Click Tip - Archive: January 2021

Four B2B Paid Search Strategies to Try in 2021

If you specialize in B2B products or services, pay per click (PPC) platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising can be a great way to encourage other businesses to visit your website and make inquiries.

In fact, PPC can generate twice the number of web visitors that SEO does!

If you are looking for ways to boost your PPC efforts in 2021, here are four of our favorite strategies to try.

Give them a go and let us know what you think of them!

1. Try using SKAGs

As a word it doesn't sound very nice, but as a strategy, it can't be beaten!

SKAGs is short for "Single Keyword Ad Groups" and can be a great way to target your keywords, ad copy and landing page to a specific audience. It's when you only have one keyword variant per ad group.

For example, if you are selling red shoes you could have "red shoes", [red shoes] and red shoes in the same group.

Studies have shown implementing SKAGs in your campaign can boost your clickthrough rate by up to 14%!

2. Review the times you serve adverts

Other businesses are usually in the office Monday to Friday between 9 am and 5 pm, so you want to make sure that your ads are showing during these times.

You can do this by creating an ad schedule that will determine what days and times your adverts will be served to your target audience. This means your adverts won't show at times when your key customers are out of the office, like weekends.

Alternatively, you can use bid adjustments to serve your ads off-peak, but at a reduced value. For example, you can set a bid adjustment of -80% at weekends, so your ads will only be shown if the price is right.

3. Bid on brand keywords

Bidding on your own brand name is an excellent way to get customers who are very nearly ready to buy your product or service onto your website. Think of it as that last final push to encourage them to convert!

The bonus of brand keywords is that your quality score will be high for them, meaning that they will be inexpensive to bid on and you will pretty much be guaranteed top spot on the first page of the search engine results.

Don't forget to bid on misspelled versions of your brand name. You'd be surprised how much traffic you can get!

As well as bidding on your own brand keywords you can…

4. Bid on your competitors brand keywords

Bidding on your rival's brand terms is something that is hotly debated in the PPC community.

If people are searching for competitor brand keywords, it means that they are at the end of the sales funnel and are considering buying. These words can be expensive to bid on, but it can be a powerful way of directing traffic to your website if done well.

How to Avoid Click Fraud in 2021

avoid ppc fraud

Is your PPC budget evaporating faster than usual? If the answer is yes, you may be experiencing click fraud.

Click fraud is when people or computer scripts falsely inflate the number of clicks on a PPC ad. It’s usually carried out by businesses trying to sabotage their competitors by making them hit their budget earlier than expected.

Not only can click fraud drive up your PPC costs, but it can prevent your advert from being shown at peak times and skew your conversion rates.

It’s a serious matter, with a staggering $24 billion lost to click fraud last year!

Click fraud is something that PPC platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising try and prevent through the use of complex algorithms – refunding ad credits to customers if fraud is identified. However, their systems aren’t 100% reliable, and it’s always wise to take steps across your own accounts to stop it from happening.

Here are some of the ways you can avoid click fraud.

Tweak Your Targeting

You can decide which target audiences you want to serve your ads to, from age all the way through to household income. Sometimes making small amends can help eliminate fraud entirely.

For example, if you are concerned that a rival company is clicking on your ads, you can exclude their location or IP address if you have it. If you are worried that your ads are being fraudulently clicked on by click farms in other countries, you can block those countries from seeing your ads.

It goes without saying, do be careful when adjusting your targeting. You don’t want to stop serving your ads to genuine customers.

Regularly Update Negative Keywords

Having an up-to-date list of negative keywords for each ad group will not only help ensure your ad gets served to the right target audience but will help reduce the risk of click fraud too.

The more relevant words in your negative keyword list, the less chance your competitors get access to your ad. Your negative keyword list isn’t made available to anyone else, so your rivals will not know which words to use to make your advert appear.

Check into your account every couple of days and see what words and phrases people are using to view your ads. You can then exclude keywords as appropriate.

Use a Specialist Service

If you have many accounts to monitor or just don’t know where to begin when it comes to managing click fraud, your best bet is to use a specialized detection and monitoring service. This service will monitor and track all of your PPC traffic on your behalf, identifying patterns and potential fraudsters.

ClickReport is a state-of-the-art system that will alert you to all potential click abusers. We can even serve a popup ad on your website to deter visitors who repeatedly click on your ads!

Want to see how much money you can save on your PPC advertising by eliminating click fraud? Sign up for your free trial today!

5 Tips for an Impeccable PPC Campaign

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Google makes it extremely easy to get started with Google Ads. It's very easy to select keywords, write your ad copy, and add your billing info. However, it's not all that easy to get the maximum out of your PPC campaign and get the most of your budget. Here are 5 tips that will help.

1. Choose the Right Bid Strategy

The first important step is to select the bid strategy that will work best for your ad. Define your goals and then decide whether you want to use conversion-based, impression-based, click-based, or interaction-based bid strategies. Getting this step right will help you to maximize user engagement and boost conversions.

2. Select Target Locations

The AdSense system can display ads to people in certain countries and even certain cities based on their IP addresses and GPS location. This is a very handy tool that will help you to target the right people and show your ads to potential clients in your area. This is particularly important for local businesses who would obviously want to target their area.

3. Target the Right Devices

The world has already gone mobile and Google AdSense has taken that into account. Now, AdSense campaigns can be tuned up for the best mobile experience and you can easily target the right devices. Here are the options:

- Mobile-only ads - this option allows you to customize some of your ads for the best mobile experience.

- Call-only ads - these ads can be specifically targeted for the sole purpose of getting phone calls.

- Mobile text - these are great for running simple text-only ads.

4. Use Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are a great way to provide more information about your business to your potential customers. Doing that will give them confidence, increase trust and ultimately help them convert. As an added bonus, ad extensions will give you better visibility in the SERP and they're completely free, too!

5. A/B Test Your Ads and Landing Pages

Testing and optimizing your ads and LPs is an extremely important part of maximizing the results of your campaigns. When it comes to A/B testing PPC campaigns, then you're lucky because the process is relatively easy. Usually, A/B testing means changing your copy and testing different:

- Headlines

- CTAs

- Links

- Main ad copy

The more you test, the better idea you'll get about what works and what doesn't.

AdSense is a fantastic platform to increase your online presence and drive more sales for your business. Keep these five tips in mind and don't be afraid to try new strategies and techniques!

Click Tip - Archive

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Pay Per Click Information & Resources
  • AffiliateGuide.com - Affiliate directory and resource center offering a huge range of web affiliate programs and affiliate information.
  • Passionforppc.com - PPC Management Services.