Klaviyo Email Marketing and Google Ads: The Perfect Duo

Email marketing and Google Ads campaigns are two of the most popular types of channels that you can use to grow your brand, attract new customers, and reach your goals. They’re also even more powerful when they are used together.

By adopting a multi-channel strategy that uses Google Ads for acquisition, and email marketing for retargeting and retention, you can build a solid foundation for scaling your business further.

Read on to see how these two channels work in their own way and how they come together to be the perfect duo. We’ll also sprinkle in some common pitfalls to avoid with each channel and help you get started on crafting an email marketing and Google Ads strategy.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a digital strategy that allows people and businesses to connect to their audiences through tailored and targeted emails that are sent straight to their inbox. You can use email marketing to promote your products or services, foster customer loyalty and increase awareness of their brand.

Alongside social media, and PPC, email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies to help businesses grow. By using data you’ve collected from people who have interacted with your business, you can craft targeted email campaigns designed to help you achieve your goals.

Email marketing software products, such as Klaviyo, help you to collect user’s email addresses that they’ve provided, collate segmented customer lists and manage subscribers.

Let’s dive into some of the most popular types of email marketing campaigns.

Types Of Email Marketing Campaigns

There are a variety of email marketing campaigns that you can utilise to help your business grow. We’ll take you through some of the most popular types and how you can integrate them into your marketing strategy.

Newsletters

Newsletter email campaigns can be used to communicate with existing customers and also to help acquire new customers.

For existing customers, newsletters are an effective way of communicating any new updates, useful information or the latest deals. Not only does this help with customer retention by offering customers content that they’ll find valuable; it can also boost repeat orders by getting customers to come back to your site to explore and purchase new products.

For potential customers, you might offer them an incentive to sign up to the newsletter, such as a discount code. Then, once they are signed up to your newsletter, you can send them regular emails to keep them interested in the brand and push them to take meaningful action (i.e. making a purchase).

The content for the newsletter can vary depending on your business and what you are wanting to promote, but we recommend keeping the content informative and valuable to the reader.

Since people are flooded with emails on a daily basis, people are more likely to open (and sign up) to newsletters when they are getting value from the content, instead of another sales-driven email.

Email Flows

Email marketing flows are a series of emails sent to a list of subscribers over a period of time. This allows you to provide tailored campaigns to retarget users and push them to take action. When a potential customer provides you with their email, or interacts with your business, flows can be an effective email retargeting strategy.

Receiving regular emails keeps your brand at the forefront of the user’s mind, drives them back to the site and, over a certain time frame, pushes them to take action. Although this might sound like a lot of work, email flows are automated, so once they are set up, they do the hard work for you!

This is where email platforms like Klaviyo are highly useful, as they allow you to build multiple flows, set parameters for who is put into the flow, and measure the flows’ success.

Email flows are effective for businesses that experience long conversion cycles, or have short conversion cycles, but rely on repeat customer business.

For example, if you’re an online ecommerce store and someone has added something to their basket, but not yet made a purchase, you might put them into a flow that sends them reminders to complete their purchase. After a while, you might send them a discount code to incentivise them further to complete their purchase. Or, you might email them with other products similar to what they had in their basket that they might prefer to purchase.

What Is Google Ads Marketing?

Google Ads is a PPC marketing platform that allows businesses to promote their products and services on the Google Ads results page. Through keyword targeting, you can use Google Ads to show your ad to people who are actively searching for terms that are related to your business.

It’s not only the search results where you can show your ad to potential customers, as Google also has a Shopping tab, tailored for ecommerce business. You can also take advantage of YouTube ads through the Google platform, allowing you to show video ads to people as they are streaming content on YouTube and YouTube Shorts.

Therefore, adopting a Google Ads marketing strategy allows you to attract new customers who are in the market for what you’re offering (by using keyword targeting and other data signals). Google Ads also works seamlessly in tandem with email marketing, social media and offline channels to create a full-funnel strategy that drives quality traffic, engages customers and can grow your brand further.

You can read more about the benefits of using Google Ads to engage your audience and drive growth in our previous blog post here.

Can I Run Email Marketing and Google Ads Campaigns Together?

Yes! Email marketing and Google Ads work in tandem to create a full-funnel marketing strategy that works for your business.

Although both channels work very differently, you can take advantage of this to craft highly targeted campaigns that get your brand seen in front of the right people, at the right place, at the right time.

We’ll take you through this below, including how Klaviyo email marketing can help.

Using Google Search Campaigns For Traffic Acquisition

Google Search campaigns use accurate keyword targeting to allow you to show your ad to people who are actively searching for your products or services. For example, if you’re an online retailer selling personalised party bags, you can add keywords related to [personalised party bags] into a search campaign and show your ad to people who are typing terms like this into Google.

Even if these searchers have never interacted with your business before, because they are searching for terms that are relevant to your business, we can make accurate assumptions that this person is in the market for what you’re offering.

Through tailored and enticing ad copy, we can then drive these people to your website where they can browse your products, make an inquiry, or make a purchase straight away.

Finding The Right People At The Right Time

If your offering has a long conversion cycle (i.e. cars), you might find that you’re driving traffic to the site, but users are leaving without taking any action.

This doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with the marketing campaigns or your website, but indicates that users are still in the consideration stage. If we take the example of a car retailer, users will start their research stage where they might come across your site via a targeted Google Ad. However, they are still not sure what car they want yet, and because it’s a high ticket item, they want to be 100% sure that they are purchasing the right car for them. They’ll also visit other sites, compare prices and deals before they make a decision.

So, your Google Ads campaigns have driven the right people to your site, now let’s see how we can use an email retargeting strategy to push these searchers further down the funnel.

Implementing An Email Retargeting Strategy

A popular strategy that businesses use when it comes to email campaigns, is to implement an email retargeting strategy.

This involves sending users emails who have previously interacted with your business to drive them back to your site and take meaningful action.

If you use a platform like Klaviyo, you can collect user’s emails and collate them into different retargeting lists, depending on how they have interacted with you and what you want the end goal to be.

Like our car retailer, if the user is looking to purchase a high ticket item, then they are going to take their time, conduct research and read reviews before they make their final decision. This is when you need email retargeting campaigns.

Using Email Marketing For Re-Engaging Users

As we mentioned earlier, it’s not unusual for searchers to click on your ad then leave your site without taking any action. This can mean they’re still yet to make their final decision on what they want. Using tailored email remarketing campaigns can provide extra information and guidance to help them make their decision quicker, and push them to take action (i.e. booking a test drive or purchasing a car).

You can use software like Klaviyo to retarget users who have interacted with your business or website, but are yet to purchase a car. By creating segmented lists based on user intent (how likely they are to make a purchase in the near-future) you can then craft tailored retargeting email campaign flows that are sent to the subscriber over a period of time to remind them to take meaningful action. For our car retailer, this could be booking a test drive, reserving their model for a low deposit, or visiting the showroom for a chat with the team.

Using Email Marketing For Brand Reinforcement

Since purchasing a car is a high ticket item, it naturally comes with a longer consideration and research period. Not only will searches be making sure they know what type of car they want, but also where they want to purchase their car from. Therefore, your email marketing campaigns can help keep the car retailer’s brand at the forefront of the user’s mind. It’s not only about the product, pricing and deals, but the car retailer also needs to show why they are the best business for the user to purchase from.

For example, our car retailer has driven people to your site via a highly targeted Google Ads campaign and they’ve downloaded a brochure on a specific car model. Now, they can implement a retargeting email campaign that sends a series of emails tailored to the car they are looking at and include a clear call to action to book a test drive.

The car retailer can include key USP’s of the business, such as exclusive benefits the customer receives when they purchase a car from them. This communicated the brand’s core values, making the brand more memorable for when the customer finally decides what car they want. So when they are ready to buy their new car, they’re more likely to think of our car retailer, because they not only remember the benefits of the car, but also the benefits of the brand.

Understanding Klaviyo Email Marketing And Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Email marketing is a highly effective form of digital marketing and can drive actions that you might have otherwise lost. However, there are a couple of mistakes and pitfalls that you can easily avoid to ensure your ads campaigns are targeting the right people, at the right place, at the right time.

Waiting Too Long To Send Your Email Campaign

When it comes to email flows and email retargeting campaigns, timing is crucial. Although you want to avoid sending too many emails to a recipient in case it either alienates the recipient, or your emails end up in their spam folder, you also don’t want to wait too long to hit send either. When you’re utilising email retargeting campaigns, you need to ensure you’re keeping the recipient engaged and thinking about your brand, so when they are ready to take action, they’ll think of you.

Also, users will most likely be comparing your site to other sites, which means they might also be receiving emails from your competitors enticing them to re-visit their site. Therefore, you don’t want to wait too long to send your emails, otherwise your competitor might get there first and you might lose out on a potential customer.

Unclear Calls to Action

We’ve discussed a lot of different elements of an email marketing strategy, however, what goes into the email is one of the most crucial pieces that can hinder the performance of your campaigns. It’s integral that the copy, imagery and calls to action on the email are clear and directly telling the recipient what you want them to do. This might seem obvious, however, one of the most common pitfalls for email marketing campaigns is not making it clear what you want the recipient to do once they’ve opened the email.

If you want the recipient to make a purchase, include clear calls to action such as “Shop The New Collection” or “Shop The Sale Now.” If you don’t include clear CTA’s or your CTA’s are misleading, then you risk your email campaigns underperforming.

Common Pitfalls of Google Ads Marketing

Google Ads is a sophisticated marketing platform that can allow your ads to be seen by the right people, at the right place, at the right time across Google’s search, shopping, and YouTube results. However, there are a few basic elements that can hinder the performance of your ad campaigns. Not only are these easy to avoid, but they help to lay the foundation for a successful marketing campaign.

Undefined Marketing Goals

A major positive with Google Ads is that it has the elements to create campaigns that target each element of the funnel. Alongside their suite of campaign types, it can be very easy to get excited with testing different campaigns that are targeting different audiences. This is where defined marketing goals are needed, and we recommend defining your goals before you build your Google Ads campaigns.

These goals then guide what campaign types you choose, what audiences you target, and how you measure the success of the campaigns. If you’re looking to acquire new customers who are in the market for what you’re offering, then a targeted search campaign will work best. If you’re looking to increase brand awareness, then a more mid-funnel YouTube campaign might work better.

Inaccurate or No Tracking

This might seem obvious, but one of the most common pitfalls when crafting a Google Ads campaign is either implementing tracking that isn’t accurate, or not having any tracking implemented. Accurate tracking is crucial to understand what’s working, what isn’t working and identifying areas where you can grow the campaigns further. Depending on the goals for your business, you might choose to track different actions, such as purchases, add to carts, or signups.

Klaviyo Email Marketing and Google Ads: The Perfect Duo

As we’ve established, email campaigns and Google Ads campaigns can work in tandem to capture targeted traffic, retarget them and push them further down the funnel so they take meaningful action. There are a few common pitfalls for email and Google Ads campaigns that we’ve identified, so that you can easily avoid these mistakes and build a clear foundation for success.

To learn more about how multi-channel marketing can grow your business, enquire about our email marketing and Google Ads services today.