Selling can be challenging because it involves s a complex process of human behavior and cognition.
More than likely, marketers who struggle to win customers either haven’t been prospecting the right way or aren’t putting in enough effort.
In this in-depth article, you’ll learn how to leverage the power of the human brain with neuroscience sales tips.
Whether you’re selling a digital product online or you run a brick-and-mortar business, these behavioral neuroscience principles will work for you. They’ll help you drive more visitors into your marketing funnel and convert casual visits into sales.
Influence is your ability to persuade others to adopt your own perspective. You believe in your product (e.g., online course, ebook, software), so you naturally want others to believe in it, too.
Your ability to persuade others in this way by appealing to their emotions will increase your sales. Influence increases the perceived value of your products.
You see, influential people tend to sell more product. It’s not because they’ve created the best product — sometimes, that’s just not true — but because over the years, they’ve built credibility. People trust their opinions.
For example, in the digital marketing world, people trust Seth Godin. That’s because Seth Godin has written over 20 bestselling books. He’s a sought-after public speaker and social media influencer.
Seth doesn’t waste words. Most of his posts have fewer than 200 words, like the one below, but the social sharing and engagement for these posts is amazing.
Remember that influence isn’t the same as popularity. They’re not interchangeable, though a lot of people regard them as such.
Brian Solis reports that one person responding to a survey he conducted with Vocus put it like this:
Popularity is just that people like you, influence is when they listen to you.
When you’re selling online, becoming popular shouldn’t be your ultimate focus. Spend time building your influence. It takes time, but it’s worth the effort.
In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, author Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D., identifies the 6 factors that get people’s brain function to do something that they wouldn’t have ordinarily done.
In my experience as a content marketer who’s built a loyal audience, influence can be achieved through consistently creating useful content for your target audience and forming relationships with influencers and readers.
If you’re a blogger, you’ve already cleared the first hurdle of building authority and influencing people. Macallan persuaded 32 people to do marketing for the company. This resulted in a huge increase in exposure and influence over an audience of 150,000 people.
Next, give adequate time to content creation and building friendships. Reply to comments, answer questions, and, every so often, visit a reader’s blog and give them some free feedback or tips on how to improve their site.
2. You Have to Sell Yourself Before You Can Sell Your Product
Make no mistake: You’re a product; and like any product, you have to successfully communicate the value of that product. Until that happens, you’ll find it difficult to sell your actual products or services.
Before anybody is going to buy from you or your company, they’ve got to ‘buy’ the idea that you’re somebody worth working with. In other words, just like a job candidate, your first task is always selling yourself.
Email marketing is the most effective lead generation tactic, followed by websites/landing pages and then content marketing. But guess what? Each of these tactics will work better when you first sell yourself, then the product.
Selling yourself isn’t an insurmountable challenge. There are lots of opportunities in today’s world of marketing to appeal to the human brain. However, with many opportunities come an increase in competition.
In a sea of writers, bloggers, freelancers, consultants, public speakers, etc., how do you stand out from the crowd?
It’s simple: Become passionate about your product.
When you’re selling yourself, you’re not concerned about the money. Your responsibility is to educate others’ human minds as you convey your brand’s core message.
HelpScout doesn’t just try to sell help-desk software. Instead, it also sells itself as a brand.
Learning how to sell yourself first is critical to your success. No matter what product you’re offering for sale, do your best to connect with and communicate your core brand values to your prospects.
3. Build Interest with Features; Build Desire with Benefits
Sell the benefits, not the features.
Most people and companies think products and services sell because of their great features. That’s not the case.
Harvard Business School conducted a research study and found that products of all kinds sell because of their benefits. The benefits that drive sales aren’t always obvious from the customer’s perspective though.
Whether you’re selling via email, direct mail, or social selling, highlight the benefits as well as the features of your product.
Starting with the strongest benefits of your product will reassure customers that you care about them, not (just) their hard-earned money, providing social security.
Selling with benefits means that you’re transparent with your customers. That’s exactly what their cognitive function wants.
Copywriters know how to sell benefits.
For example, Dan Kennedy wrote sales copy that generated over $10 million in sales over the years. It’s the same with Eben Pagan, Frank Kern and several top digital entrepreneurs.
These people were successful because they focused on benefits, not features. Successful selling boils down to one thing: showing your customers how your offer/product meets their needs.
Kat Night agrees that quantifying the benefits of a product is more likely to result in a sale than describing its features.
However, in order to avoid misleading prospects and customers, you have to start by building interest with features. Then, you increase their desire for your product with benefits.
When people are searching for a solution to meet their needs, what their brain function is actually looking for is a future that appeals to them. According to BufferApp, “people don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves.”
Consumers are happy to spend money on products that’ll make their lives better. Before the iPod was invented, there were MP3 players on the market. So iPod sold the benefit: “1,000 songs in your pocket.”
What’s the difference between a benefit and a feature?
In a nutshell, benefits are what you (or your prospects) can do with a product. Features are what the product can do. They sound similar, right? Yet, they’re totally different things.
“You can get fit without straining your joints with an elliptical trainer” targets the benefit. “Easy-glide motion, timer, and adjustable intensity settings” are all features.
See the difference?
Customers’ cognitive functions are different depending on where they are in the buying journey. Their human brains all must first recognize a need, then seek potential solutions, evaluate the solutions, decide to take action, and finally make the purchase.
Use features at stages 1 and 2; benefits will work better on their brain activity when they’re actually making purchase decisions (stages 4 and 5).
He found that “from the customers’ perspectives, products are viewed as a bundle of benefits, not attributes” (features).
MBA Skool suggests that a product benefit is usually the answer to customer’s questions. You probably already know that questions are driven by the psychological phenomenon of an emotional desire to know more.
The level of satisfaction derived from a product will differ depending on human behavior and cognitive neuroscience. After all, two people may both need a product, but one can need it desperately, while the other could get along without it.
Let’s look at an example in the world of marketing consulting services and products.
For most retailers with optimized and high-functioning websites, SEO and email marketing are more beneficial than a Facebook page. That’s not always true for other retailers.
If you help businesses set up a Facebook marketing campaign (including a fan page), you need to sell with benefits while targeting your ideal customers (e.g., those without a functional website or with low-performing sites).
People buy products emotionally, and justify the purchases logically. When you use brain science to build interest with features and create strong desire with benefits, you’re meeting your prospects where they are and giving them the social security and social proof they need to feel confident in the purchase.
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When you evoke the appropriate emotions, customers may not even know why they’re responding to your product. But they’ll buy it.
Remember that benefits are the things that you can do with a product, while features are what the product can do. Let’s look at a few real-world examples:
Twitter is a unique micro-blogging platform. It helps you update your timeline in real-time. It all began from their value proposition, based on the platform’s benefits: “start a conversation, explore your interests and be in the know.”
Volusion.com has a unique value proposition that simply and strongly projects the core benefit of its software.
It’s your responsibility to study your product and know its features, benefits and advantage over your competitor’s product.
4. Sell the Results by Painting a Clear Picture
Are you selling your product’s results?
If you don’t do that consistently, you’ll likely struggle to acquire qualified leads and increase conversion and revenue.
These days, most of us are selling to a new generation of customers: the millennials.
Millennials are a unique set of people born between 1982 and 2000 and making up 26% of the world’s population. Over 23% of millennials hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, making them the most educated generation in history.
Even if today’s consumers haven’t graduated college, they do know what they’re after in a product. They want results and they won’t let their human brain function be swayed by fancy copy that doesn’t give at least a sneak peek of the results that they can expect.
To market successfully to this group of consumers, you need solid research and data.
A study conducted by Harvey Research on “How to Sell with Ad Readership Studies” found that “one of the primary reasons for conducting an ad readership study is to obtain research which will help your organization sell advertising.”
When this research is documented and the data shared with advertisers, it becomes a marketing partner.
In advertising, the result is the data — that is, the actionable metrics. If your product helped a customer increase lead generation by 27%, that’s a metric that you can use to win more clients.
Have you ever wondered how introverts successfully sell products? An introvert is a person whose motives, actions, social preferences and human brain functions are directed inwards. Introverts generally don’t enjoy the human behavior associated with convincing or negotiating.
They’re reserved. Selling is not their preferred task, yet many of them end up becoming top salespeople and industry power players.
Brian Tracy was an introvert, but by studying consumer psychology and cognitive science and learning what social signals prompt people to buy, he’s become exceptionally successful through neuroscience principles of sales.
One of the sales secrets that the introvert masters know is that it’s much better to sell the results of a product, instead of the product itself.
Selling the result can be likened to painting a clear picture of your target in an ideal future setting — a point in time where they’ve conquered their challenge or solved their problem successfully — and displaying it on a shelf.
People who know that person will be captivated by the promise of the painting.
In the same vein, when you paint the picture of your product’s results and show people how easily they can use it, you’ll build interest and inspire action in them.
People aren’t looking for your service (or your product, or your program). They’re looking for results.
In other words, your product isn’t the selling point, so why make it the focus? For example, instead of writing your copy headlines using your product name, focus on the product’s results.
A few ways to sell results instead of products are:
Lead with the value of the product, not the title: If your product helps people cut 5 hours off their workweek, lead with that. It’s your competitive advantage.
If your offer (e.g., service, program, online course, etc.) helps people lose 10 pounds in 60 days, let your copy focus on that core benefit.
Derek Halpern sells the result of his online course, “Yes Engines.” See the captivating title?:
Showcase before and after results: Fitness trainers know how to use “before” and “after” pictures and videos to improve self-esteem, inspire action, and improve positive cognitive function.
If you’re looking to lose weight, would you be excited when you see amazing case study results from people like you and then find out you can do the same?
The same thing applies to makeup products or tutorials. If you’ve been searching for a makeup training program and you came across the before & after pictures below, would you want to know more?
In selling the results of a product, rather than the product itself, you’ve got to use visuals that allow your customers to see themselves getting the results they want. Don’t just describe what the end result will look like; represent it with visuals.
Even scientists are in sales. How do scientists sell brain science, cellular neuroscience or experimental psychology to the public? The public isn’t naturally interested in subjects such as developmental neurobiology, computational neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging, or neural systems.
Also, difficult and upsetting subjects such as Alzheimer’s disease, brain damage, post-traumatic stress disorder, or other mental health issues can be difficult to sell to a reader.
Are there any typical results they have to show, the way a blogger who created an online course on how to “get 1000 email subscribers” would?
More than likely, the scientists don’t have visual results to show. Instead, they sell the validity of a case study and its importance to appeal to the reader’s cognitive psychology.
A study by Vanderbilt University concluded that scientists sell scientific data and ideas by convincing their peers and colleagues of the study’s validity and importance.
Since the population usually can’t fully understand all of the wide range of implications of scientific data, a scientist’s “pitch” is often translated by the news media into something that a lay audience can understand.
In many niches, before you can sell a product you need to first acquire leads, nurture them, and convince them to buy.
Selling isn’t a one-way street. Several factors play a vital role. The platforms where you generate your leads matter. Most people have generated more leads through Facebook ads than Google Ads.
On the other hand, the quality of leads of Google Ads tends to be higher.
When it comes to giving people value for their time and money, Google leads the pack. Google sells advertising, not search results.
That is why paid ads in Google are clearly marked and set apart from the actual search results. When it comes to displaying the right results, here’s what Google says:
Google search results take into account who links to a web page as well as how relevant the content on that page is to your search. Our results reflect what the online community believes is important, not what we or our partners think you ought to see.
As you can see, Google sells advertising on its search engine, but it delivers the most relevant, valuable, and helpful search results in its organic listings. Site owners can neither pay to stay at the top of the search results pages, nor manipulate their rankings (at least, not for long).
Google is the leading digital advertising company because first, it understands what people want, and second, it’s committed to providing the best search results.
You can build credibility in a number of ways, including by providing top-notch customer service.
Customers want to reach an agent who can help them resolve problems quickly. They also want to interact with real people and gain access to information to resolve issue themselves.
Trust + expertise = credibility.
You can’t succeed in business if you lack credibility. Top brands can boast about their products, because over the years they’ve become known and are credible, offering social security.
That’s why it’s difficult for a new marketer, organization, or company to dominate the marketplace.
Customers’ cognitive functions are scared to trust you or your product. After all, you might take their money and vanish. Customer service is the hallmark of credibility. It builds credibility from the ground up.
The viral effect of bad customer service is alarming. More people share negative experiences than they share good ones. 66% of customers who experienced negative (bad) customer experience want to discourage others from buying from that company.
86% of people completely stopped doing business with companies over bad customer experiences. It negatively affects their human brain functions.
Every day, I wake up and ask myself a question: “What’s the best thing I can do for my customers today?”
It’s a simple, slightly dramatic exercise that reinforces for me the importance of building trust in prospect’s minds. People won’t trust you unless you’ve proven yourself and delivered immense value over a period of time.
How do you establish credibility when you’re an online business owner?
Stanford Web Credibility Research compiled 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a website. This can be applied to your product, personality, and brand.
Most local businesses know how to build credibility. They use sentiment to affect human behavior. While others are struggling to earn a customer’s trust, local businesses donate to schools, sponsor children’s sports teams and participate in community events bulletin boards.
Be willing to work hard. People respect people who work hard. But, don’t make it all about yourself. Credibility is best earned by looking out for the interests of other people.
Here are a few simple ways to improve your credibility:
Answer questions correctly: Trust and transparency are just as important to corporate reputation as the quality of products and services. If you give incorrect answers it will damage your reputation.
When people ask you questions, if you don’t know the right answer, then say so. Offer to do some research and get back to them.
Whatever you do, don’t spout off with something you’re not sure of just to sound intelligent. The more you answer questions correctly, the more people will trust you.
Produce valuable content regularly: There is no shortcut to content creation. You either do it yourself or outsource it to a knowledgeable freelance writer.
Always publish new content that helps people achieve their goals more easily. Your credibility level will increase.
Don’t just create generic content. Instead, focus on creating custom content that will be relevant to your audience and in sync with your goal.
Offer to solve relevant problems: If you have unique skills, you can offer to solve relevant problems for your target audience.
For example, if you’re a website developer, you could offer to help readers tweak their WordPress themes, or show them how to do it easily themselves.
Build relationships: We all need to treat others fairly, recognize their inherent worth, and respect them.
Don’t let your human behavior be solely consumed by the amount of money you can make. Instead, now and again, help people for free. Brenton Hayden recommends that you follow a few specific strategies if you want to up your credibility:
In today’s marketplace, brands and products disappear as quickly as they appear. Most of them won’t stand the test of time.
It’s obvious that the way to improve your credibility is to build relationships with prospects and customers and earn their trust.
You can also build credibility by showcasing customer success stories. If you don’t have any authority at all, it may be hard for people to trust you. The best approach to appeal to their cognitive functions is to show that your product really works.
Drew Manning, founder of Fit2Fat2Fit, knows how to showcase real-life results. He discovered that most people who sell fitness programs and products are athletic, fit people who have never been overweight.
How can they possibly understand the human brain functions behind the struggles that overweight people endure and what that feels like?
Drew Manning did things differently. He spent 6 months gaining over 70 lbs. He then spent another 6 months taking the weight off.
This transformation was a source of confidence to potential customers. They thought, “If it worked for him, it’ll work for me, too.”
6. Sales Is a “Give and Give” Relationship
Giving usually comes into focus during the holiday season.
Your customers are your best salespeople. Before they can recommend your product to other prospects, you need to make up your mind to give and give. That’s the relationship between you and customers.
According to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, there is a way to sell that is rewarding, positive, and even enjoyable. It’s called relationship marketing and it’s a message Dale Carnegie started delivering over 80 years ago.
When you first establish a relationship with prospects, it affect their neural development and becomes easier to sell to them. The best salespeople are the best givers.
Contrary to what most people think, it’s not a “give and take” relationship, because you’re not taking anything from your audience.
If you love your customers (of course you should), then look for ways to give them as much value as possible and let it be more than what they’ll pay for.
Even though they may buy your product, that doesn’t mean you’re taking from them. The value of your product/service is expected to be higher than the price they paid for it.
Don’t get tired of giving. It’s your life as an entrepreneur, whether you run a brick-and-mortar business or are an online marketer.
Creating relationships that drive sales is critical to your business. That’s how top brands like Amazon, Zappos, Home Depot, and the like thrive in this competitive age.
The existing brain science research in psychology, economics, and neuroscience exploring the benefits of charitable giving has been largely correlational. Does it cause more happiness and fulfillment? Or is the connection between happiness and giving just a happy accident?
Happiness is a positive form of emotion, the province, and function of the limbic brain region.
To sell more products, give more value for free. According to Dunn and Norton, a study on happiness shows that the most satisfying way to use money is to invest in others. This might explain why so many people donate to charities that work in developing countries.
You can learn from two of America’s leading billionaires: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Buffett donated 99% of his wealth to help charitable causes, saying “I couldn’t be happier with that decision.”
Both billionaires give quite a bit to the world. Yet, here they willingly moved themselves down from being billionaires to millionaires. Heartfelt giving brings more into your life and your business.
Successful internet marketers who generated 6 or 7 figure incomes when they launched their products online followed this strategy.
They first started by giving tremendous value, well before selling. Eben Pagan, Frank Kern, Jeff Goins, Bill Baren and others launched their products in this manner.
For example, before Brian Dean opened his premium course “SEO That Works,” he first taught the best way to get top rankings for free in a blog post. I’m subscribed to his email list, so I can tell you that the value he provided made purchasing his online course a very simple decision. because he had already created tons of value for me.
If you don’t have a product to sell at the moment, it shouldn’t stop you from giving a richer experience to your prospects. Create high-quality content consistently.
I’ve been blogging for over a decade. Since that time, I’ve been creating 3 – 5 in-depth, relevant and valuable pieces of content for my audience each week.
That’s why you see huge traffic spikes in my blogs and a growing customer base for my software businesses.
New studies prove that giving is beneficial not just for the recipients, but for the givers’ health and happiness. Giving promotes cooperation, positive human behavior, and social connection.
This is what you need to boost sales.
A study by sociologists Brent Simpson and Robb Willer showed that “when you give to others, your generosity is likely to be rewarded by others down the line—sometimes by the person you gave to, sometimes by someone else.”
7. To Close More Sales, Stop Selling
Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko and SEO That Works, understands how to persuade people to sign up for his online course.
Even though his online course is closed, he still sells by requesting that you join the waiting list.
Why does he do this?
Well, when people join his waiting list, they get quality advice and case studies of people achieving first page rankings, etc. By the time the course re-opens again, subscribers who joined the waiting list will be desperate for the online course.
The majority of them will eagerly enroll. After all, they’ve already received tremendous value, free of charge.
In other words, stop pushing your products to the target audience. Instead, push high-value content. Answer questions and show the results of your services or products.
One company that sells its products quite successfully without sounding too salesy is BlendTec. BlendTec took a novel approach way back in 2007 with its “Will It Blend?” series.
The founder, Tom Dickson, understands that what people are looking for in a blender is the blade’s sharpness and the motor’s strength.
In each video in the “Will It Blend?” series, Tom tests his blender by blending anything from cell phones to wooden rakes.
Don’t try to push sales too much. Instead, educate more. Become a teacher. Become passionate about helping other people.
Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger, discovered early in his content marketing business that “Teaching Sells.”
When he started teaching instead of selling, he turned his blog into a multi-million dollar software business. He also went on to start another new business called RainMaker.fm.
When you teach, you’re giving away value that people can’t find elsewhere. If you continually educate and inform your target audience, you’ll sell more products or services in the process.
Conclusion
If you can tap into how your customer’s brains works at different stages in the purchasing process or lead funnel, you may be able to drive more sales with less effort.
The neuroscience sales tips we’ve provided should help you get started thinking about how you can leverage the power of the human brain in your own digital marketing strategy.
If all of this sounds intimidating and you want help enacting these principles, let us know. Our team of experts are ready and waiting to partner with you to create a stellar SEO or marketing plan that drives sales by considering how your customers think.
Which of these cognitive neuroscience principles have you applied to increase your product sales online?
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Cynthia Ramsaran is director of custom content at Third Door Media, publishers of Search Engine Land and MarTech. A multi-channel storyteller with over two decades of editorial/content marketing experience, Cynthia’s expertise spans the marketing, technology, finance, manufacturing and gaming industries. She was a writer/producer for CNBC.com and produced thought leadership for KPMG. Cynthia hails from Queens, NY and earned her Bachelor’s and MBA from St. John’s University.
In a groundbreaking alliance, Amazon and Hyundai have joined forces to reshape the automotive landscape, promising a revolutionary shift in how we buy, drive, and experience cars.
Imagine browsing for your dream car on Amazon, with the option to seamlessly purchase, pick up, or have it delivered—all within the familiar confines of the world’s largest online marketplace. Buckle up as we explore the potential impact of this monumental partnership and the transformation it heralds for the future of auto retail.
Driving Change Through Amazon’s Auto Revolution
Consider “Josh”, a tech-savvy professional with an affinity for efficiency. Faced with the tedious process of purchasing a new car, he stumbled upon Amazon’s automotive section. Intrigued by the prospect of a one-stop shopping experience, Josh decided to explore the Amazon-Hyundai collaboration.
The result?
A hassle-free online car purchase, personalized to his preferences, and delivered to his doorstep. Josh’s story is just a glimpse into the real-world impact of this game-changing partnership.
Bridging the Gap Between Convenience and Complexity
Traditional car buying is often marred by complexities, from navigating dealership lots to negotiating prices. The disconnect between the convenience consumers seek and the cumbersome process they endure has long been a pain point in the automotive industry. The need for a streamlined, customer-centric solution has never been more pressing.
Ecommerce Partnership Reshaping Auto Retail Dynamics
Enter Amazon and Hyundai’s new strategic partnership coming in 2024—an innovative solution poised to redefine the car-buying experience. The trio of key developments—Amazon becoming a virtual showroom, Hyundai embracing AWS for a digital makeover, and the integration of Alexa into next-gen vehicles—addresses the pain points with a holistic approach.
In 2024, auto dealers for the first time will be able to sell vehicles in Amazon’s U.S. store, and Hyundai will be the first brand available for customers to purchase.
This collaboration promises not just a transaction but a transformation in the way customers interact with, purchase, and engage with their vehicles.
Pedal to the Metal
Seamless Online Purchase:
Complete the entire transaction within the trusted Amazon platform.
Utilize familiar payment and financing options.
Opt for convenient pick-up or doorstep delivery.
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Alexa Integration in Next-Gen Vehicles:
Enjoy a hands-free, voice-controlled experience in Hyundai vehicles.
Access music, podcasts, reminders, and smart home controls effortlessly.
Stay connected with up-to-date traffic and weather information.
Driving into the Future
The Amazon-Hyundai collaboration is not just a partnership; it’s a revolution in motion. As we witness the fusion of e-commerce giant Amazon with automotive prowess of Hyundai, the potential impact on customer behavior is staggering.
The age-old challenges of car buying are met with a forward-thinking, customer-centric solution, paving the way for a new era in auto retail. From the comfort of your home to the driver’s seat, this partnership is set to redefine every step of the journey, promising a future where buying a car is as easy as ordering a package online.
Embrace the change, and witness the evolution of auto retail unfold before your eyes.
It’s no wonder that responsive search ads have steadily grown in popularity in recent years. Through Google’s machine learning capabilities, RSAs provide a powerful way to automate the testing of multiple headlines and descriptions to ensure a closer match to user intent. The benefits are clear: RSAs mean broader reach, better engagement, and improved performance metrics.
However, all these benefits come at a significant (but reasonable) cost – they can be extremely difficult to manage, especially when it comes to updating ad copy to promote limited time offers.
I know this firsthand – I work with several ecommerce clients with promotions that constantly change. Not too long ago, I found myself going through the consistently tedious process of updating a client’s RSA headlines and copy. As I was making the changes, I thought to myself: “There must be a better way to update this ad copy. I shouldn’t have to use find and replace so many times while pausing and enabling my ad campaigns.”
After expressing this to my colleague, Jordan Stambaugh, the two of us agreed there must be a better way. But we’d have to make it happen. A few weeks later, we put that idea into action and created a more efficient process for updating RSA ad copy on a scheduled basis. If you want to try this process for yourself, just keep reading.
Responsive Search Ad Customizers 101: Basic Options & Execution
Before diving into the process of scheduling automatic updates for your RSA customizers, it’s essential to understand some key Responsive Search Ad fundamentals.
First, you can customize three main options within RSAs: the Attribute Name, the Data Type, and the Account Value. Each of these plays a vital role in personalizing your ads:
Attribute Name: This is essentially the identifier for the customizer. It is how you’ll reference the specific piece of information you’re customizing within the ad. For instance, if you’re running a promotion, you might name an attribute “Promotion.”
Data Type: This indicates the kind of data the attribute represents and it determines how the information can be formatted and used within the ad. Common data types include Text (for plain, non-numeric text), Percent (to represent percentage discounts), Price (to denote monetary values), and Number (for any numerical value).
Account Value: This is the default value for the attribute that you set at the account level. It acts as a fallback if more specific values aren’t provided at the campaign or ad group level.
For example, if you wanted to promote a 10% off discount using RSAs, you’d use the “Discount” attribute, a data type of “Percent,” and an account value of “10% off.” Then, when someone is searching for products, Google would test automatically inserting a copy regarding a 10% off promotion into your ad.
Once you’ve set up the right customization options, you can start to format your RSAs with customizers.
Here’s how:
Start by typing in {
Click on Ad Customizer then select your attribute
Google will populate your attributes that are already uploaded
For a simple offer, use the “Default text” attribute as a catch-all. This will ensure your ads run smoothly if Google can’t pull the right messaging from your RSA feed
How to Schedule Your Ad Customizers with a Feed
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s cover how to schedule your ad customizers.
Just follow this three step process:
1. Create the feed
Start by creating two sheets: The Parent sheet, and the Child sheet. The “Parent” sheet will act as the primary data source, while the child sheet will pull data from the parent sheet.
We’ll start by building the parent sheet. After opening the sheet, start by renaming the active tab to “Promotions.” Don’t skip this step, it’s crucial for referencing this range in formulas later on.
In your “Promotions” tab, head to the top row and label columns A, B, and C with the headers of your ad customizer attributes. For example, you might have “BrandSaleHeadline” as your attribute in column A, “text” as the Data Type in column B, and “Shop the Collection” as the Account Value in column C.
Once your headers are in place, move to cell C2. Here, you’ll input the expression =lookup(today(),F:G,E:E). This formula will play a key role in dynamically updating your RSA customizer based on the current date.
Next, go to columns E, F, and G, which will be used to manage your scheduling. In these columns, you’ll list out the different values your chosen attribute might take, alongside their corresponding start and end dates. For example, under the “BrandSaleHeadline” attribute, you might schedule various promotional headlines to appear during different sale periods throughout the year.
Here’s how your sheet might look:
Now look back at the first 3 columns on your sheet. They should look like this:
Now create a second sheet. We’ll call this sheet the Child sheet. It’s going to automatically pull in data from the parent sheet you just created, and will be the one you link to Google Ads later on.
Columns A, B and C will be almost identical to the child sheet, but we will be using a special formula later so we can automatically populate this. So, start by labeling Row 1 Column A “Attribute,” then the next column as “Data type,” then column C as “Account value.”
Then go to C2 and use this expression to populate the right account value from the parent document: =importrange(“[PARENT DOCUMENT URL HERE]”,”Promotions!C2″)
Your sheet should now look like this:
We recommend adding a date range with default text for any days you’re not running a promotion. In the example above, we have “Shop Our Collection” appearing as default text.
2. Input attributes
Once you have your feed created, the next step involves inputting your attributes into the Google Ads platform. This can be done either manually or through a bulk upload.
For the manual approach, navigate to “Tools & Settings” in your Google Ads interface, then go to ‘Setup’ followed by “Business Data.” Here, you’ll find an option for “Ad Customizer Attributes.” Click the plus sign to add your attributes. It’s crucial to use the same attribute names that you’ve established in your Parent Google Sheet template to ensure consistency and proper data synchronization.
Alternatively, if you prefer the bulk upload method, again head to “Tools & Settings.” This time, select “Bulk Actions” and then “Uploads.” For this process, you only need to upload columns A to C from your template.
Be aware that it might take some time for your uploaded attributes to be reflected in the business data section of Google Ads.
3. Set up an automatic schedule
At this point, you’ve almost finished scheduling your ad customizers. Navigate to Tools & Settings, then Bulk Actions, then Uploads, then click the Schedules tab at the top. Select your Child Google Sheet as the data source, and share your Google Sheet with the appropriate email.
And there you have it – Google will automatically pull in the data you populated in the sheets into your RSAs.
Common Challenges When Scheduling RSA Ad Customizers
When we test these sheets with our clients in the wild, we’ve uncovered five common challenges. Be on the lookout for these issues – solving them before they happen can save you a lot of trouble down the line.
Not scheduling your upload when the site changes
The first and most significant hurdle is the mismatch between the scheduled data upload and website content updates. For instance, if the Google Sheet is set to upload at 11 am, but the website changes occur at 3 pm, there’s going to be a discrepancy where the wrong message could be displayed for several hours, or new messaging could appear prematurely. Conversely, if the website updates happen before the scheduled sheet upload, outdated promotions might linger until the new data is imported. Synchronizing these schedules is crucial; it’s best to align them so updates occur simultaneously.
Skipping QA during a message change
Another pitfall is neglecting quality assurance (QA) during message updates. It’s vital to regularly check the business data section to verify that the correct values are in place post-update.
Issues with the IMPORTRANGE function
Then there’s the technical aspect of setting up the IMPORTRANGE function correctly in the Google Sheets template. The ‘child’ template must reliably pull data from the ‘parent’ sheet. If this function isn’t configured correctly, data won’t be imported as needed.
Not sharing access of the Google template for automatic uploads
Pay attention to your access permissions for the Google Sheets template. Google will prompt you with the email address that needs permission to access the ‘child’ sheet for automatic uploads. Overlooking the sharing of your sheet with this address will prevent the system from working.
Having date range gaps in your parent sheet
Lastly, a common oversight is leaving date range gaps in the ‘parent’ sheet. Every single date must be accounted for without overlaps. A practical tip is to have an ‘evergreen’ backup message ready, scheduled to run continuously, ideally through the end of the year, to cover any potential gaps.
Conclusion
Leveraging Google Sheets in conjunction with Google Ads to schedule RSA ad customizers is a game-changer for managing dynamic promotional content. This process not only streamlines your workflows but also ensures that your ads remain relevant and up-to-date, reflecting current promotions without the need for constant manual intervention.
By adopting this method, you’ll save significant time and effort, allowing you to focus more on strategy and less on the minutiae of ad copy updates. Give it a try and experience a more efficient way to manage your RSAs, keeping your campaigns fresh and engaging with minimal hassle.
![How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/How-to-Schedule-Ad-Customizers-for-Google-RSAs-2024.jpg "How to Schedule Ad Customizers for Google RSAs [2024]")
