When you run a small business, you need to make sure every penny spent on marketing is accounted for and ensures a healthy return on investment.
Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising can be great ways to promote your business to new customers, with Google claiming every dollar spent on their Pay Per Click (PPC) platform results in $8 returned!
Interested in seeing what PPC can do for your business? Our PPC experts have come up with five great tips to help you get up and running up on the PPC platform of your choosing.
1. Make the most of negative keywords
When you are starting out on PPC, phrase match and broad match keywords can be a fantastic way of showcasing your ad campaigns to new audiences and finding new keywords to use, but the risk is your ad could be served to the wrong people, wasting clicks and money.
However, you can set up negative keywords. This means if someone searches for a keyword or phrase, your ad will not be displayed.
For example, if you sell vegan food, you can exclude keywords from people searching for meat or dairy as the chances are they will not be interested in your products.
2. Target your ads
The great thing about PPC is you can target your ads so they are only served to a select number of people. For example, if you only sell your product or service to specific countries or regions, you can set it so your ads are only shown to these particular places, meaning you are not wasting money serving your ads to people who can't buy from you.
You can target your ads to other demographics including age and gender, the type of computer or mobile your prospective customer uses… even their hobbies and interests!
3. Take time with your ad copy
Think of your ad content as the taxi that takes your customer from the search engine to your website. You want to ensure your ads are as enticing as possible so your prospective customer clicks on them!
Take time to create appealing copy and show your customers exactly why they should buy from you.
You should have at least two ads for each ad group you use… if you have more, all the better! Review your ads regularly and see which ones are performing best. Pause the least effective ones and add fresh new ads into the mix.
4. Make your website as easy to convert as possible
When you have got people to your website, you need to make sure it is as simple for them to convert as possible. A conversion could be anything from buying your product or requesting a quote.
You need to make sure your page loads as quickly as possible, and the content is easy to understand. People only have short attention spans, so make sure any prospective customers can find what they need before they get bored.
5. Check your campaigns regularly
As tempting as it may be to set up your campaigns and leave them, you need to check into your account regularly so you can see how your keywords are faring and make changes if required.
Think of your PPC account as a plant. If you don't tend to it regularly, it will keel over and die, and you don't want that!
Check your account at least once a week and take a look at your stats. Does the budget on any of your keywords need changing? Can your ad copy be tweaked? Are there any new negative keywords you can add?
Although it is easy to get set up on your Pay per Click (PPC) ads platform of choice, there are things you need to do to ensure your advertising budget doesn't rapidly deplete.
Here are three common mistakes that waste your PPC budget, and what you can do to not only keep your clickthrough rate healthy but save money too.1. Bidding on the wrong keywords
When you are starting on PPC, you need to do thorough keyword research to determine the right keywords to use.
Don't just type keywords into your ad group off the top of your head, as you don't know if these are the keywords your customers are looking for, and you may potentially waste money on them.
Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising have free keyword planning tools you can use to plan the right keywords before you start bidding.
Similarly, when your campaign Is up and running, keep an eye out for search terms people are using that result in wasted clicks. You can set up negative keywords to ensure if someone searches using a specific keyword or phrase, your ad will not be displayed.
2. Targeting the wrong people
As sad as it may sound, not everyone will want to buy your product or service, so you will want to make sure your advert is not served to these people.
An excellent place to start is location. If you only sell your product or service in a specific country or local region, you will want to set it so your advert only shows to people who live in these places.
Similarly, let's say you sell women's shoes. You may decide you only want ads for your shoes to be shown to women, so men do not accidentally click on your ad, wasting your precious budget.
Think about your target customer and tweak your PPC settings to suit your needs.
3. Having a low quality score
In both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, all keywords you use are assigned a quality score. This score takes into consideration the keyword's clickthrough rate, the quality of the ad copy and the landing page experience on your website.
A high quality score is great as it can help you save money when you bid. However, a low quality score is bad as you can end up spending more money when bidding on that specific keyword. In the worst-case scenario, your PPC of choice can refuse to serve an ad for your keyword.
As an example, Google Ads sets an average quality score of 5 out of 10. If your score is 7/10 you can expect to pay 28% less for your keyword. If it is 4/10 you can expect to pay 25% more!
How can you improve your quality score? You can improve it by using keywords relevant to what you are selling, optimizing the content on your website to ensure it is relevant and accurate and testing your ad copy to make your clickthrough rates as high as possible.
Pay per click advertising (or PPC for short) on platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising can be a great way to signpost people to your website and encourage them to buy your product or service. According to Google, every $1 spent on Google Ads generates $8 worth of income!
However, there is more to PPC search engine campaigns than choosing the keywords you want to show up for, determining your budget and crossing your fingers to hope for the best.
Here are our three top tips that will help ensure you create engaging campaigns that will convert, as well as provide the best return on your investment.
Review your ad copy
You can have the most intuitive keywords in the world, but if your ad copy is lacking, people will not click on your ads and go to your website.
You need to create engaging content that appeals to your customers. Showcase the things that make your business unique and try to include your keywords to make your ad as relevant as possible. Utilize extensions to provide additional information about your business, and try out several different variations of your ads to see which one is the most successful.
Even if your ad is not the number one result on your search engine of choice, taking the time to write your ads will help grow your clickthrough rate and encourage your customers to visit your site.
Keep your ad groups small and targeted
You may think it is easier to manage your ads account if you have all of your search terms in one large ad group, but smaller ad groups will help increase the likelihood of customers clicking on your ads.
Smaller ad groups mean you can target your ad wording and landing pages to a more specific audience, meaning you are likely to pay less for your keywords and won't see money wasted on irrelevant clicks.
If you have time, Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) can be a great strategy. This is when you only have one keyword variant per ad group, and studies have shown it can increase your clickthrough rate by up to 14%!
Make sure customers stay on your website
You've got your potential customers to click on your ad and visit your website. You may think the hard work is over, but you need to ensure customers stay on your website and convert.
Prospective customers that visit your website and immediately leave provide a negative ranking signal to your PPC platform of choice, meaning the platform is likely to charge you more in the future or even stop serving your ads entirely.
This means you need to ensure the best experience when customers click on your ads and visit your site.
Take a look at the page your ad takes customers to. Is the content easy to understand? Does your page load as quickly as possible? Is there a strong call to action? Put yourself in your customer's shoes and think about what they want to see when they visit your site.
Pay per click (PPC) advertising on platforms like Google Ads is a fantastic way to boost your marketing campaigns and get people to commit to your brand, but without closely monitoring and tweaking your campaigns, it can be an easy way to lose money.
Here are our top three tips to optimize your PPC campaign to ensure you guarantee the best return on investment (ROI) and stop the wrong target audiences from clicking on your ads.
When it comes to Google Ads, many people think that once they drove visitors to the website, the hard work is over and they can relax. However, this is the wrong approach to take!
When people get to your website, you need to keep them there and ensure they convert, whether that is by purchasing your product, requesting a quote, sending you an email or signing up to your newsletter.
Review the page your ad takes visitors to. Is there a better page to send people to? Is the content straightforward? Does your page content load fast? Is there a definitive call to action that is easy to find?
People only have an attention span of eight seconds. If your visitor cannot find what they need in that time and leaves your site, this could harm your PPC campaign moving forward.
Phrase match and broad match keywords can be a great way of showcasing your ad campaigns to new audiences, but the risk of this is your ad could be served to the wrong people. If they click on your ad, then you’ve essentially paid money for nothing.
However, you can set up negative keywords at ad group, campaign and account level. This means if someone searches for a specific keyword or phrase, then your ad will not be displayed.
As an example, if you sell women’s clothing, you can exclude keywords from people searching for men’s and children’s clothing, as the odds are they will not be interested in what you sell.
To create a negative keyword list, go to your keywords list, select the words you want to exclude and click add negative keyword.
You want to make sure the ads you serve are as targeted as possible. As tempting as it is to throw all your search terms into one big ad group for convenience, this is not the best strategy to take.
It is best to have small ad groups with a few keywords in so you can target the ad wording and landing page to a specific audience. This will help your ads convert and give you the best return on investment.
Have you ever heard of the Single Keyword Ad Group, or SKAG for short? This is where you only have variations of one keyword in your ad group. An ad agency grew its clickthrough rate by an amazing 28% by moving to SKAG! It may take time to set up, but the results are worth it.
So there you have it… three easy ways to boost your PPC account and grow your ROI!