Search engine volume is expected to decrease by 25% by 2026. The reasons for this include:
- Increased usage of generative AI tools for queries
- A shift to forum-based searches (Reddit etc.)
- Younger generations using social media to search
This decrease represents a risk for marketing teams. Search engine advertising has been a pillar of digital advertising strategies for decades.
But this can be seen as a good trend. Marketers are being freed from the expectation that they will devote a large chunk of their budgets to PPC campaigns. And smaller budgets don’t mean less engagement. With the right tools, your campaigns can generate more engagement for less budget — a double-sided win.
Smarter Advertising Starts with Smarter Targeting
Search engine marketing can be an effective strategy because it delivers your brand, messaging, and offers directly to buyers searching for the keywords that are relevant to your business.
However, scattershot ads, like PPC campaigns targeted only at a list of keywords, fail to account for a critical marketing success factor: timing.
Without any provisioning for where a buyer is in their journey, there is no guarantee an ad is going to reach the right person at the right time.
Research by 6sense reveals that buyers spend 70% of their time in the “consideration” phase. That means they’re silently doing research about products and services, artfully dodging forms and sellers.
And so, not having insights into where your buyers are in their journey means you can’t laser-focus your digital advertising campaigns by tailoring them to the buyer’s specific interests. And if marketing isn’t able to influence those buyers in the consideration phase, it will be too late to win their business when they’ve already decided their vendor.
By uncovering where buyers are in their buying journey you can start crafting digital advertising campaigns.
How 6sense Sharpens Your Digital Ad Strategy
6sense’s comprehensive revenue platform shines when it comes to digital advertising. With 6sense, marketers can build advertising campaigns that are smartly targeted, well-timed, and highly personalized. All these benefits increase the chances a buyer is ready for that exact ad at that exact time and will engage, all without the need for an extremely large budget.
6sense revolutionizes the way you craft advertising strategy in three major ways:
- Associating typically anonymous buying behavior with the accounts where it’s happening and using AI to predict which accounts are likely in-market.
- Dynamically enrolling prospects in segments that match their real-time buying stage, ensuring they receive a consistent and fresh advertising experience across numerous interactions.
- Serving ads in the places buyers want to see them, like industry-related websites.
Marketers who use 6sense see big results when they focus their sights on ads:
- Hyland saw a 60% increase in account engagement and click-through-rate and reached 91% of their accounts with campaigns while reducing their ad budget by six-figures.
- Flexential saw a 5x increase in messages served to their target audience and a 3x increase in the number of accounts reached within their ICP.
Conclusion
The way people use the internet may be shifting and marketers need to keep up. The same old search engine marketing tactics can’t be the lynchpin of your digital ad strategy.
6sense can help you unlock laser-focused ad campaigns by revealing what buyers care about, where they are in their journey, and serving them ads in the places that make the most impact.
Interested in learning more? Check out a demo today!
