Pay per click advertising (or PPC) has massive potential…in the right hands. Unless you take the time to do the necessary research and preparation – as opposed to rushing in and hoping for the best – you may struggle to achieve a sustainable ROI.
However, with these #5 hot tips, you’ll be well on your way to building an awesome PPC campaign. Let’s get started!
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Enable conversion tracking (and don’t neglect the other key metrics)
While there is already a fair amount of data available for you to leverage from tools like Google AdWords, it is still very important that you set up a conversion tracker of your own so you can accurately identify how your campaign is performing.
A conversion tracker will simply track a set of specific actions on your landing page (e.g., who is engaging with your CTAs and converting into customers).
Other important metrics include:
- CTR
- Point and click
- Bounce rate
- Cost of acquisition
- Cost per action
- Quality score
- And more.
In essence, the more data you collect and analyse, the easier it will be for you to make the necessary adjustments and supercharge your PPC campaign.
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Optimise for ‘intent’ with ad extensions
Throwing up one single marketing message and hoping for the best is for amateurs. If you want to PPC like a pro, then you need to understand search intent and use various ad extensions to essentially add more real estate to your PPC campaign with varying CTAs. For example:
- Structured snippets: offering a list of features for a given product or service.
- Sitelink extensions: adding multiple links with your CTAs (with different outcomes).
- Review extensions: for those who may need additional ‘social proof’ to convert with confidence.
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Master geo-targeting
Geo-tracking your ads can provide you with a variety of useful benefits, such as identifying (and accommodating) local search intent, minimising competition, and going after people who are in close proximity to your bricks and mortar location.
For example, a PPC agency in Singapore might gear their ads more towards local businesses for those prospects who would be more interested in working with an agency they can sit down with, face to face.
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Set negative keywords
Implementing negative keywords might sound like a bad thing, but when done well it can yield positive outcomes. For example, being able to control your Google ad spend by improving the quality and relevancy of the traffic you receive.
Using the PPC agency in Singapore example above, if they are specifically looking for clients who are interested in PPC advertising, they can set negative keywords to get more specific. For example, “digital marketing” could be added to the negative keyword list to keep their focus on PPC. This is much better, given that digital marketing is such a broad area with a multitude of different strategies.
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Split test everything
Again, throwing up one specific ad with a single set of copy is wasteful because you’ll never be able to get the valuable data you need to see what is working and what is not. However, if you run multiple ads side by side using different imagery and messaging, you can track your key metrics and identify which of the ads were more effective.
From that, you can leverage invaluable data to dial-in your messaging and eventually, create an exceptionally strong ad that resonates perfectly and delivers the highest possible ROI.
It’s all about refinement!
Final thoughts
All in all, the key to mastering PPC is planning, tracking data, split testing, and using the info you gather to fine-tune your ads.
With some trial and error and a little dedication, you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding your groove and making some serious money with your PPC strategy in place.
If it all seems a little too much, we recommend hiring a PPC agency. Leverage their expertise and focus your precious time on doing what you do best.
