PPC ads offer many invaluable benefits to you and your consumers. They’re a form of advertising you can easily create and launch in a short amount of time. They offer you instant results and make the search process much easier for users in your market, too.
But, the only way to fully reap the benefits of PPC is to learn more about how this tool works. The more you know about various PPC tools, metrics, and strategies, the better you can grow your online presence.
Here are 8 tips to keep in mind when handling your PPC campaign management.
1. Clearly Identify Your PPC Campaign Goals
It’s hard to have a successful PPC campaign when you’re not sure what your definition of “success” is. Take a moment to step back and look at the big picture.
Consider how the click-through rates and price per click of a PPC campaign will lead to conversions and sales. Think about how you’re going to lower bounce rates on your site. Focus on building brand awareness and brand loyalty, too.
Succeeding with PPC is all about connecting these dots. You can’t just focus on choosing the right keywords or getting a good rate for your clicks; you have to consider how everything adds up to contribute to the success of your business as a whole.
2. Research, Research, Research
Once you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to get to work. The next step is to research the behaviors of users in your target market and the keywords they search the most.
Keyword research can make or break your entire campaign. This determines the words and phrases you will be bidding on. It has a big effect on how well you connect with your audience, and how cost-effective those connections are, too.
3. Be Prepared to Make Edits
Even if you choose the best keywords, your campaign may still need some work.
But, that’s actually the silver lining of PPC!
Things can always be improved. You don’t have to wait to run a new campaign to better reach your audience. All you have to do is focus on the data in front of you and ask how the results can be even better.
Maybe you need to change a few of the keywords in a campaign, but not all of them. Maybe reaching more users is a matter of how you word your ad, not how much money you’re putting into it.
These are just a few of the simple edits you can make that have a big difference on your PPC success.
4. Do Some A/B Testing
Not sure which edits are the right ones?
Wondering if one of your campaigns needs any changes at all?
Do some A/B testing. This is the best way to know for sure whether your campaign is performing to its top potential.
A/B testing helps you compare all the options available to you with real-time data. It sets two of your campaigns against one another and tracks which one users react better to. The choice that comes out on top is the campaign you need to be running.
5. Learn Your Match Types
Match types are one of the most important settings in your entire campaign. There are 4 different match types Google uses to determine which ads will best meet the needs of user inquiries.
These match types are:
- Broad
- Modified broad
- Phrase
- Exact match
The match setting on your ad should be closely aligned with your campaign goals. If you’re trying to build brand awareness within a large audience, for example, a broad match may be worth your while. If you’re targeting a very specific niche, an exact match would be the better choice.
6. Try Custom Ad Scheduling
Just as ad matches make a big difference, the time of day plays into the success of your campaign, too. Say you own a restaurant that’s only open for breakfast and lunch. It makes no sense to have your ads run during dinner time.
As such, you only need to invest your money into PPC ads that run during your operating hours. If you want to reach consumers who like to plan ahead, you can run a separate campaign without custom scheduling.
Speaking of the money you’re investing, don’t forget to watch out for click fraud. This can severely affect how well all of your campaigns perform whether they’re custom scheduled or not. It’s worth learning more information about how to prevent and combat this issue from affecting you.
7. Track Your Conversions
No matter what kind of business you own, conversions should be your main priority. Not everyone who clicks on an ad is going to purchase something from you, and the ones who do won’t always make their purchase right away.
But, you need to be sure that all the time and effort you’re putting into PPC is adding up. It’s not enough to celebrate a rise in site traffic or even in longer page visits. If you’re not getting the conversions you’re looking for, somethings wrong with your campaigns.
8. Align Your Landing Pages with User Queries
This is a PPC campaign management detail far too many business owners overlook. If you’re going to invest so much into getting people to click on your Google ads, you have to make sure what they see on your landing pages matches their expectations.
More so, you need to cater your landing pages to their inquiries and interests. Come up with engaging, informative copy to hook users with. Create interesting opt-in forms and buttons that make them want to further interact with you.
This is the extra piece of effort that will completely transform how your PPC campaigns succeed.
PPC Campaign Management Made Simple
At the end of the day, PPC campaign management is much easier than it seems. It just takes a bit of time to understand how all the tools and settings work. There’s also a learning curve in the resarch and A/B testing you have to do, but soon enough, all the pieces start coming together.
For more PPC tips and tricks to help speed up your learning process, click here.