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5 Winning PPC Campaign Management Best Practices That Will Double Your ROI
October 1, 2018 / Treena BjarnasonAre you looking for ways to maximize the ROI of your current Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign?
PPC advertising gives all marketers an opportunity to promote their services on a variety of highly-trafficked platforms. Whether you’ve chosen to launch a PPC campaign on social media or Google, PPC can boost your online visibility, generating the results you need.
If you’re new to PPC, you may be feeling a bit daunted by your campaign’s management. PPC may not feel as straightforward as SEO, for example, and you may be wary about throwing cash at digital ads.
Luckily, we’ve got some great pointers for you when it comes to PPC campaign management. Read on for insight into the best practices you should be implementing with your Pay-Per-Click campaigns today!
1. Perform Keyword Research Like a Boss
Keywords really are the heart of any PPC campaign, particularly a Google AdWords campaign. The secret to maximizing the ROI of your PPC campaign likes in performing solid keyword research ahead of time–and keep track of keyword performance as you go along.
What does solid keyword research for a PPC campaign look like? If you’re setting up a campaign through Google AdWords, it may look like spending some serious time with Google’s Keyword Planner.
You may also wish to use another keyword explorer, such as one provided through BuzzSumo or Ahref’s. These explorers can also be helpful for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns.
Keyword research should, however, go beyond these tools themselves, as valuable as they can be. It’s important to understand your audience intimately when crafting any paid digital advertising campaign.
You may wish to browse online forums like Quora, for example, to see what comes up when you type in relevant keywords. Answer the Public can give you insight into what questions or thoughts your customers have about the topics you’ve been brainstorming.
Build your keywords for your PPC campaign based on your customers’ needs–at any stage of the PPC campaign management journey!
If you aren’t sure that you’re getting bang for your buck currently, it may be because your keywords aren’t where they should be. Changing your keywords and tracking their performance can start giving you the traffic and conversions you crave.
2. Perfect Your Content
Yes, you do have to ensure that your copywriting skills are where they need to be when managing any PPC campaign. It’s no secret that stellar content sells, and your campaign is more likely to deliver if your ad content truly shines.
Even after your ads are in place, think about ways that you can be perfecting content. Note the performance of specific ads–which ones are getting the most clicks (not just impressions).
Your content is likely to shift as you modify your keywords and weed out low-performing terms, too. In general, the best PPC content will integrate seamlessly with keywords.
It will also be to the point and incorporate a call to action, something that is likely to compel a click.
If you’re having trouble coming up with content, check out what your competitors are putting forth! Think about ways you can raise the bar.
Or, return to your keyword research. Once again, keywords are closely associated with your customer’s needs, desires, and questions. Build your content accordingly.
3. Create Structured Ad Groups
Some PPC marketers choose random keywords and blindly craft a variety of ads accordingly. PPC campaign management should be structured, just like any marketing endeavor.
When building your PPC campaign at any stage, make sure you are crafting structured ad groups. These are much like “categories,” umbrellas that separate your services, products, or offerings into relevant groups.
Be specific and precise when creating these ad groups, and your keywords will accordingly be specific and precise. Your number of ad groups will depend on the range of services you offer, but most marketers will choose at least five.
Change these ad groups according to your campaign’s performance. Sometimes a lagging campaign is the result of insufficient structuring or groups that are too broad.
4. Think About Extensions
It is possible to invest in certain extensions for your PPC campaign to boost performance. In Google AdWords, you can implement extensions that give searchers a little bit more information in addition to the ad content you’ve generated.
For example, a call extension can integrate your phone number in the ad content, enabling mobile users to click this number and call directly (without having to navigate to your site).
Other extensions can include reviews, addresses, and links from specific pages on your website.
5. Use PPC to Supplement Existing SEO
PPC and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaigns often go hand in hand. Both, after all, are designed to increase your online visibility in search results or social media platforms.
They are also both directly related to browsing history and the keywords customers are likely to enter into search engines to surface relevant results.
For this reason, one often overlooked key to boosting PPC performance is to ensure your SEO efforts are also solid. Ideally, PPC should be used to support an existing SEO campaign.
Yes, this may mean launching an SEO campaign while you’re managing your PPC efforts. But luckily, if that’s overwhelming, you can turn to professionals to assist. SEO experts can help you craft a campaign that meets Google’s guidelines and gives you a foundation for PPC success.
Final Thoughts: PPC Campaign Management
When it comes to PPC campaign management, it’s essential to always be monitoring input and output. Analyze high-performing keywords and ads and be ready to eliminate keywords that aren’t delivering.
Keep performing keyword research as you manage your campaign, and adapt ad content accordingly. Consider implementing ad extensions if your budget permits and be sure to have an SEO campaign in full swing.
If any of this seems daunting, it is possible to outsource both SEO and PPC campaign management. At Cheeky Monkey Media, we’re proud to say that we cover both–and much more!
Start a conversation with us today to learn more about how we can help you with your digital marketing endeavors.
To avoid wasting monkey on your PPC campaign read our blog on ‘Click Farm’ fraud.