makes digital marketing campaigns more complex, but as a result more efficient at acquiring leads.

If you have any questions about your digital marketing, please feel free to reach out to me at ian@optimize.marketing.

I am always happy to help give advice to companies looking to improve or scale their marketing.