As a paid media and analytics veteran of 18 years, he employs creative and analytical solutions to solve clients' biggest digital problems. Outside of the office, you can find Davis running, camping/hiking, chasing his dog Hank, or trying to make the perfect cup of coffee.
Read BioFellow PPC advertisers,
It’s time to acknowledge that we often get stuck in an all digital world. Being focused in that digital bubble often leads to forgetting there’s a real-world out there. That’s right, a real-world without front-end metrics, Google Analytics and pivot tables (THE HORROR!). We admit that we find ourselves stuck in that bubble from time to time. The quote below from David Bell (source here) and his book, Location Is (Still) Everything, has opened my eyes to the bigger picture. Why do consumers use the internet to shop the way they do? "We think the Internet flattens out our options. But if you live next door to a drugstore, likely you're going to go downstairs for diapers there every day, rather than shop at Diapers.com all the time. "Your physical world defines your options, if you're in the Philly suburbs 30 minutes from a store, then Diapers.com looks good."For marketers, especially PPC advertisers, it is imperative to learn more about how real-world influences affect the way we search online.
Frictions
There are two location-based factors that shape the way we search: Search friction and geographic friction. These real-world frictions don’t prevent you from doing things, but they definitely make it more difficult! Search friction occurs when it is hard for a consumer to find information about a particular product that he or she is looking to buy; and geographic friction occurs when the product is physically far away from the consumer—including physical store distance and in terms of shipping time. Let’s talk about a few real-world circumstances that may cause a frictionin someone’s search for a product or service:
Preference Isolation
Isolation offline means liberation online. Preference isolation is the term for not getting what you want offline (in the real-world) because your preferences differ from the tastes of the local majority. PPC advertisers can get an overwhelmingly greater demand from locations where customers are the preference minority so take advantage.
Proximity
Hypothetical question: If your customer is literally at your door step, would you invite them in or tell them to visit your website? Addressing your store’s proximity to a searcher can be done differently on mobile and desktop devices. Data has shown that on-the-go users want instant “snackable” information. Having mobile ad copy that highlights proximity and in-store visits for people who are close to a physical store location would help alleviate this search friction. In addition to addressing proximity in the ad copy, you can cater to desktop (and tablet, of course) users by giving them the option to pick up in-store instead of waiting for the item to be shipped.
Regional Dialect
Though it’s usually discussed in planning meetings with clients, regional dialect is often forgotten. Understanding regional dialect is extremely important for all areas of PPC campaign build outs, optimizations and creating effective landing pages. Here’s a prime example: Being from Texas, specifically Houston, where we get maybe a month of real winter (we’re talking 30’s-40’s), we had no idea cities in northern states don’t refer to a home heating apparatus as a heater, but a furnace. In turn, ads that containing “heater” instead of “furnace” would most likely have little engagement. There’s a ton of information out there on regional dialect, Joshua Katz has done a great job with dialect heat-mapping here.
