PPC. Pay Per Click. Three simple words that are surrounded by mystique, voodoo, and fear. Most Event Marketers know what pay per click is but have no idea how it actually works… and that causes fear because nothing is worse than having to dive into the pool with blinders on… is it deep enough or am I going to squash my melon on the bottom of the pool. But what if there was another way? What if you could take your limited knowledge of pay per click and turn it into an advantage that actually gets you more attendees, sponsors, and exhibitors, how would you do that?
Well, that is actually easy. You would hire an expert. I know that buses are an awesome way to get my attendees from point A to point B but you don’t see me firing up a 53 passenger bus and running over to the convention center… I hire the people that are best suited to the job and in the case of pay per click advertising for events, the experts are Tag Digital, a Scotland based company that will take all the fear out of your events ppc advertising campaigns.
Welcome to the EventTech 12 Tag Digital Edition
These are 12 questions that we asked Laura Davidson, Director at Tag Digital. We hope that this gives you a little insight into Pay Per Click and the company that can help your conference or event leverage advertising to increase revenue.
Tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in Scotland, studied English & Law at University then moved to New York to work as an aupair and at a magazine for extra money! I came back and worked at various start ups before deciding to launch a business at the age of 24 with my then boyfriend, now husband. Fast forward 8 years, one baby and another on the way, a team of approaching 30 and lots of fun – Tag Digital are the world’s leading event PPC agency!
We have always found that clients have a good understanding on content, social, and traditional marketing but have no idea how PPC works. What is PPC and why is PPC important to #eventprofs.
PPC is important as it helps you grow your event in a really tangible way – its so easy to track ROI and how things are working. No other marketing channel gives you level of granularity in terms of cost vs result. We can tell our clients – it costs you $10 to get a manager to your event and $15 to get a CEO or whatever their relevant audience is. PPC is pay per click – this covers search, social, display and video – there is a common misconception its just search. As long as your audience is targeted and the ads are good it will work.
What is the number one thing that you would tell any event organizer about using PPC.
Some clients worry their users aren’t on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram, but if they aren’t there you won’t spend any money. So no problem! You would be surprised at how well these channels convert in every sector.
What is the number one mistake that organizations make when starting the PPC marketing journey.
Knowing that cost per acquisition comes down as we get closer to the event, at the beginning it might cost you $100 for your first conversion (e.g. registration), but the second is $50, and this keeps reducing – especially once we get close to the event you could be looking at $2/3 per registration. For sponsorship/exhibitors maybe $15/20 per lead.
What is one thing you wish every new client knew before they contact you?
A target cost per acquisition is always helpful – but it is rare that clients know this from their current marketing.
Take us through your process of working with a new client.
Most of our projects come through this briefing form https://forms.gle/9CbTgb68YMRVFtyw7 – once we get a brief they are entered into our workflow, this is a 4 stage sprint process that ensures our campaigns get off the ground smoothly and perform well.
Once we receive the brief, the client gets a media plan, as long as they are happy with that we then request some images/video, ask for one tag to go on their website/reg pages, then we do everything else.
We build out the campaigns, sort out your tracking, set up weekly calls, optimise for performance and do whatever it takes to hit the target we have pre agreed.
We have a data benchmarking tool that uses 100,000 campaigns to determine “what is good” so our understanding of what should be delivered is unparalleled. We operate a very simple pricing model – if your budget is $10,000 – our fee is 20% of that – $2000 and the media spend is $8000 there are no other fees and no limits on our team on how much time they need to spend on accounts so this means everyone is results focused.
In your mind, what is your greatest client success story?
We took a US brand who runs about 12 large events a year from a $0 ad spend to $600k within 2 years – this delivered a 31% increase in new attendees for them.
We work with lots of much smaller shows – budgets $2-5k where its really common for their budget to double and triple based on the results they are getting year over year.
What’s the biggest challenge that TagDigital is still trying to solve?
Educating the marketplace on what PPC is, why you need it for your event and make life much easier for our clients. Once our clients see our numbers they get it, its just getting more people into the inner circle!
What’s the best advice you ever received?
Perseverance is everything (many people give up when things get tough, but keeping going can often be the thing that makes the difference).
What is your favorite productivity app?
Slack & Basecamp – it adds to my daily communication overload but means I can easily communicate with my team and clients wherever in the world I am.
What is your favorite “waiting for a train” app?
I’m currently pregnant so spending a lot of time on baby name apps – any suggestions welcome!
Want to learn more?
Check out this weeks webinar with Dahlia+ and Tag Digital where you will learn how to promote your event to the right audience at the right time, convert them to registered attendees and keep them engaged to ensure they come to the event.
