PPC Advertising for Membership Acquisition: Precision Targeting Strategies
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, membership organisations are constantly seeking innovative ways to attract and retain members.
One of the most effective targeting strategies in their arsenal is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Coupled with the smart use of remarketing, it can have amazing results. This dynamic duo allows membership organisations to supercharge their member acquisition efforts by reaching their ideal audience with pinpoint precision.
In this blog, we will explore the why’s and how’s of PPC for member acquisition and dive into the art of remarketing for maximum impact.
Why PPC
For some this will be easy, where new member acquisition drives direct revenue (i.e. membership fee or event attendance etc…) then it comes down to simple maths. If your PPC campaigns can generate more revenue than it costs to run, then there can be very little downside to running PPC campaigns. Once you get the formula right then it can be a revenue generating machine, with healthy membership growth for your organisation and all the benefits that brings.
Where revenue is less obvious and marketing spend is linked only on the number of member signups, then the focus needs to be on your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and always reporting back the quality of your signups to constantly improve targeting. Getting this mix of CPA and Quality right will give you a sustainable paid campaign strategy which grows your membership at a speed you choose.
In all our years of managing Paid Ad Campaigns across Google, Bing, LinkedIn and Facebook, never have I believed a campaign with the right budget would not work.
A key part to any successful campaign is targeting…
9 Easy ways to get better targeting with PPC
1. Define Your Ideal Member Persona
Before launching a PPC campaign, it’s crucial to define your ideal member persona. After all, if you can’t accurately describe your ideal member then how can you target them?
Think about who they are. Iron out their typical interests, their demographics, and even online behaviours. Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience – you’re ready to get started on a successful member acquisition campaign.
2. Keyword Research
Identify the keywords and search terms that your ideal members are likely to use when searching for membership organisations like yours. Use keyword research tools to discover high-intent keywords that will drive qualified traffic to your website.
When trying to discover keywords, consider the language that your members are already using, what content you already have created or even your FAQ’s section on your website. Unless your organisation is new, you will find you already have identified your top keywords that will drive most of your traffic. Finally review your Google Analytics & Search Console data, this will tell you what keywords your members are already using to find you.
This information will be gold dust when it comes to building up your PPC campaigns. Targeting the right keywords will make a huge difference when it comes to the success of your campaigns.
3. Create Compelling Ad Copy
Craft attention-grabbing ad copy that speaks directly to your ideal members’ needs and aspirations. Rather than focusing on purely describing your services, focus on how your service caters to them.
Think of highlighting the unique benefits and value proposition of your organisation. How is your membership organisation different to your competitors? In what ways are you better for prospective members? Your ad copy should reflect all the key benefits of joining.
It’s also key to ensure that your ad copy aligns with the keywords you’re targeting.
4. Implement Geographic Targeting
Geo-targeting allows you to show your ads only to people in specific geographic areas. This is crucial if your membership organisation serves a specific region, city, or country. After all, what’s the point in targeting members that you wouldn’t ever be able to convert? This is where using geo-targeting helps ensure your ads reach the right audiences.
5. Utilise Audience Segmentation
Another secret ingredient for successful PPC campaigns is to make sure you’re creating highly targeted ones. To do this you should be leveraging the power of audience segmentation.
Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads allow you to segment your audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviour. You can then tailor your ad content to each segment to increase relevance. This in turn will make it more likely for those prospective members to convert.
6. Bring Back Interested Prospects with Remarketing
Remarketing (or retargeting) is a powerful technique that allows you to re-engage website visitors who have shown interest but not converted. After all, the average website conversion rate is around 2%, which means you could be missing out on up to 98% of your traffic!
Remarketing is a way to keep your membership organisation in their minds by showing them tailored content. It’s a highly successful way of converting your audience, driving on average a 147% higher conversion rate than standard PPC ads alone.
To let you into a little secret…this is currently our favourite way of maximising ROI on ad spend!
7. Create Custom Remarketing Audiences
If you are looking to utilise remarketing in your marketing strategy, then this tip is a must! Segment your website visitors into custom audiences based on their interactions with your site.
For example, you can create an audience for users who visited your membership pricing page but didn’t sign up and a separate audience for visitors who only viewed your home page.
You can then in turn show each audience a better tailored message. After all, a user who has visited your pricing page is likely to be much further along in the sales process than an initial home page browser.
8. Frequency Capping to Ensure Good User Experience
A common PPC mistake is not setting frequency caps. Setting caps helps limit how often your remarketing ads are shown to a single user. Why do this, you ask? Well, it helps to avoid overwhelming your audience with ads. I’m sure we can all agree that there is nothing more annoying than being relentlessly badgered by ads wherever we go.
So, setting frequency caps can help strike the right balance between making sure your brand is present to the end user and still ensuring a positive user experience.
9. A/B Testing to Optimise Results
It’s important to keep testing and optimising your campaigns to make sure you’re always putting the best out there. A/B testing can help you test different ad creatives, messages and offers to see which drives the best results.
It allows you to make data-driven decisions which will lead to better campaign performance. And ultimately better rates of member acquisition for your organisation.
Bonus
Implementing a strong Member Acquisition strategy can be difficult with so many options in front of you. Try our free Member Acquisition Scorecard to measure your Acquisition strategy and give free pointers on how it can be improved.
The easy way to enhance member acquisition
PPC advertising and remarketing are invaluable tools for membership organisations looking to acquire and retain members effectively. It’s a great way to stay ahead of the competition, but it takes time, knowledge and experience to drive real results.
Your future members are already searching for answers to the problems you solve, the key is using PPC to make sure you are there to solve them!
Next Steps
Take our Member Acquisition Scorecard to see how you can improve member acquisition today!
Copper Bay Digital is a Membership Growth Agency who have been supporting membership organisations for over a decade with Digital Marketing and Development. Get in touch at [email protected]
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