Posted:

26 Apr 2017

What are micro-moments, and how do they affect PPC?

Timothy James Dickinson – Junior Account Executive at Spreckley

What are micro-moments?

Micro-moments have been around for a while now. But for some, this will be the first time you’ve heard about micro-moments, and in the process swiftly reached into your pocket, Googled “What are micro-moments?” and found yourself reading this blog. THAT – is a micro-moment.

Picture this: you’re in the middle of cooking a fancy dinner for the first time, and then suddenly you need help. You grab your smartphone (let’s be honest, who uses a desktop anymore?), and use a search engine to find that something out. These intent-rich spontaneous urges to know something, do something, buy something, or go somewhere are what Google have named micro-moments – and it’s a game changer.

There are three crucial elements to micro-moments. Your business has to be there, be useful and be fast. What is meant by this? You need to anticipate the micro-moments users in your industry are likely to have, and make sure you’re there. To be useful, you need to get the right details across that these users are likely to want. Giving out a business address to someone looking for a pest-control service isn’t much good. Instead, give them a phone number. Why would they want to know where you’re based when the matter is based in the homeowner’s house?

Finally, be fast. Retaining users’ attention and being fast is what makes all the difference. According to Google, 29% of users will give up on a site and switch to an alternative site that is more equipped to page-load times, and offer a better UX and UI for the user to get the information they require.

How do micro-moments affect PPC?

Micro-moments are a huge deal for Pay-per-click (PPC). The two are a match made in heaven, married together by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). To maximise these opportunities, you must first put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customers, profile them and figure out all the possible intent-rich micro-moments that are likely to occur. If they search it, you best make sure you’re there when they do.

How? PPC is how. You need to position your PPC ad in the search environments of your target audiences’ micro-moment.

Taking the example literally, put yourself in the shoes of a footwear repair service. Think what would someone search if their favourite shoes broke. Tailor a PPC ad saying: “Favourite shoes need repair? We can fix it!”. Make sure you know all the possible search queries that person is likely to make and marry your ad to those queries. In these intent-rich micro-moments where someone needs a query resolved, your PPC ad will be first in line, which is great considering how fast micro-moments are.

With SEO tools such as Google Trends and Answer The Public, the most popular search terms for a website’s keywords can be determined and with PPC tool Google AdWords, you can implement these top search terms to your PPC campaigns. The clear insights gained from every click are another plus of PPC, providing your campaigns’ exact success rates in each micro-moment targeted. This then enables you to modify your campaigns to get the best possible results for the future.

Do micro-moments and PPC stop there?

No. No they do not. Why stop at Google AdWords? For some, a micro-moment’s outcome is predetermined. Some of the folk in your target audience may have certain go-to sites that they click on by default in their micro-moments. In this instance, take advantage of a website holding a concentrated demographic and get PPC ads placed there. This brings the added bonus of attracting new leads that may become customers from the same environment.

These newly-found micro-moments have changed the rules of PPC advertising. Does your business’ PPC strategy take these micro-moments into account? Does it acknowledge your consumers’ needs, and the likelihood of when and what they’d search? If not, then these are just some of the considerations to bear in mind. There’s no doubt about it, micro-moments are game-changing, enabling your business to be more discoverable and generate better conversions for your business.