Pinpoint and align your business objectives with your team. Then you can make sure your marketing, media, and campaign objectives and KPIs are working together to achieve that goal.
Grow omnichannel sales
To maximize high-value omnichannel customers, top advertisers are using the Google Ads Growth Formula’s four step, best-in-class strategy.
Meet the formula that will maximize your omnichannel sales
There are many paths to success with Google Ads. The Growth Formula was designed to help you follow the most direct path to driving valuable in-store sales at scale.
To help marketers drive results amid economic uncertainty and build resilience for the future, download our condensed best practices guide.
Set objectives
Align with executives like the CEO to make sure you fully understand their main business objectives. This usually falls into one of three categories: market share, revenue, or profit.
To create long-term sustainable growth, shift your focus from driving sales volume or revenue to profit.
And keep in mind – great business objectives are measurable, time-bound, and raise the bar above what you’re already achieving.
The marketing objective should be informed by the bottom-line business objective and signed off by the CFO and/or CMO. In this case, we’ll focus on growing omnichannel sales as the primary marketing objective.
This positions marketing as a profit center, rather than a cost center.
Media objectives help you meet the marketing objective – which, in this case, is increasing high-value omnichannel sales. They’re usually set by the digital marketing team, and break down into two parts:
Performance objectives focus on the bottom of the funnel, measured by KPIs like transactions and form submissions.
Brand objectives focus on the mid-top of the funnel and drive factors like ad recall, brand awareness, and brand interest.
Best-in-class advertisers look beyond lower-funnel performance marketing, and focus on a full-funnel strategy – with brand goals that drive lower funnel outcomes.
Campaign objectives are the KPIs used to gauge the success of a specific marketing campaign. We recommend you keep a close eye on return on ad spend (ROAS).
If you’re measuring proxies like CPA or CPL, it’s imperative to shift focus to actual business outcomes, with KPIs like return on ad spend (ROAS) or lifetime customer value.
EXPLORE HOW KIRA DOES IT
See how Kira sets objectives for Bellevue Bookstore
Kira is the Marketing Manager for a retail chain, Bellevue Bookstore. They sell books and magazines online and have brick-and-mortar stores in a few cities.
Know your business objective
Kira’s CEO’s business objective is to increase overall revenue by 30% by the end of Q4 – from $2M to $2.6M. Knowing this, Kira can work backwards to develop an effective digital strategy after she checks in with the CMO.
Align on your marketing objective
Kira’s CMO generates the majority of
revenue from online sales, but is looking to
grow in-store sales 20% by the end of Q4.
Coupled with potential online sales growth,
the CMO is confident the business can reach
the 30% overall business growth goal.
Kira
sets her sights on growing high-value
omnichannel sales as her primary objective,
and creates media objectives that align.
Set your media objectives
Kira creates two media objectives:
Her
performance objective is to drive
approximately 13K in-store purchases from
Performance Max for store visits
campaigns.
Her brand objective is
to demonstrate 30% Ad Recall with a Video
Reach campaign with location extensions.
Together, that combo should help her CMO meet their growth goals for in-store sales.
Pick your campaign objectives
Since Kira has two media objectives, she
sets a campaign objective for each of
them:
To meet her performance
objective (13K in-store purchases), she sets
a goal of driving 26K store visits from
Performance Max campaigns since she knows
about one in every two visits results in a
purchase.
To meet her brand
objective (30% Ad Recall), she sets a goal
of 22M impressions on YouTube at a $4 CPM.
Get ready
Success is built on solid foundations. Make sure you have privacy-centric measurement in place, and a view of the complete user journey.
Over the past few years, users' concerns over the usage of their data and increased industry privacy regulations have made the long-term future of digital measurement more challenging. That’s why Google is charting a course towards a more privacy-first web.
COLLECT YOUR ONLINE FIRST-PARTY DATA
A strong measurement foundation starts with your most valuable data: your company’s first-party data, both online and offline. Why? It’s high-quality, hyper relevant to your customer set, and privacy-safe.
The Google tag lets you use data from your website to help you measure the effectiveness of your website and ads. Google Ads uses this first-party data with machine learning to support a successful digital marketing strategy.
Ensure that you're providing users with clear and comprehensive information about the data that you collect on your websites, and getting consent for that collection where legally required.
9/10
Nine out of ten companies say that first-party data is important to their digital marketing programs.1
CONNECT YOUR OFFLINE FIRST-PARTY DATA
From there, connect your first-party data (e.g. data in your CRM) with Google Ads to create a complete picture of the customer journey. This will help you to identify your highest-value prospects, and optimize your ads to deliver better experiences and drive more sales.
1 Google and BCG, "The Keys to Scaling Digital Value", n=545 "digital leaders" (i.e. businesses with above average digital maturity), Aug - Nov 2021.
Once you’ve set up the foundation, ensure you have the tools to understand and optimize the customer experience.
COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES
Google Analytics 4 gives you a deeper understanding of user behavior across devices and platforms, with tools to understand the customer journey and improve your marketing ROI.
By leveraging Google AI through Google Analytics, you can surface valuable campaign insights about your customers, and take action by exporting these insights to Google Ads in the form of new audiences.
OPTIMIZE FOR WHAT WORKS
With measurement and analytics in place, improve the accuracy of your conversion tracking in a privacy-preserving way, using enhanced conversions for web to mitigate conversion loss. From there, invest in attribution across the entire conversion path.
Together, these will provide Google AI with better data about what works, and enable deeper alignment between your campaigns and your business goals.
6%
Advertisers who switch to data-driven attribution from another attribution model typically see a 6% average increase in conversions.2
2 Google Data, Global, Ads, Jul 11th 2022-Aug 25th 2022.
CONNECT YOUR DIGITAL PRESENCE TO YOUR STORE
The best way to understand and measure the ROI of your Google Ads is with store visits, which track the number of users who visited your store up to 30 days after they clicked on or engaged with your ad.
If you don’t meet the criteria for store visits, you can also track Local Actions to value phone calls and driving directions to your store.
CALCULATE YOUR CONVERSION VALUE
Now that you’re measuring store visits, let’s understand the purchasing power of your visitors. We’ll do this by finding the value of each store visit. This will help reveal insights like your Omnichannel ROAS and the overall value for your store visits conversions. Here’s a formula to help.
COMBINE YOUR ONLINE AND IN-STORE GOALS
Since Google Ads campaigns will drive both online and in-store conversions, make sure to measure your success with an omnichannel ROAS that combines the two together.
EXPLORE HOW KIRA DOES IT
Learn how Kira gets Bellevue Bookstore ready
Measure what matters
After placing the Google tag on her website, Kira sets up conversion tracking in Google Ads to measure when a site visitor makes a purchase.
Kira realizes that she has valuable first-party data that could be useful for optimizing her ads, so she uses Customer Match to build two audiences: repeat customers and first-time buyers.
She also connects her CRM system to Google Ads, to import offline conversions for sales that started with a phone call.
Consider the full customer journey
To get a better idea of how users discover and then engage with the website, Kira sets up Google Analytics 4. After exploring conversion paths in Google Analytics, she notices that Video and Display ads are often contributing to conversions that end up with Search ads. She confirms that all of her campaigns use data-driven attribution, and plans to invest in Performance Max and Video campaigns.
In an effort to improve her conversion measurement and better understand her customers in a privacy-centric way, Kira decides to implement enhanced conversions for web. After a few weeks, she starts to see a conversion uplift across her Video campaigns and is excited that she can better measure the impact of her investment.
Determine what each visit is worth
Kira researches store visit conversions and realizes she’s eligible to track them in Google ads. After setting this up, she calculates Bellevue’s omnichannel ROAS, and takes a note so she can use it to optimize her campaign’s Smart Bidding strategy.
Take action
Now that you’ve got best-in-class measurement in place, let’s take a look at different types of campaigns that can supercharge your marketing efforts.
SHOW UP WHEN CUSTOMERS ARE SEARCHING FOR YOU
People are constantly turning to Google Search for answers─what to do, where to go, what to buy, how to do things.
Search campaigns are great for driving sales or traffic to your website because you can show your ads to people actively searching for the products you offer.
Use our power pairing of Broad match, Smart Bidding, and responsive search ads to show your ad to your most valuable customers with personalized creative to break through and get impactful results.
57%
57% of US shoppers surveyed say they have used Google Search for discovery and inspiration.3
MULTIPLY YOUR RESULTS WITH PERFORMANCE MAX
The key to driving store traffic from the web is letting potential customers nearby know your storefront is close by and that you have what they need. Performance Max campaigns are our AI-powered solution, driving better results across all of Google’s advertising channels from a single campaign.
18%
Advertisers who use Performance Max achieve on average over 18% more conversions.4
You can reach customers across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps—with images, video and text ads.
Performance Max campaigns for store goals are designed to drive more traffic to your store, reaching customers on Google Maps, Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and your Business Profile. Not only do they streamline the process of directing people to your business, they provide customers flexibility to decide how and when to visit. You can:
- Highlight your open stores, re-opened locations, and in-store recovered availability and update this info as a store’s status changes
- Communicate your current offering and inform customers about your safety measures: rising demand for pick up, drive thru, delivery services and contactless payments
- Promote your in-store products, availability, specific holiday offers and destocking campaigns to increase profitability this holiday
EXPAND CONSUMER OPTIONS WITH OMNICHANNEL
Shoppers who plan to make their purchases online, may want to pick up in store when given the option. Before COVID, this was a nice-to-have option. Now, it’s a critical differentiator that enables you to turn your store into a distribution channel and decrease issues with last mile delivery.
46%
In fact, 46% of American holiday gift shoppers buy online and pick up the items in-store.5
Local inventory ads allow you to showcase in-store product availability and fulfillment options, like buy online pick up in store or ship to store.
3 Google/Ipsos, Shopping Tracker, online survey, n=1,232 Americans 18+ who conducted shopping activities in past two days, May 19-26, 2022.
4 Google Data, Global, Ads, November - December 2022.
5 Google-commissioned Ipsos Holiday & Black Friday-Cyber Monday Shopping study, U.S. adults 18+, Holiday gift shoppers n=884, Oct 31 - Nov 1, 2022.
Once you’ve captured shoppers who are already looking to buy your products, it’s time to generate more demand at the top of the marketing funnel and acquire new customers. Then you can continue to nurture them as they continue along the journey to purchase.
Before you get started, make sure you have clearly defined brand objectives to qualify the impact of your top-of-funnel marketing (these will look different than the performance objectives you use for things like search.)
FEED THE FUNNEL
The funnel starts with attention—96% of feed users spend time on Google feeds6, and 86% of feed users have discovered new products or brands on a feed7.
91%
Research shows that 91% of consumers took action immediately after discovering new products or brands on Google feeds, like Discover or Gmail.8
To engage these people as they “window shop” and discover new products to purchase, implement Discovery and YouTube campaigns.
COMING SOON: Demand Gen campaigns build on the strengths of Discovery and Video action campaigns, helping you drive action with over 3 billion monthly users as they stream, scroll and connect.
BUILD AWARENESS WITH VIDEO REACH CAMPAIGNS
Video reach campaigns are the simplest way to drive scale on YouTube. They use Google AI to serve the best combination of ads, improving your reach and efficiency.
Rather than optimizing based on conversions, Brand Lift is a free tool that measures the effectiveness of your video ads by assessing metrics such as ad recall, brand awareness, and consideration.
6 Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022, Online survey, US consumers aged 18+ who browse feeds (feeds defined as: Google, Chrome, YouTube, Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Pinterest) monthly or more often. Base: Consumers n=2,000.
7 Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022, Online survey, US consumers aged 18+ who browse feeds (feeds defined as: Google, Chrome, YouTube, Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Pinterest) monthly or more often. Base: Consumers n=2,000.
8 Google/Ipsos, Consumer Feed Behavior Research, August 2022, Online survey, US consumers aged 18+ who browse Google feeds (Google feeds defined as: Google, Chrome, YouTube and Gmail) at least once a month and discovered new products or brands on Google feeds. Base: Consumers n=1,263.
EXPLORE HOW KIRA DOES IT
See how Kira takes action for the bookstore
Capture existing demand
Having previously set up store visit tracking for Bellevue Bookstore, Kira creates a Performance Max campaign to automatically target customers who were actively searching across Google Search, Maps, YouTube, and more.
Since her business qualified for store visits, Google AI automatically optimized for the combinations that drove the most customers to her door.
Kira has noticed Google ads for another business with a “Pickup today” label, and she’s interested in implementing this for her own campaigns. She confirms that her website already meets the requirements for local inventory ads, and sets them up to promote her in-store inventory.
Generate new demand
To generate demand with customers who weren’t already looking for a bookstore, Kira runs a Video reach campaign, with location extensions, to efficiently catch the attention of a wide range of book lovers on YouTube.
Evaluate & expand
As time passes, you’ll better understand how your ads are performing. Use this information to optimize your performance, test new strategies, and find more opportunities for growth.
UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS’ PATH TO PURCHASE
Unsure how many times a customer has to interact with an ad before purchase? We’ve got you. Go to “Goals” in your Google Ads account and select “Measurement”, then “Attribution.”
The “Conversion paths” tab shows you the most common paths your customers take to complete a conversion.
MEET YOUR SUPERFANS
Now let’s see what else we can learn about your top customers. Head to “Tools & Settings” in your Google Ads account and select “Customer value.” This will give you anonymous, aggregated consumer data showing what characteristics your top customers share.
USE PENCIL BEFORE PEN
Before trying out new strategies, give them a test drive using drafts and experiments in your Ads Account. Then stop by the Performance Planner to see the impact different budgets could make.
If your campaign is hitting its targets — but maxing out its budget — there’s probably more room to grow. Check your impression share in your Google Ads account — it’ll tell you how many impressions were gifted to competitors due to insufficient budgets.
REEVALUATE YOUR CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
Now that you have more data, evaluate your performance goals. For instance, consider adjusting your ROAS. If it’s too high, you could be missing out on additional sales. If it’s too low, you could be sacrificing profits for volume.
Try to find the inflection point that allows you to maximize your overall profit.
OPTIMIZE FOR LIFETIME VALUE
Evaluate lifetime value when planning your next steps.
Figuring out the value of each of your customers isn’t easy. You’ll need to evaluate data from paid sources, organic sources, and your other marketing efforts. Figuring out lifetime value will allow you to bid to the full value each customer provides your business.
To get started, find out how much you’re earning from each customer, go into Google Analytics, open reports, and select “Audience > Lifetime Value.”
IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT FEED
Your product data shapes the way your ads and free listings behave and perform on Google surfaces. To make ads, listings, and your campaigns as successful as possible, you need to provide and maintain high-quality product data.
Keep optimizing your product feed by thinking strategically about your customers, highlighting important product details, using high-quality images, and maintaining up-to-date information about your products in the feed and on your landing pages.
EXPLORE HOW KIRA DOES IT
See how Kira optimized their marketing investments
Kira is glad to see that Local campaigns
helped Bellevue Bookstore’s in-store
sales increase by 20% during the first half
of the year. However, she knows she can do
more.
So, she continues to
optimize her campaigns for her
top-performing stores and creative assets.
Then, she invests in more upper-funnel
strategies leading up to the holidays (like
Video reach campaigns), to make more people
aware of the Bellevue Bookstore brand.
Together,
these efforts help her pass her 20% goal of
growing in-store sales, and help her CEO
exceed the 30% revenue growth goal for the
year. Business objective? Check. Marketing
objective? Check. Promotion? We think that
should get a check, too.
Congratulations on completing the Growth Formula
Since it’s not a linear journey, you’ll want to revisit steps as time passes. We recommend bookmarking this website. We'll keep this guide up to date with the latest Google product announcements and launches to position you for continued growth.
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