3 SEM Lessons Cars4Causes Missed
Last month I was attacked and bombarded by ads from Cars4Causes (C4C). In my blog reader, C4C ads. On websites, C4C ads. I finally reached a breaking point when I came across a website where TWO C4C ads appeared side by side! It still baffles me why I was such a target since One – I haven’t bought a car in almost 2 years and Two - Haven’t shown any interest online in donating my existing car or cars in general. My only conclusion is that this campaign focused on the female demographic who have soft spots for causes (which I do).
Luckily, this month-long campaign of wasted impressions has ceased, but as a marketer, I can’t help but notice the simple errors Cars4Causes made in their display ads campaign. Below are 3 AdWords lessons Cars4Causes may have missed in their SEM class.
1) Set a Limit to Number of Daily Impressions
Google AdWords allows any campaign manager to set a cap on the number of impressions an ad may be viewed by a target per day, week, or month. It might be best to assume that if a consumer has seen your ad X number of times a day, week, or month and has still not clicked on it, then they are not interested.
2) Ad Should Capture Attention BUT Not Visually Offend
After the 50th time of seeing the C4C ad, it was the look of the ad that bothered me most. While I am patriotic and like red, white, and blue, this particular ad has a cheesy car salesman look and clashes on the screen rather than appeal to viewers. C4C could have taken a lesson from Groupon who uses alot of pretty food imagery in their display ads to entice AND create a visually stimulating ad to click.
3) Created Multiple Versions of Ad
Another aspect of the C4C ads that put me off was the fact that there was only one version. A good rule of thumb for any search engine marketing campaign is to do experiments with different versions of ads to appeal to specific targets or to test which is most effective. C4C didn’t have an ad specifically geared toward a woman or man, or toward a particular age group. It was just one, singular, sad ad.
Once again, Groupon provides great examples of ad groups. They bombard me all the time with display ads, but since they vary with different looks and messages, I am less annoyed and have a much better brand experience. And hey, I might even give ‘em a click once in a while.
Conclusion
One could say that if the goal of the C4C campaign was to catch the audiences attention, they succeeded. But at what price and annoyance of a potential (or non-potential) consumer? While I’m sure they enjoyed some decent click-thrus and conversions from this campaign, how much more could they have received if they had incorporated a better strategy into their campaign?
Have you been bombarded by a bad display ad marketing? What lessons would you like to teach the marketers of these brands?
