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We are living in the era of marketing transformation and every marketer wants more from their marketing dollar. And, for quite a while paid search has always been positioned as the media for driving strong results. It is about time we took it to the next level.

If you are a strong believer of search and intent marketing, do continue reading this article, as you might find some interesting answers to your marketing challenges. Remember, embrace the thoughts only if you can handle change.

An important understanding to accept this approach needs you to believe that the Internet is one entity that opens different doors of media outlets to reach out to your audiences/users/customers.

Today, most of the search campaigns focus on optimization of keywords, ad copy, and landing page improvements.

The above approaches work the best in linear marketing decisions, if you want to take it to the next level is to start tapping into “audience” data, which originates from paid search traffic.

If you’ve used a demand-side platform (DSP) before then you will be familiar with this model; however, if you are a B2B company or a very niche organization or a large e-commerce player, you have an option of starting your marketing plan from the moment people start searching for what you have to offer.

With “audience” information coming from search, you now have the most powerful set of consumer insights that you could never have had before. The search keyword itself can help you identify the stage of the buy cycle; which once aggregated becomes a powerful insight to reach out to that audience again with customized messaging relevant to that stage of their buy cycle. Let’s look at this matrix below:

While as complex as it looks, it’s quite simple to understand and there are technologies that help you achieve this. So let’s look at the keyword “buy laptop,” here is what the stages look like in a logical order (though the Internet journey is not linear):
1. The user reached the landing page, product page, and the shopping cart page – but did not complete the goal, i.e., purchase.
2. You can now trace this user across the Internet and serve that relevant ad to bring her back to your site to complete the transaction.
3. Ignore this user after a point you know they have not shown any interest in buying your product (negative optimization).
4. In the second case where the user has successfully bought your product, you can then reach out to her within the network with upgrade services or other accessories. The idea will be not to do it immediately.

While search advertising does not work in insolation of display advertising, this approach of using search to build your display plan will maximize your return of every penny in your marketing budget; you will have higher control over the audience or users you want to reach out to, and you know exactly what stage your Internet audience is at with your product.