In the attention economy, marketing is everything. So, if you’ve invested a significant amount of your marketing budget into a PPC strategy, but your ads aren’t performing as well as you’d hoped, you’ve come to the right place.
Achieving optimal results isn’t just about setting up a campaign and letting it run its course. Small mistakes can tank your whole campaign. Therefore, it’s important to monitor your campaign, identify issues as early as possible, and fix them.
In this article, we identify the mistakes that may affect the performance of your PPC campaign and identify the steps you need to take to make the most of your campaign budget. Let’s dive right in!
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s an advertising model where advertisers pay when someone clicks on their ad. PPC ads are mainly placed on search engines like Google and Bing. These types of ads are prioritised and placed above organic search results.
In this case, advertisers bid on keywords adjacent to their business, so that they increase the chances of a good ad placement and as a result, clicks.
With PPC ads, you only pay when someone clicks on your ads. However, the amount you pay depends on factors determined by auction every time a search is made. These factors include:
Let’s look at the six ways you can enhance your PPC strategy.
The foundation of any marketing campaign is a deep understanding of your target audience and a clear vision of campaign goals.
Without having a definite idea of “who” your ideal client is, their pain points, interests and demographics, it’s difficult to even plot a PPC strategy, let alone run a PPC campaign that results in a positive ROI.
To avoid this mistake, use tools like CRM data and Google Analytics to cement your client persona. Consider your business and marketing goals and how a PPC campaign can contribute to these goals. This way, you can confidently tailor your ad copy, set targeting parameters and define key performance indicators (KPIs).
Keywords are the foundation of any PPC campaign, as they determine when and where your ads show up, and who will see them. You need to have a clear idea of what keywords you’ll be targeting in your campaign.
For B2B brands like yours, you need to focus on relevant and high-intent keywords to draw the right client in.
Start by brainstorming keyword ideas with your team or your marketing agency. Use tools such as Google Keyword Planner and Moz Keyword Explore to identify adjacent keywords that would otherwise slip through the cracks.
Assess each keyword’s competition levels and search volume. Opt for different types of keywords, including broad, long-tail, exact and phrase keywords – prioritising long-tail keywords which have the power to attract more qualified and targeted clicks.
Once you have a list of potential keywords, organise them into groups and subgroups. Additionally, you can further refine your strategy by adding negative keywords to exclude irrelevant queries and improve your ad performance.
Once you’ve launched your campaign, keep an eye on how your keywords are performing. Don’t be afraid of making adjustments and getting rid of the keywords that simply aren’t working!
Boring and generic ad copy simply doesn’t cut it anymore, especially if you’re operating in a competitive sector. Your PPC strategy must include ad copy that compels your target audience to click on your ad.
Your ad copy needs to answer your potential client’s questions and address their pain points while highlighting your USP. Make sure you incorporate relevant keywords in your headlines, descriptions and display URLs to improve your ad score and its relevance to your audience.
A/B testing your ad copy is always a good idea, as it helps you understand what type of messaging works best with your target audience, and what’s reeling them in.
Having people click on your ad is only half the battle. Your landing page must also entice visitors enough to convert them into actual leads or paying clients.
Therefore, you need to optimise any landing pages before you launch your campaigns. This includes ensuring that the landing page you’re using does the following:
Always test different versions of your campaign landing page to see which one produces the best results!
What’s the use of spending money on a PPC campaign if you don’t track your results and conversions?
Conversion tracking is a crucial part of any PPC strategy, as it helps you understand how effective your campaign is, and whether the people visiting your landing page are taking the actions you want them to take.
Before setting up conversion tracking, it’s important to understand what specific actions you want to target. These need to align with the campaign strategy and KPIs so that you can focus on the conversions that matter, and spend less time and resources on lower priorities.
Once you have decided on the conversion goal, you need to set up your conversion tracking via conversion tracking tags on a platform like Google Analytics that integrates with Google Ads and also allows you to track website clicks and conversions.
Before launching your campaign, make sure your conversion tracking tags are working correctly.
Once conversion tracking is running smoothly, you need to regularly monitor and analyse your conversion data. This data will determine whether you need to make changes to your campaign.
By comparing conversion data sets across different ads, ad groups and keywords, you can determine which configurations are driving the most conversions and make data-informed adjustments to your campaign.
In addition to looking at the conversion data, pay close attention to which targeting options (such as location, device and ad scheduling) and bidding strategies are working best.
This valuable insight will help you identify what is driving the most results while making the most of your overall budget.
Don’t hold back from stopping underperforming ads or ad sets. After all, a successful PPC strategy is all about trial and error, and using those errors to make decisions that yield results for your brand.
It’s important to remember that a successful PPC strategy should go beyond just clicks, especially for B2B brands.
It’s about nurturing leads and ensuring that you make the most of your PPC campaign by keeping in touch with these leads and keeping them engaged through thoughtful emails, articles and webinars.
This ongoing engagement ensures that the money and resources you spend on a PPC campaign don’t just give short-term results that fizzle out and have no real impact on the company. Instead, you ensure that a single campaign delivers long-lasting and value-driven outcomes that will benefit your brand in the long term.