The team at Clix is well known for their industry-leading expertise, and the drive to help share that knowledge with fellow marketers is simply in our DNA. We’ll be highlighting upcoming speaking engagements or other interactive opportunities where you can catch up with our folks in our Clix Speakers Series – so stay tuned here for more events like this one!
On Tuesday, June 15th, 2021, Clix’s very own Tim Jensen is back at it, with another featured speaking session – this time @ SMX Advanced!
SMX is known for bringing together the highest caliber marketers from across the digital space, and they deliver beginner to expert level sessions ensuring every attendee leaves the event with actionable takeaways and insights for their accounts. Did we mention the whole thing will be available on-demand? So if you can’t make a session you do want to watch, you can grab the recording afterward and get fully caught up! With over 50 pro speakers lined up over two days, you’ll undoubtedly see value from every breakout you attend.
Speaking of breakout sessions you should attend – Tim’s presentation on audience layering is built to illustrate the importance of an audience-focused approach to grow Search in your accounts as platforms have continued to reduce control over keywords and audience behaviors have shifted dramatically in the past year. Tim will share tips on how to incorporate audiences into your Search campaigns if you haven’t already, plus how to identify the right layers to add on and how to bid around those audiences strategically. After his session, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the nuances between “observation” and “targeting” audiences and when to use which approach
- Find audiences that you can layer onto campaigns, while future-proofing against Google’s upcoming changes
- Analyze performance for audiences and apply bidding tactics
SMX Advanced has packed in virtual breakout sessions like Tim’s, with tracks represented for PPC and SEO experts to take advantage of – plus Q&A sessions and workshops following many of the sessions ensures you can get hands-on time with a highly-experienced member of the digital marketing world and start to find solutions. Sure makes that $219 early bird registration fee look pretty valuable right now, doesn’t it? So don’t wait and grab your virtual seat today!
We asked Tim to share a bit about his presentation and the event coming up next month:
Q1 – What inspired your topic selection for SMX Advanced?
Tim: The topic is timely as search marketers are increasingly seeing control over keywords weaken. For instance, match types have become fuzzier and Google continues to hide more search terms. Search intent has become more difficult to pinpoint, especially for niche industries, when you can’t always predict what search terms will match to your keywords. Audience targeting provides an alternate layer to bring back some control to search campaigns, so you can bid up/down on audience categories in addition to keywords, as well as exclude people who don’t fit your criteria. There are also several nuances between Observation and Targeting settings that even more experienced marketers may not always think about and be aware of, and I wanted to dive into the nuances of when and how to use each setting.
Q2 – How have you seen audience layering impact accounts you’ve managed? Are results better or more helpful for B2B or B2C accounts, or do you see similar results across all industries?
Tim: I’m a fan of the “more is better” approach for layering on Observation level audiences. Add as many tangentially related audiences up front to start getting data, and you’ll often be surprised as to which audiences show dramatic performance differences to help with adding bid adjustments. Across the board at Clix, we review audience bid adjustments as a regular task. In many accounts these have helped tipped the balance to improve results, either by excluding unwanted audiences or bidding up on good performers that we pinpoint.
I would say audience layers can help equally both on the B2B and B2C end from my experience. For B2B accounts, there are several B2B-specific in-market audiences that I’ve seen contribute heavily to leads (and sometimes non-B2C ones perform either for good or for bad). For B2C accounts, there are so many potential audiences that generally you’ll be able to find some with enough statistically significant volume to impact performance with bid adjustments.
Q3 – What makes SMX Advanced such a valuable event for digital marketers to attend?
Tim: This event brings together many of the best minds in digital marketing today and allows attendees to skip the “basic” sessions if they already have at least some experience in the industry. There are also multiple tracks so you can hone in directly in your area of expertise, or pick and choose between sessions for each time slot. Also, the conference is virtual this year, so anyone can attend without having to travel!
Q4 – Which other sessions at next month’s event are you personally looking forward to attending?
Tim: I’m particularly looking forward to hearing Fred Vallaeys talk about “FLoC and the future of audiences.” There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty among PPC marketers as to how exactly FLoC works and how it will impact our ability to build and target audiences in the future, so I’m hopeful he’ll help bring clarity to some questions on that end. Amy Hebdon’s session on “How to create compelling paid search ads in an increasingly automated world” also looks interesting and highly relevant to current concerns with the state of the paid search world.
Don’t forget to check back here on the blog often for additional upcoming Clix speaking and engagement opportunities! And let us know if you have an event you’d like us to participate in and we would be happy to chat about topics to fit your audience (leave a message in the comments or email us – sales@clixmarketing.com).
