The Power of Storytelling in Paid Search Marketing

When you picture a paid search marketer you likely envision a mathematical, keyword-researching data genius that pulls Google Analytics reports in their sleep. And to be honest, you’re not wrong being a paid search marketer requires you to have some clear traits. But what you might not envision is how much paid search marketing benefits from creative, strategic storytelling. Whether it’s in reports, strategy or audience experience many PPC pros have mastered the art of crafting an eloquent story. Still not buying it? Check out 3 ways paid search marketers implement strategic storytelling on a regular basis.

Storytelling Brings Strategy Full Circle

As humans, we are drawn to stories, we like them because they have emotional resonance. Which is why in paid searching marketing, our goal is to craft a story throughout an entire search journey.

From the search query, we gain an understanding of what users are looking for, then we craft the ad to tell the story of how it will solve their problem. The landing page gives us full range to engage the searcher with a moving conclusion that will drive them to act. When we implement storytelling, we are strategically setting in motion an engaging, cohesive, searcher experience. It’s one way we boost our paid search campaigns. 

Storytelling Helps Us Problem Solve

Moreover, stories set the context. They frame the problem and the opportunity, which is why storytelling remains a key asset to paid search advertising. When we shape our reports as a story it helps us identify gaps in our knowledge and understanding. It provides perspective on the problem and shows unique and different ways to solve it.

Sometimes problems can be solved in an easy, direct way. If your going over budget, solving your problem is as simple and direct as lowering your daily bids. Other problems, like underperforming display ads require a little more creative thinking. PPC Marketers often have to approach problems from a lateral thinking perspective rather than linear – storytelling helps us do just that.

Storytelling Prevents Stat Regurgitation

Whether your role is as a member of an in-house marketing team or as a part of an agency PPC team, reporting is an inevitable part of your job. And If you’re lucky, someone on the receiving end of your reporting efforts will have a general understanding of paid search. Even after we’ve cleaned up the data, it’s still our job to communicate what it all means. Unfortunately, this is where many paid search marketers fail to avoid stat regurgitation, or just reading off the data and expecting our audience to understand the impact or importance of the information. By crafting our findings as a story, we are able to follow a common thought process that can be easily digested whether we’re reporting to peers or clients.

Every Good Story Must Come to an End

In the end, much of PPC is driven by data. More times than not, our partners don’t fully understand what the data and information we are relaying to them means for their business. Which is fine, that’s why we get paid to crunch numbers, analyze stats and translate our hard work into an eloquent story that relays all the necessary information.

Want to know more about paid search or are interested in having Intuitive tell your story, contact us today!