PPC
Six Ways to Adjust Google Ads to Save Budget
You don’t have to be a financial expert to know that the economy is in a rough patch.
The vast majority of workers are working from home or laid off, retail stores are closed, and most bars and restaurants haven’t been open for dine-in customers.
For most of the nation staying home has been a good thing for the eCommerce industry, however, which saw a 25% increase in online sales.
Still, most business leaders are wary of spending unnecessary money. It is still unclear how long the COVID-19 pandemic might last, or how long the economy might take to recover.
However, if you are focusing on tightening up spending, there’s one area you can’t cut — and that is marketing.
If you don’t use this time to market your company wisely, you might not have a business once things finally move towards normal.
Instead of cutting all spending, it’s time to spend more carefully and do more with what you already have.
That might mean using strategies such as repurposing blog content into videos or podcasts or revitalizing older content to target currently popular search terms.
When it comes to paid ads, however, it is time to make sure your Google Ads are as efficient as they can be.
In fact, it’s never been more critical to make sure that your Google Ads aren’t burning through your budget.
Here are six ways to adjust your Google Ads to save money while still driving conversions.
Audit Your Negative Keyword List
Determining the most profitable key terms for your ads might seem like the most efficient use of your time.
After all, you want to make sure your ad for Nike shoes shows up for terms like “buy Nike shoes,” right? The same way you would want your ad for dash cams to show up for “best dash cams”.
Unless you want to burn through and spend, however, there’s another type of key term you need to pay attention to — the negative key term.
Negative keywords, as you may already know, are terms you tell Google you don’t want your ad to show up for.
For example, if you are selling an AIP meal plan, you may not want to show your ad for terms like “dairy focus diet” or “keto diet” (Unless, of course, you sell keto diet.)
When people search for these terms your ad won’t show up — which saves you money and helps increase the relevancy of your ads.
Which is a good thing when you are looking to save Google’s ad budget.
Here’s how to add negative keywords:
- Login to your Google Ads dashboard.
- Tap Keywords in the left navigation bar
- Select Negative Keywords.
- Add words you don’t want your ad to display.
If you’ve already created a negative key term list — when was the last time you checked on it? It might be time to audit your keyword list by taking a peek at what search terms are triggering your ad.
Here’s how:
- Login to Google Ads.
- Click the All Campaigns option on the left.
- Click Keywords.
- Then, click Search Terms.
This will show search terms that triggered impressions and clicks. If any terms don’t make sense for your ad, then add them to your negative keyword list.
Every time you run a Google ad, most search queries will not be relevant to your offer. Negative keywords, which exclude specific terms from triggering your ad, are a smart way to boost your conversion rate and save your budget.
Use Dynamic Search Ads
Optimizing your Google Ads is the best way to reduce ad spend — and increase clicks. But, you also might not have as much time to spend analyzing reports, tracking conversions, and A/B testing headlines.
So how can you create more effective Google ads in less time? Try using Google’s Dynamic Search Ad feature.
According to Google, “Dynamic Search Ad headlines and landing pages are also generated using content from your website, which keeps your ads relevant and saves you time. All you need to do is add a creative description.”
The reality is, that even well-managed Google Ads accounts might miss out on relevant keywords. Plus it can take time to write, create, and test ads for new products. With Dynamic Ads, Google does the work for you by generating ads with terms closely related to words on your website. If you want to differentiate yourself from your competitors and be original, you can use a free online plagiarism checker.
Say you own an eCommerce store specializing in Mexican textile products. You might already target keywords like “baja hoodie.” But, you might miss out on keywords that become popular, such as “handcraft blanket.”
If you activate Dynamic Search Ads, Google will go to your site, pull photos of your blanket and display it for relevant search terms — without you having to do a thing.
This can save you time, show more relevant ads to searchers, and capture additional traffic by identifying new targeting opportunities for your site.
Here’s how to use Dynamic Ads.
- Login to Google Ads, then create a new campaign by tapping the blue + sign.
- Select goals for your campaign from the provided list.
- Use Search as your campaign type.
- Select the results you want from your ads.
- Give your campaign a name and enter the language, location, and budget.
- Under General Settings, click Show more settings, then choose Dynamic Search Ad.
- Add your website URL and language.
- Click Save, then move on to creating a dynamic ad group.
- Select Dynamic for the Ad Group Type.
- Choose how to target your ads. This guide from Google can help you decide which option will work best based on your website.
- Set your bid (if you aren’t using automatic bidding), then click Save and Continue.
Once you’ve created your Dynamic Ad campaign, you can then run actual dynamic ads. Note that Google will generate the headline and URL automatically; however, you will need to create the description text.
Some advertisers might worry about the lack of control inherent in dynamic ads. While you do have less control, these ads can be incredibly effective. Just make sure to check on your dynamic ads regularly to ensure they are performing well.
Use Retargeting to Send Hyper-Targeted Ads
Most Google Ads are targeted based on demographic information and search behavior. But, there’s another option that many advertisers aren’t currently leveraging — and it’s costing them big bucks.
Retargeting ads allow you to target people who have interacted with your business in some way. It is highly effective because you’ve already built some sort of relationship with the user.
According to a report by Criteo, retargeting ads helped their customers increase conversion rates by as much as 43 percent.
Depending on the retargeting option you choose, Google retargeting can allow you to target:
- Past website visitors
- Specific products visitors looked at on your site (using dynamic remarketing)
- Mobile app users on other websites
- People who interacted with your YouTube channel
- People on your email list
To create retargeting ads, you will need to create a new campaign, click Browse, then select retargeting.
If you are tired of wasting ad spend on users who don’t convert, retargeting can allow you to create hyper-focused ads that only target people who have already expressed interest in your brand — which makes better use of your ad dollars.
Increase Your Quality Score
Quality score is a one to ten-point measurement provided by Google that tells advertisers whether their ads are high or low quality. A quality score often means your ad is providing users with a great ad experience.
Essentially, a high-quality score is Google’s way of saying, “Good job, your ad is meeting customer’s needs.”
But, it’s more than just a pat on the back — a high-quality score also reduces the cost per click and cost per conversion, and it can help your ad show up for more relevant searches.
According to Google, factors that impact your ad’s quality score include:
- Whether your ad is optimized for users’ specific devices.
- Whether your ad makes sense for user’s searches and intent
- Your ad’s performance, especially for newly launched keywords.
Basically, the better your ad does, the more relevant your quality score is.
Here are a few tips to increase your Quality Score — and save your ad budget.
- Use a grammar tool like Grammarly to refine your ad text by correcting spelling and grammar mistakes — but also to adjust for tone.
- Target mobile users with separate mobile-friendly ads.
- Use a keyword tool to find highly relevant keywords — and include long-tail terms, which are more likely to be relevant.
- Add or audit your negative keyword list to exclude irrelevant search terms.
- Create smaller keyword lists, rather than targeting longer lists.
- Use a tool like Clearscope to optimize your landing page to ensure they are highly relevant to your target audience. Also, make sure to write a good SEO meta description to entice users to click through.
Focus on Customer Intent
When it comes to targeting ads, most people focus on broad matching keywords — which is a huge mistake.
Broad match allows your ads to show for “related searches,” which is great in theory, but sometimes these so-called related searches have nothing at all to do with your core keyword — and even worse, they don’t consider intent at all.
Intent can make all the difference when you are trying to save ad budget.
For example, if you are promoting a Scrabble word finder, you might consider targeting word finders. However, if you use a broad match keyword, your ad might show for other games such as Wordle, a scrabble competition or any other searches that Google devices are closely related to finding words. Instead, you want to be targeting user intent.
While this might seem obvious, Google ads actually set you up for failure by making broad key terms the default when you are setting up your ad group:
There are two ways to fix this issue — you can use a tool that looks for related keywords and topics, like MarketMuse, then add the terms that make sense to your keywords list.
Using the Research function will provide you with a list of related terms and topics:
Or, you can use Google’s internal targeting to target custom intent. Here’s how:
- Sign in to your Google Ads account.
- Click Display campaigns, then choose one of your active campaigns.
- Tap Audiences.
- Click the pencil icon, then choose Edit ad group targeting.
- Select an ad group.
- Under Targeting select Narrow targeting, then click the grey plus sign.
- Click the pencil icon right next to Targeted audiences.
- Under the Browse tab, select What they are actively researching or planning (In-market and custom intent).
- Click the blue plus icon, located next to “New custom intent audience”.
- Name your custom intent audience, and add related keywords this audience might be actively researching
- Click Create to create a custom intent-based audience.
Now when you create ads, you can target intent-based audiences rather than those who may be in the research phase.
Make Ad Groups Smaller
Testing ads is one of the most efficient ways to see what works and what doesn’t — which helps you create more efficient ads. However, massive ad groups with dozens of ads means your ads aren’t going to be as relevant as they could be.
As a result, you will see a lower quality score and a much higher click-through rate.
Instead, each ad group should be focused on one specific product, offer, or service. For example, one ad group for your webinar training, another for your ebook, and so forth.
Smaller ad groups allow you to create a more relevant keyword list, which makes it easier to develop the right ads for each step in the search funnel. Plus, it’s easier to track results for a small ad group versus a large one. For best results, however, you will want to create at least three to four ads per ad group.
When it comes to ad groups, less is more. Smaller ad groups can help increase CTR and make it far easier to track metrics like keyword performance.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to Google ads, many advertisers are looking for ways to do more with less. The Google ad optimization tips above will help you optimize your campaigns, so your ads drive more sales, clicks, and traffic.
Once you get your campaigns optimized, there is one final change you can make to make the most of not just your ad budget, but also your time. Google allows users to set up automated email alerts for customized help and performance suggestions, campaign maintenance alerts, and disapproved ads and policy alerts. Here’s how to update your Google ad email notifications.
Now, whenever there is a big change to your account, you will be notified via email. So you can go back to running your business.
PPC
How to Use Search Audiences in Google Ads to Lower Costs
Audiences are one of my favorite topics when it comes to paid advertising. I’ve always been a huge fan of how useful they can be when trying to optimize campaigns to reach the right group of folks.
But one thing has always confused me: Most advertisers only pay attention to audiences with strategies like display, YouTube, or social. Meanwhile, search audiences seem to get overlooked.
I’m hoping to remedy that with this post. Below are my favorite ways for leveraging audiences in Google Ads search campaigns to optimize and grow your results.
Table of contents
How can you use search audiences?
Let’s first review your options for using search audiences in your campaigns.
🚨 Could your campaigns benefit from using search audiences? Find out with our free Google Ads Grader!
1. Observation layering
The first usage of audiences is the least invasive to an existing paid search strategy. Adding audiences as observation layers lets you create a data segmentation in your search campaigns without limiting your end audience.
In all search campaigns, you can edit the audiences you have applied by going to the Audiences portion of the navigation on the left and click Edit Audience Segments.
Here you’ll see that all audiences in search campaigns start on “observation” by default. (We’ll get into strategies for “targeting” in just a minute.) As Google says, observation targeting doesn’t narrow the reach of your campaigns, but it does give you the option to adjust bids for different segments.
Let’s talk about targeting first. The audience selections for search campaigns are the same as any other campaign on the Google network. You can choose from in-market or affinity audiences, remarketing, YouTube Engagement, detailed demographics, and more. All you need to do is check the box next to the audiences you want included and they’ll be applied to the campaign.
Here’s where my particular kind of usage comes in: I add just about every audience available as an observation layer to my campaigns.
Remember, I’m not limiting my targeting at all, so even if an audience like “financial services” isn’t the right fit for my target audience based on our persona documents, I’m still able to see how it performs in comparison to all other audience segments on Google.
Then, depending on the bid strategy I’m using, I can adjust the bids for each audience based on its performance. With a Target CPA of around $400 in this account, I might adjust the bids as you see in the image above. Anything with CPAs well below the target may get a bid boost and ones over that mark get a discount.
The only limitation here is the bid strategy you’re using. As you can see in the chart below, only the manual and enhanced CPC strategies will allow for bid modifications of audiences. If you’re using any other strategy, these bid modifiers will be ignored.
But that doesn’t mean bid modification is the only reason we may want to have observation layers. If you notice a particular audience has very high or very low performance, it may be worthwhile for you to think about segmenting that audience to its own campaign for more granular optimization, or excluding it altogether.
While the other bid strategies don’t allow for bid modification, they do allow for exclusion. You would just need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Exclusions section, then click Edit Exclusions to add the audiences you want to avoid.
2. Targeting and remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA)
If we want to start getting a little more creative with our audiences, we can switch from the “observation” setting and shift into “targeting.”
This means we’ll be focusing ONLY on the audiences applied to the campaigns. All other users will be excluded. While that might sound restricting, and it is, limiting the audience you’re using opens the door to many other strategies within search that might not be in the best interest of your account without those audience restrictions.
The biggest challenge is going to be ensuring you meet the audience minimum of 1,000 active users in the last 30 days. If you’re struggling to meet this minimum, you may need to stick with the observation options above until you’re able to drive higher volumes of users.
💡 Set your search campaigns up for success with our free guide to the perfect Google Ads account structure!
The benefits of targeting vs. observing search audiences
Let’s start to explore the benefits of using the targeting focus and what that means for your options.
Opportunities for highly customized ad copy and keywords
Narrowing your audience to only those users you want, you can now start to customize campaigns more specifically based on what you know about those folks.
Let’s say you’re targeting people who have been to your website before. You likely don’t need to spend as much time telling them who your brand is and what you offer as much as differentiating yourself from the competition.
The above image is a good example from Facebook. Forgive the mismatch of platforms, but the customized search ads based on audiences are hard to find. But that means that you’ll stand out from your competition if you’re able to create customized messaging!
Here, LinkedIn is targeting me on the Facebook platform to come back and make more B2Brilliance, their way of boasting about their great B2B targeting. Since I’m a regular on the advertising platform, they likely want to redirect my attention from Facebook and get back into spending money on their platform. Makes sense!
But think about how you can use this for your potential customers. If they’ve been to your site before and are still searching for services similar to yours, you could use your ad copy to offer a promotion, use specific benefit statements you don’t use for first-time customers, etc.
But this also applies to your keywords. Maybe your regular search campaigns are focused on your core services, but if someone has been to your site before, you may feel comfortable extending to new terms that promote your less popular services or things that are reserved for returning customers.
🔍 Get instant keyword ideas for more targeted and personalized ads using our Free Keyword Tool!
Improved call-to-action strategies for funnel movement
Furthermore, the same theory applies to calls to action. I work with several software companies that have a fairly long sales cycle. For them, we may use our prospecting campaigns to promote video views or content downloads as the call to action, but for Remarketing Lists in Search Ads, we will shift to demo requests or something else a little further down the funnel as that user is already familiar with our offerings and may be ready to take the next step.
Remarketing lists can be created based on the actions users have taken on your site. You likely are already creating lists based on those actions for campaign exclusions. What’s to say you can’t recreate the same ones in Google Ads and apply them to search campaigns to promote the next call to action in the buyer cycle? Answer: only the minimum audience size!
Tighter Dynamic Search Ads
In addition to manual keyword expansion, remarketing lists are also a great way to limit the reach of Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs).
Dynamic Search Ads function differently than regular Search campaigns because you provide Google with your website URL or a page feed of your website, then Google will dynamically match to search terms that are relevant based on your site content and craft ad headlines for you.
The benefit of using Remarketing Lists means that you can likely avoid most restrictions on the Dynamic Search Ads themselves as the audience will do most of the qualifying work for you. Any time a relevant search is conducted by someone who has engaged with your brand before, a Dynamic Search Ad will show up with customized headlines and landing pages.
Using more broad match keywords successfully
In an expansion step beyond DSA, you could also start to leverage broad match keywords with remarketing lists as well. All of the same practices apply to the strategies above, but our tool for increased reach will be match type rather than targeting type.
You can learn more about the match types here, but suffice it to say, broad match is indeed, the broadest of the options available. With broad match keywords, you’ll find yourself matching to terms outside of the typical ranges you get with phrase and exact, but assuming Google’s machine learning is as smart as they claim, these terms should still be relevant to your business and with the remarketing list layers included, you’ll have more chance to interact with known users.
In many instances, broad match keywords might not be the right fit for regular prospecting search campaigns, but with audiences layered in, they’re a great way to find additional scale.
Whether you observe or target, don’t sleep on search audiences for Google Ads campaigns
Audiences might mostly be talked about with sisplay, YouTube, or social advertising strategies, but that doesn’t mean that’s all their good for. Whether it’s observing audience performance to gain insight or adjusting your keywords, targeting strategy, messaging, or call to action, audiences can be a great tool for search campaign improvement as well. For more audience insights, see how our solutions can help you maximize your search campaigns!
PPC
17 Content Distribution Strategies to Try in 2024
Creating content is great, but it’s only the first step in your marketing strategy. When you write articles, put together reports, or record videos, you need to make sure you promote them effectively, too. That means testing out new content distribution strategies whenever you can.
Today, we’re sharing 17 content distribution strategies you can try and test this year. But first, let’s go over what counts as content promotion.
What is content distribution?
Content distribution, or content promotion, is the process of distributing your blogs, articles, infographics, webinars, and more to reach a wider audience than its initial publication.
Here’s a strategy we used as an example. We published a blog post covering the biggest content marketing trends in 2024. The blog is the initial marketing channel for this piece of content, and this initial audience includes website visitors and blog readers. It’s also optimized for on-page SEO, which encourages ranking on organic search. That’s another channel. Posting about the blog on LinkedIn is another channel. That’s coordinated sharing of a single piece of content across multiple channels. That’s content promotion.
By sharing or even repurposing your content in multiple ways throughout your marketing strategy, you can increase its visibility and reach among your target audience. This has benefits beyond a single piece of content, including increased brand awareness, a stronger competitive edge, and even more conversion opportunities.
If you’re investing the time, effort, and (often) budget to create high-quality content, you want to make it as beneficial to your business as possible.
📣Free guide >>> 25 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Website (Fast!)
17 content distribution strategies to start testing now
Here are 17 content promotion strategies that will help you distribute your content, reach a wider audience, and build your brand. Whether you’re working to put a content promotion plan together or already have a solid strategy, take a look and see what you can test out this year.
1. Repurpose in another format
Content repurposing is the first strategy we’re sharing because it’s the most fundamental and presents the most opportunity. If you have a blog post, turn it into a video for YouTube. If you have a longer video, splice that up into shorter, bite-size clips for social content. If you have a data-packed report, pick out the most compelling headlines to make shareable graphics.
Shopify has two versions of this content: a YouTube video and a blog post that explains drop-shipping.
Creating content takes a lot of time—ideating, researching, developing, editing, finalizing, and launching. That’s why content promotion across as many channels as possible is so important. The best way to create even more possibilities for promoting and sharing your content is by repurposing and repackaging it in another medium.
This extends both the reach and the life of your content. By turning blogs into videos or long-form videos into short clips, you can distribute across different channels and reach new audiences. When you repackage, it takes less time than creating pieces from scratch, but you’re also creating fresh content, which keeps yours new for longer.
This, of course, has its limits. You don’t want to seem like you’re repeating yourself constantly to your community. And it’s not always feasible or effective to repurpose a blog into a video or a guide into podcast episodes. That’s what the rest of the strategies here are for.
2. Brand all of your visuals
If you ensure that all of the visuals in your whitepapers, articles, or blog posts are branded, you can share those graphics elsewhere. You can share these as eye-catching posts on social media to increase brand awareness, use these elements in other pieces to create internal links, and even optimize your image SEO for organic reach with the graphics alone.
Take this example from Semrush. It’s a simple but effective graphic of the elements of a content marketing strategy with the brand’s logo in the corner. It’s also the first result in an image search for content marketing strategy.
This is something you bake into your content creation process. Like the Semrush example above, it doesn’t have to be extensive. Make sure graphics feature your brand colors. Include your logo at the bottom of any charts or tables. Take the time to optimize for SEO, which leads to our next strategy.
3. Optimize content for SEO
Organic search is an opportunity for content promotion. If you’re writing a blog post, publishing a report, or even releasing a video series, getting your content on the SERP offers you the chance to reach a wider audience through another channel.
Take advantage of this by improving your SEO strategy this year. Whether it’s spending more time considering long-tail keywords during your ideation phase or focusing on improving your local SEO site-wide, it’s an opportunity to get your content out there.
4. Include links in relevant blogs or guides
Internal linking is important for your SEO, but it’s also a chance to promote your content to interested readers who already trust your brand.
This Etsy blog post about using the color black as a wedding theme links to a blog on trending wedding colors. Relevant research for event planning.
But in-context linking is only one way to help promote content with internal links. You can link to high-value content from your company’s educational materials, add call-outs to your blogs, or add clickable links to your whitepapers. To learn more about getting creative, check out this guide to internal linking. (See what we did there?)
🛑 Not getting enough traffic from search engines? Download this free guide and get on the first page of Google.
5. Post on social platforms
Promoting your content on social media is important. Even if you don’t have a large following, posting can broaden your reach and grow your audience. This could be as simple as writing a quick intro and including a link to your post on X (formerly Twitter) or Threads if you’re on there. You can also use major takeaways to record a quick video for Instagram or create a slideshow with major takeaways on LinkedIn.
Example of a LinkedIn slideshow.
The most important thing is to start sharing and pay attention to the responses. Figure out what works for your brand, your audience, and your typical content production.
6. Plug content on a podcast
Podcasts are excellent places for sharing recommendations and plugging content naturally. You’re not dropping a link (except in the show notes), but you can reference thought leadership, share data and findings, or use a case study as an example. The spoken medium feels more authentic, and if your content comes up naturally on your brand’s own podcast or during a guest appearance, that’s another great way to promote it.
You can run podcast ads if you’re not running a podcast or looking to take on guest spots. These still offer the same benefits. In fact, in a study by Acast, 72% of podcast listeners reported that they visit an advertiser’s website after hearing a brand’s spot, and 62% of listeners reported making a purchase after hearing a podcast ad.
7. Syndicate your blogs
Some publications syndicate content, meaning they republish blog posts or articles as excerpts or in their entirety. How this works will depend on the publication. Some will automatically republish all of your content, while others ask you to submit it for syndication.
For example, this article in Fast Company includes a “republished with permission” note.
Here’s how to find sites that might syndicate your content: In a search engine, enter “republished with permission,” plus a keyword related to your brand or content. The results are sites that likely syndicate content in your area of expertise.
8. Share with your email mailing list
Your subscribers have already indicated an interest in your brand and offering. Send them your content, too. This could be a regular newsletter to share links to new releases if you have a full and varied content calendar or a one-off email if your content creation is slow and steady.
Email is an effective content promotion method. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 69% of B2B marketers distribute content through their own newsletters and 67% share content in other emails.
👋 Use these email marketing templates to write better emails faster.
9. Pitch your content to related newsletters
You should definitely send emails to your own audience, but that’s not the only way to get your content into newsletters. There are many regular newsletters that aggregate industry content or share a variety of links with their audience. Pitch your best content—think high-value articles penned by an industry leader or an annual report with compelling data—to include here.
10. Share on forums
Forums like Quora and Reddit are potential channels for your content distribution, too. If you have a free course or helpful guide, you can share that. Look for people asking questions about your topic, then answer with a helpful explanation and the link.
A link to a tool that seems helpful, not purely self-promo.
Keep in mind that no one wants to be spammed. Make sure you’re sharing relevant content and doing so selectively.
11. Partner with influencers
If you have the budget to promote your content, try working with influencers in your industry to get your content in front of more people. Here’s a great example. In the video below, marketing influencer Laurie Wang breaks down the fundamentals of digital marketing. She also shares templates from HubSpot, which is the sponsor of the video.
It’s also worth noting that this influencer has 15,000 subscribers on YouTube. That’s closer to a micro-influencer, which can be more affordable.
12. Promote with banners, pop-ups, or sidebar CTAs
Your content promotion doesn’t always need to be focused on reaching a new audience. It can also be a push to engage people who are already visiting your site further, whether they’re warm leads checking out cornerstone content one more time or new contacts who landed on your top-of-funnel blog post for the first time.
In those cases, you can promote your content to your website visitors through pop-ups, banners, and sidebar calls to action. The key is to promote high-value, relevant content in a compelling but non-intrusive way. Take a look at the example banner below from audiobook platform Libro.fm.
The black-and-white images with the bright background are eye-catching without being overwhelming. Very clickable.
💡 Calls to action are the most important copy on the page. Get this free guide filled with compelling CTA phrases you can swipe today.
13. Credit and tag your sources
If your content contains references to other people’s work, try tagging them in your social posts, especially on LinkedIn or Instagram. Mention found a compelling correlation between tags and engagement for Instagram posts.
More engagement will help more social media users find your content. If you quote an expert in your industry or use photographs from someone with a social following, try tagging them.
14. Encourage your employees
Another channel you can tap to promote your content is your employees. Some companies have formal employee advocacy programs, which incentivize sharing content and more online. But even if you don’t have a formal program yet, you can still encourage your team members to post your high-value content.
In its report on employee advocacy programs, Hinge Marketing found that the biggest benefits of these programs include increased visibility and increased inbound traffic.
The key is to make it easy for employees to share content. So post graphics and messaging in your shared channels, send out emails with links to new content when it’s available, and let people know it’s a good thing to post.
15. Let your community know
If your brand runs a community, make sure you’re sharing your content there. Community-led marketing takes a lot of investment to get started and maintain, but once you’ve established a group, it’s incredibly effective. These members are engaged with your brand and with each other. If it’s a community listserv, send a quick email. If it’s a Slack or Discord group, set up a channel for distributing new content.
Pro tip: If you have a community, this is also a great place to get ideas for content. Check out which threads stay active and which questions keep coming up time and again.
16. Write a guest blog post
Writing a guest post can be a good way to distribute your content—as long as you’re approaching it the right way. This works best if you have a big, in-depth piece of content, like a benchmark report or survey. You can focus on one finding to create an original guest post for the publication’s audience, which will hopefully be new to you. And you’ll be able to include any branded graphics there, too.
It’s worth noting that, in the Content Marketing Institute’s annual survey, only half of B2B marketers reported using guest posts as a distribution strategy this year.
This is only a slight decrease from last year, and it could be because guest posts work to promote specific kinds of content—original reports or data. If you have those, identify some target publications and give it a try.
17. Run paid ads
Most of the content promotion strategies we’ve talked about here are organic. But if you do have the budget to promote your content, run ads this year.
Here’s a LinkedIn ad that I saw at the top of my feed while I was working on this post.
Braze is a customer engagement platform that offers email marketing, in-app messaging, and more. Marketers are the target customers, so LinkedIn is a great platform, and this is a compelling piece of content.
Figure out where the best place to reach your target audience would be, like LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or maybe TikTok.
Try these content distribution strategies
We covered a lot of methods for getting your blogs, reports, graphics, and more out there, so let’s recap.
Here are 17 worthwhile content distribution and promotion strategies:
- Repurpose in another format
- Brand all of your visuals
- Optimize content for SEO
- Include links in relevant blog posts
- Post on social platforms
- Plug content on a podcast
- Syndicate your blogs
- Share with your email mailing list
- Pitch to related newsletters
- Share on forums
- Partner with influencers
- Promote with banners, pop-ups, or sidebar CTAs
- Credit any influences—and make sure to tag them
- Encourage your employees
- Let your community know
- Write a guest blog post
- Run paid ads
If you’re creating great content for your brand, then it’s worth spending a little more time promoting it to as many people as possible. So this year, try some of these promotion strategies to get more eyes on your content and grow your business with more customers.
PPC
31 Best Giveaway Ideas (+Tips to Make Them Successful)
Here’s a hill I’m dying on: giveaways are one of the most versatile and efficient marketing strategies available. They work on any channel, are easily scalable to your budget, and create their own buzz (we all love free stuff!).
But the best part is they are endlessly variable—there are infinite giveaway ideas.
I want you to get a feel for what a good giveaway can do for your business and find a few versions to try. So I’ve listed over 30 ideas, a handful of examples, and some things you can do to make sure your giveaway delivers what you need it to.
Table of contents
Why should you run giveaways?
Giveaways produce results across your entire sales funnel, from early awareness to customer evangelism. Here are some of the most popular ways I’ve seen giveaways used in marketing:
- Boost brand awareness: When people don’t know or trust your brand yet, a giveaway will help you break the ice.
- Support a product launch: Giveaways capture attention fast, which is exactly what you need for a new product.
- Introduce a new location: A little free gift will build rapport quickly with new neighbors.
- Grow your social media and email following: It’s crazy how well tag-a-friend giveaways multiply social networks.
- Clear out seasonal merch: Turn a sunk cost into a wildly effective marketing strategy.
- Capture UGC: Make sharing user-generated content a sweepstakes entry, and watch the awesome customer images pour in.
- Get customer referrals: Incentivize customers to become your best salespeople.
- Recover abandoned cart sales: Put all those “almost-won” sales over the finish line with free shipping or by throwing in a gift card or trial size.
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How do you make a successful giveaway?
The type and scope of giveaway you manage depends on what you have available, who you’re trying to reach, and what you hope to get out of it. Follow these steps so your giveaway makes a huge splash.
Set a goal
The goal of your giveaway is the first piece of the puzzle. Everything else snaps in around it.
Say you want to blow up your Instagram follower count. The platform, set of rules, and promotional plan supporting your giveaway should all align to make that happen.
Choose the prize
This is trickier than some people realize. Ideally, you want a prize aligned with your brand and right-sized for your goals.
A brand-aligned giveaway helps you focus on attracting ideal potential customers. If you sell baby monitors, giving away running shoes will attract lots of people who don’t need your products.
Choose a gift that matches the size and goal of your giveaway.
Likewise, a huge prize for a simple entry method (like tagging a friend on Instagram) is going to bog you down with so many entrants outside of your core audience. Pick a prize just large enough to make it worth the effort to get it.
Pick your platform
Here, I’m talking about in-person, social media, email marketing, etc. Where can you find the people you want to reach? Which option makes it easy to achieve your specific goal?
If you’re drumming up brand awareness for a new dentist’s office, handing out travel toothcare kits at a health fair is perfect. However, an email campaign would be better if you’re looking for new patient referrals.
Schedule appropriately
Timing matters a lot in giveaways for several reasons. Seasons, competition levels, and your own internal needs all factor in.
For example, a brand awareness giveaway that would triple your TikTok follower count in June might get drowned out by holiday marketers in December.
Create the rules
There are two questions to answer here:
- What do people have to do to get the giveaway?
- What laws and platform rules do you need to follow?
To set the rules of entry, match the ask’s difficulty to the prize’s value. The better the prize, the more you can ask. It’s fair to ask someone to buy one shirt to get another similar shirt for free. Or to register their email address for a chance to win a weekend trip. But if your giveaway is an inexpensive branded pen, you won’t get many people registering (those are great handouts at conferences, though).
Make sure you’ve listed all giveaway rules clearly.
Laws and platform rules can vary. Instagram has its own rules, for example. In general, you want to clearly and fairly describe the prize, give a minimum age to participate, list the rules, and give the odds of winning if it pertains to your type of giveaway.
Hype it up
Before and during the big day(s), use social media posts and popups on your website to get more attention. Email your subscribers and offer your loyalty members early or extra entries. Look for influencers or related businesses to partner with. If it’s a really big deal, consider spending on paid search ads or boosted social media posts.
Follow up
After your giveaway is over, there’s plenty of attention and excitement to be had. Announce the winner (if it was a contest) and tag them in the social media posts so their network can see them. Let people who didn’t participate or win know what they missed, and tell them to stay tuned for future events.
You could end up gathering more email addresses with the promise of a future giveaway than the original giveaway itself.
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Best giveaway ideas for businesses
These are your tried-and-true giveaway ideas that have proven to generate buzz, leads, and sales.
1. Sweepstakes
You’re probably pretty familiar with this one. You give up your email address or some other information, and you’re entered to win a prize. Unlike a gift-with-purchase, your free gift isn’t guaranteed, which adds a little anticipation to the game.
Sweepstakes are useful for all types of brand awareness and lead-generation campaigns. They’re less often used to generate direct sales since requiring a purchase to enter can be legally tricky.
2. Customer loyalty giveaway
Customer retention is a critical business growth strategy. This giveaway aims to keep your best customers happy and returning for a long time.
Use exclusive giveaways for your loyalty members to keep them active longer.
The actual giveaway can take on many forms. The important part is to talk up the exclusivity of it. Only your best customers get the gift, discount, or entry to win. That’ll help cement the feeling of community, which strengthens brand loyalty.
3. Holiday-themed giveaway
Holiday-themed giveaways come in many variations. Black Friday doorbuster deals are a very popular one, but you can get pretty creative. For example, you could offer a self-care giveaway for singles as part of your Valentine’s Day marketing.
4. The year’s supply giveaway
There’s some psychology behind our desire for abundance, even for everyday products. Think of having a pantry full of mac and cheese or all the laundry detergent you could use for a year. It’s more exciting than it should be.
That’s the motivation behind giving a year’s supply of a product. The bonus is that you can make this highly relevant to what you sell, attracting future customers.
5. BOGO
Buy one, get one free deals are among the most popular giveaways for both the giver and the receiver.
Use BOGO deals for a big boost in sales and awareness.
Your customers get double the product for the same price, and you make a sale every time someone takes advantage of your offer.
Giveaways like this can also be great loss-leaders—products that don’t generate much profit on their own but drive lots of new customers to your store to buy additional items.
6. Free upgrade
This is a nice option if your product or service has pricing tiers and you want to attract more customers to the higher tier.
Say you sell software with entry, pro, and executive plan options. Run a promo where anyone who buys the entry plan gets the pro version for the first month. Some of those users will get hooked on the expanded capability and upgrade at the end of the giveaway period.
You can use this for physical products, too. Offer the premium product at the standard price for a limited time. Then gather as many reviews of the higher-end version and use that social proof to sell it after the promo is over.
7. Free product with purchase
I love these types of giveaways, especially for two specific purposes:
- You have seasonal or excessive stock you need to turn
- You’re introducing a new product
Make the free product as relevant to the purchased one as possible. Socks with a pair of shoes is a perfect example. You could also throw in something that often causes friction when forgotten, like batteries with a battery-powered toy.
8. Product bundle giveaway
Grow your add-on sales by bundling several complementary products and running a sales promotion giveaway to demonstrate how they all work together.
Bundling products for a giveaway is a great way to promote complimentary products.
9. Surprise discount or coupon code
Here’s the gist. A customer opens a promotional email with their secret code. They click through to a sales page and enter it to learn they’ve been given a 20% discount. That little bit of intrigue and anticipation makes a much bigger impression than simply getting 20%.
This giveaway works best when you can give away something valuable—you might disappoint people if they go through the motions for 5% off.
10. Branded swag giveaway
This is a standard and useful tactic for in-person events. Hand out pens, t-shirts, ball caps, or fidget spinners (remember those?) to get people to your booth or table.
A slight modification here is to buy fewer, more expensive items and only give them away to people who talk with your team. That shifts the focus from brand awareness to a lead generation campaign.
11. Refer-a-friend giveaway
There is no better salesperson for your business than happy customers. Use a little gift to give your customer referral program a big shot in the arm.
Use giveaways to get more customer referrals.
You’re asking people to discuss your business with their friends, and the leads you get will be very high-value, so make sure the gift is a good one.
12. Influencer giveaway
If you don’t already have a big audience, partner with an influencer to get more eyes on your giveaways.
Pick an influencer with a smaller, niche, engaged audience. So find a holistic health professional with a few thousand dedicated followers over Selina Gomez for your essential oils giveaway. That’ll deliver higher quality traffic which leads to more future sales.
13. Buy a gift, get a gift
This is such a great variation of the holiday giveaway or buy one, get one promo. When someone orders a present, give them something for themselves.
Gift cards work well here, so the buyer can choose what they want. But you can also create a cool version where both people get the same gift, especially if your product is great for friends—like bracelets.
14. Appreciation giveaway
Use this type of giveaway for milestones like business anniversaries or getting your first 100K followers on TikTok.
You can make this about the individual, too. For example, you could send an extra gift or discount to people one year after their first purchase.
15. Reengagement giveaway
Now, for those customers or prospects who haven’t made a purchase or opened an email in a while, a re-engagement giveaway is just the trick.
Start by segmenting your email list to pull out subscribers who haven’t done what you want them to do (click a link or re-order a product) for a set period. Send them an email with a concise, compelling subject line announcing the giveaway.
If reordering is the goal, an extra discount or BOGO offer is a good giveaway to use here.
Giveaway ideas for small businesses
Every penny counts for small and growing businesses. These giveaway ideas don’t require a lot of money or time to manage but can still net a really nice return.
16. Co-sponsored giveaway
Co-sponsored giveaways are events managed and promoted by two or more businesses. I purposely put them at the top of this list because they’re such a smart way to share the load of running a giveaway while multiplying its effect.
Giveaways work great as co-promotional events.
With multiple businesses involved, you’ll be able to afford a larger prize or gift. But even better, your brand will get exposure to the existing networks those other businesses have built.
Co-sponsored giveaways are a good social media marketing strategy, but they can also be effective in person or even via email.
17. Tag us in your post giveaways
This giveaway is a UGC-gathering powerhouse. Ask followers to tag you in their social media posts using either your handle or a branded hashtag in exchange for entry into a sweepstakes, then share the content on your account.
These events are easy to run. Just make sure you explicitly mention that tagging a post is consent for you to reshare the image. And don’t forget to highlight the winners so everyone knows the contest was legit and to get an extra splash of attention for your brand.
18. Tag-a-friend giveaways
If you scroll Instagram or TikTok for about five minutes, you’re almost guaranteed to stumble on one of these contests. That’s simply because they’re so good at exponentially growing your social network.
Use tag-a-friend giveaways to grow your social media following quickly.
Try to keep the instructions simple. If you ask someone to follow three accounts, like two different posts, and share the post to their network, they might keep scrolling (unless you’re offering a monster prize).
Combine this with a co-sponsored giveaway for an extra boost in online presence.
19. Giveaway for feedback
Online reviews do a lot of heavy lifting for your business. Buyers trust reviews, and Google uses them as a local search ranking factor so you show up in more searches.
You can use giveaways to get more reviews in a hurry. Just make giving a review a requirement for entering the giveaway.
Caution is warranted here. You don’t want to come off as buying reviews. And some platforms, like Yelp, don’t allow this tactic. Plus, you need to start with an excellent product and service, or you’ll just get more bad reviews.
20. Free information giveaway
This one is nice for small businesses because it leverages your valuable expertise instead of a costly product.
To launch this type of giveaway, create an ebook, template, or some other form of content that your target audience would love to have. For example, if you’re a chiropractor, you could create a PDF showing 10 daily habits for a healthy back. Then use a popup, or lead magnat, which asks visitors to enter their email address in exchange for the guide.
Not sure what to create? List out the five questions your customers most frequently ask and start there.
21. Free trial
An old sales trick says that if you can put a product in a prospect’s hands, your chance of making the sale will increase dramatically.
A free trial giveaway does just that. Let people who register on your website try your product without cost. They’ll gladly pay to keep using it when they fall in love.
You’ll see this strategy used for software sales a lot. But you can also send a sample size of a consumable product. Make it a gift with the purchase of another popular item to get it in more hands.
22. Free quote
This might be the most underrated giveaway on the list. Especially if your competitors regularly charge to price out a job.
Don’t sleep on the value of a free quote.
Besides attracting new potential customers, you’ll also create a cost barrier that makes it more likely people choose to work for you. Once they have your quote, they’ll be less likely to pay another business for theirs.
Cool giveaway ideas
Here are several fun giveaway ideas your customers and followers will love (and you’ll love to run).
23. Quiz/trivia
Ask your customers to answer a question about your business or industry. Tie it to your unique selling proposition so as people search for the answer, they learn what makes you different.
Here’s an example. Say your long history and wide range of services set you apart. Ask people to reply to a Facebook post with the year your company was founded and the number of services you offer. Then, pick one winner out of the replies and give them a nice giveaway.
24. Choose your own gift
I used to love it when my mom handed me a little cash and told me to pick out one toy I could take home. I had a blast prowling the isles for my special treat.
Give your audience that same thrill by letting them pick their prize from a list of options.
Let customers pick their prize for an extra exciting giveaway.
Ideally, the prize list will be a curated selection of things you sell. But it could also be from a list of your favorite seasonal products or any other themed group of items.
25. Scavenger hunt
This one is a lot of fun. Create a list of little details from your website pages (or on multiple pages if it’s a co-sponsored event). People who register get questions to answer, each requiring them to visit different pages. Then pick a winner from all of the completed entries.
These are best done over a short time period to limit answer sharing. So, make sure to create a lot of hype before the event so you have as many people playing as possible.
26. Photo or video contest
Here’s a twist on a UGC giveaway. Instead of simply collecting tagged images, offer a prize for the best one(s)!
By making it a contest, you’ll encourage people to send in their absolute best pics and videos. Plus, you’ll get a double dose of engagement when everyone checks back in to see who won.
27. Nominate a hero
People love to work with businesses that give back. This giveaway lets your audience spotlight their local heroes while you get to give back to people making a difference.
The hero nomination giveaway requires more work, but it pays off in many ways.
To run a giveaway like this, ask your followers to nominate someone they believe is a true hero and explain why. Then pick one (or more) to receive the prize and promote the event. If possible, get a video of the hero accepting their prize. You could also create a landing page listing all the nominated heroes.
Unique giveaway ideas
One of the defining characteristics of a great giveaway is that it stands out against all the other messages and ads people are exposed to. These interesting and unique giveaway ideas grab attention, even in a crowded space.
28. Gamified giveaway
A gamified giveaway adds gameplay elements to your offer. If you’ve ever spun a wheel to get a freebie or discount, you’ve seen a gamified giveaway.
Spinning the wheel is one of many ways to add engagement-boosting gameplay to your giveaways.
Digital “scratch-off” tickets add a fun element to a standard sweepstakes giveaway.
Try creating digital scratch-off tickets that give customers points for making a purchase that they can spend on future products. Anything that ups the ante by asking people to play in order to win instead of simply getting a freebie is worth consideration.
29. Caption this photo
A photo caption giveaway is great for a quick engagement boost. Post a picture on your social media platform of choice and ask your followers to write a caption for it. You pick the most creative caption and send a prize to the winner.
The game is fun, so you can expect decent participation, even with minimal prizes. Just closely moderate the replies so you don’t accidentally post a caption that isn’t safe for work.
30. Brand ambassadorship giveaway
Instead of just partnering with a brand ambassador, create a contest where people can win a chance to become one.
Who wouldn’t want to be a B.A.R.K Ranger?
Make this as big or as small as you want. You can give away a little gift to everyone who completes a task to become an ambassador. Or sponsor a huge contest where the winner spends a year using what you sell and gets paid (in products or cash) to share their experience with the world.
31. Do a good deed giveaway
This is a play on the pay-it-forward theme. Ask your followers to do something kind for a stranger (or maybe volunteer for a non-profit), document what they’ve done, and submit it for a chance to win a gift for themselves. Double the impact by offering a second gift people can give to a loved one.
This type of giveaway drums up lots of good feelings while also doing something positive for the world.
The best giveaway idea is up to you
There is no one perfect giveaway idea. What works best will be the one that matches your brand, achieves your goals, and you actually enjoy running.
Remember to be extremely clear on the rules and follow through on your promise. Missed expectations can turn a great giveaway into a public relations hassle.
Here’s a recap of the best giveaway ideas:
- Sweepstakes
- Customer loyalty giveaway
- Holiday-themed giveaway
- The year’s supply giveaway
- Buy one, get one free
- Free upgrade
- Free product with purchase
- Product bundle giveaway
- Surprise discount or coupon code
- Branded swag giveaway
- Refer-a-friend giveaway
- Influencer giveaway
- Buy a gift, get a gift
- Appreciation giveaway
- Reengagement giveaway
- Co-sponsored giveaway
- Tag us in your post
- Tag-a-friend
- Giveaway for feedback
- Free information giveaway
- Free trial
- Free quote
- Quiz/trivia
- Choose your own gift
- Scavenger hunt
- Photo or video contest
- Nominate a hero
- Gamified giveaway
- Caption this photo
- Brand ambassadorship giveaway
- Do a good dead giveaway
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