As marketers we are always looking for ways to maximise campaign results and save advertising budgets. Below are some tips on how to make the most of your PPC budget.
To begin the account must be setup in the correct way to run successful campaigns and avoid wasting your budget.
Make sure campaigns only target one product category.
One ad group should target a single product/service or keyword theme.
A maximum of 4 ads per ad group and don’t duplicate keywords across campaigns and ad groups.
Conversion tracking is also key, and as always to get the most out of your online activities you should have easily digestible reports which include metrics and KPI specific to your goals and objectives.
- Make a plan. Decide what you want to test. Whether that is headlines, description lines, keywords within the ad or even ad extensions.
- Keep in mind why you are testing, is it for an increased click through rate, lower cost per click…..?
- Split test 2-4 ad variations. Use responsive search ads as opposed to extended text ads, it will make your life much easier.
- Use as many ad extensions as possible to help you stand out.
- Be conscious of both the user and the device. Shorter ads work well on mobile, CTR is generally higher when the search keyword is displayed within the ad. Using dynamic ad insertion makes this all possible.
- If it is time sensitive, let it be known! Again, dynamic ad insertion allows you to display a countdown within your ad.
- Be sure to test variations of call to actions and unique selling points. I always use both within each ad.
- Target locations that are relevant to your business.
- Exclude locations to avoid unnecessary spend. Google does not automatically negate locations based on your targeted locations. Be sure to review the reports regularly and add in any non-relevant locations as negatives to maximise budget.
- Radius targeting allows you to show your ads to customers within a certain distance from your business. This is a great way to ensure you are covered from all angles.
- Some locations may be more expensive than others. Use location bid adjustments to ensure you are not over or under-bidding..
- Also known as day parting or ad scheduling, schedule your ads to show at certain times of the day or week.
- Unless there is a real business reason for not showing your ads at specific times, ensure your ad scheduling is based on historical data. Review the times and days your ads were shown and how they performed. Base your ad scheduling and bid adjustments on this data.
- Ad scheduling does not work for everyone and needs to be reviewed regularly. Take into account seasonal behaviour, your stock and business capacity.
- There are four main match types: broad, modified broad, phrase and exact (with exact match variance, is exact even exact!? That’s a different conversation to be had another time).
- Overly broad keyword match types can burn through your budget.
- Be too long tail and you will see “low search volume” – preventing your ads from showing.
- The art is to find a balance. Focus on exact match keywords to ensure you are as targeted as possible and use phrase or modified broad match keywords to pick up relevant search terms.
- Adding negative keywords will prevent your ads from showing if a search query includes them.
- Regularly review your search term report and add any irrelevant search terms as negative keywords.
- Make use of shared negative lists to ensure you don not repeat this work every time you create new campaigns.
- Use cross match negatives to ensure you do not inflate your own PPC costs. When you have a keyword that is in the account as both exact match and phrase match – they are both eligible in the ad auction. Add the exact keyword as a negative to the phrase match campaign/ad group, you want the most relevant keyword to win the auction. The structure of your account will play a vital role in making this possible. Do not put the same match times in the same ad group!
- Focus on keywords that are important to your audience and increase your ROI.
- Lastly make sure negative keywords also have match types, pick the right match type for the job.
With a high level of precision, you can achieve a much higher return than you would with any traditional marketing method. Effective PPC campaign management allows you to see continued improvements to ROI over time. The optimisation tips above will also help improve your quality score which lowers both cost per click and cost per conversion having a positive impact on your ROI.
If you are looking to improve your campaign results and save money at the same time, get yourself a free PPC audit by completing the form below.
Are you running a Google Ads account? Get a FREE account audit. Covering everything from account setup, historical performance, what is being done right and what can be improved.
You will receive a complete report with insights and recommendations.