Every marketer knows that pay-per-click or PPC engagement is a major indicator of the success of a campaign. While other metrics matter, like your click through rate (CTR) or your search impression share, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well an ad is designed if people aren’t clicking on it. What many marketers don’t know, however, is that product information management (PIM) is rapidly becoming a major success factor as well, even in marketing.
A study by FitForCommerce found that roughly 80 percent of successful e-commerce companies identify product information management as the best starting point for other online businesses. As such, “more companies are addressing PIM as a strategic asset and as an important prerequisite for evolving retail business models, data governance initiatives, and real multichannel strategies.” In other words, PIM enables PPC, and the best PPC campaigns rely on PIM.
Here is what you need to know to increase your PPC engagement through PIM:
Synchronicity with PPC Engagement
In regards to PPC engagement, PIM is all about synchronicity. It affects two main pain points. The first issue is how the same content can be used on different platforms, while the second is how that content can be synchronized. It’s important that both the image and the information the person receives when they click through the ad is current. For example, if you are selling a pair of tennis shoes, you want the image you use in your PPC campaign to be up to date and for that ad to link to the right product listing.
Alignment
PIM also allows you to make sure that your PPC is targeted. “Using a furniture example, if someone is searching for a sectional sofa, and you’re sending them to your overall sofa category and you have sectional sofas, you could be losing out on shoppers who are either too lazy to search for those sectional sofas or simply cannot find them on your site,” writes Search Engine Journal. “Do not leave it to chance. Do not assume your shoppers are in the mind frame to buy. Get that interested shopper in front of the right landing page and you will begin to see an uptick in conversions (barring how well your landing pages convert in general and the competition of the market).”
Images
Special Offers
Using a strong product information management system can help you target sales as well. You can use your PPC campaigns to offer special discounts to people who click on your ads. While you never want to orientate your customers so that they become inundated with sales to the point that they only want to buy when a sale is on, the way many clothing retailers have, there is a way to do it better. If you connect your PPC campaigns to select special offers, you can prompt a sale at the interest point without diluting your brand by making the promotion either on a limited time basis or dependent on another action (e.g., signing up for email).
PPC campaigns are important in the world of modern advertising, but PIM makes it happens. If your company is ready to take the next step, we want to talk. We can walk you through setting up your PPC campaign and establishing a PIM system that works for you. Choose the right PIM system and you may not even have to rewrite your web copy.
