Whether you’re a new business just starting or an established company with a dedicated marketing budget, developing a multi-funnel marketing strategy can be challenging. An ideal approach to marketing builds awareness, drives consideration, and ultimately converts to sales. However, many businesses either lack the time to explore every potential marketing channel or the resources to invest in a fully diversified strategy.
Companies often allocate a large portion of their marketing budget to a single channel, like a billboard or TV ad, and simply label their strategy "a success." In reality, this approach results in over-investment in just one stage of the marketing funnel, overlooking the other opportunities to guide audiences from the brand awareness stage to the purchase stage.
Now you might be thinking “We can’t afford a multi-funnel marketing strategy!”
With Search Engine Marketing (SEM), you can utilize various campaign types customized for each stage of your marketing funnel. Whether you’re aiming to drive purchases through display ads or build brand awareness with search ads, SEM provides the flexibility to meet your goals while staying within budget.
Let’s talk about some of the ways that you can use SEM campaigns to target audiences at every stage of your marketing funnel.
And if you aren’t familiar with the Marketing Funnel, here’s a refresher
Top of Funnel
Display
The Google Display Network offers a large amount of exposure, showing your ads to a wide audience. By configuring audience and placement settings, you can target specific segments of people based on their habits/interests and choose the type of websites your ads can appear on, maximizing relevance and reach.
Video
With targeting capabilities similar to Display ads, Video ads allow you to showcase short-form videos across YouTube and sites in the Google Display Network.15-second videos are an effective way to introduce your brand or offerings to your target audience, capturing their attention and building brand familiarity.
Mid-Funnel
Search
Engage users right as they enter the Consideration phase—when they’re actively searching on Google. With Search ads, you can choose exactly which types of searches you want to rank for, whether broad and exploratory or specific and action-driven, giving you control over the audiences you want to reach.
Video
Refine your target audience by focusing on interest-based targeting, reaching users in the consideration phase of their purchase journey. Use long-form content to educate and engage, guiding potential customers to learn more about your product or service and move them further down the funnel
Shopping
As users research different products before making a purchase, you can showcase your product catalog directly in Google Search results. You can prioritize online purchases or in-store visits and ensure your products are visible to the right people at the right time.
Bottom Funnel
Search
Design a search campaign aimed at action-oriented users by bidding on long-tail, phrase, or exact-match keywords. While this approach may yield a lower volume and higher CPC, it brings in a highly motivated audience more likely to convert or make a purchase, maximizing the impact of each click
Display
Display campaigns can effectively target bottom-funnel users by leveraging custom audiences such as Remarketing or Cart Abandoners. Ads aimed at previous site visitors or those who didn’t complete checkout provide a powerful way to re-engage users already familiar with your brand, turning them into customers.
Bid Strategies, Audiences, Placements, Oh My!
Each campaign mentioned above can leverage multiple settings/targeting options to target your audience at each stage of the Marketing Funnel:
- Bid Strategy
- Keyword Targeting
- Audience Targeting
- Placement Targeting
- Content Targeting
- Location Targeting
Creating a comprehensive marketing strategy may seem daunting at first, but with the wide range of customization options in SEM campaigns, you can effectively target your ideal audience within your budget at every stage of your marketing funnel.
Looking for help setting up a multi-funnel SEM strategy? Send us a message and we’d be happy to help!
