Best PPC Business Practices
Learn the essentials of PPC marketing so that all your PPC business practices remain fruitful and lead to the success of your brand online.
Aside from unpaid SEM, which is SEO, another form of search engine marketing — pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are not to be underestimated.
Still, it’s up to you as a business owner to make the most out of the available options and organize your budget accordingly.
Essentially, PPC campaigns are paid ads that you can place right in front of your target audience. Of course, you’ll be spending your budget on PPC ads, but you can also determine the limit you don’t want to go over.
Generally, PPC ads show immediate results that are instantly trackable, as opposed to SEO, but the moment you stop paying for the ads, the benefits will stop as well.
Still, you can make the most out of paid SEM by using effective PPC business practices.
What PPC business practices should you use?
Segment your ad campaigns
In order to avoid high cost-per-click rate and have full control, it’s essential that you always segment your ads. You have to structure every product/service category you have available as well as the ad groups. The more detailed you can get with your products/services, the better it is for your business.
For instance, if you’re selling clothes on your website, you can segment a campaign like this: Men’s clothing — Jackets — Parkas.
There are obviously many possibilities when it comes to segmenting your ads and that gives you the opportunity to test which ads perform great and which ones underperform. That information will help you allocate your budget to those PPC campaigns that generate more clicks.
Utilize your USP as well as your CTAs
There are plenty of ads online regardless of what niche your business belongs to. Therefore, you have to use PPC business practices that will be worth your while.
One such practice is definitely the promotion of your USP (unique selling point) and CTAs (calls-to-action).
Essentially, you have to find the best way to promote your business so that you can effectively showcase why your brand is the best.
Moreover, you have to make sure that landing page links and CTAs are included in the ad. However, don’t make a mistake of mixing different landing pages URLs for your PPC ads.
Use as many negative keywords as possible
You may not be aware of the fact, but it’s the negative keywords that can make your PPC campaign a success in the end. If you don’t want your bounce rate to skyrocket, this is one of the best PPC business practices to apply on your own campaigns.
Let’s use the clothing example again. If you only sell men’s clothes, you don’t want to get clicks looking for women’s clothes. These would be responsible for a high bounce rate. In that respect, the more negative keywords you can use for your PPC ad campaign, the better.
PPC metrics to track
The number of clicks
This is pretty self-explanatory. Essentially, every time someone clicks on your ad, you can make sure that the information is saved. That way, you’ll always know the exact number of clicks that a certain ad has generated. Of course, the stronger, more targeted keywords you choose — the better.
The number of impressions
Impressions are pretty important for your PPC metrics. To put it simply, impressions are when your own ad shows up in the search results after someone put the specific term in the search bar.
So, by knowing the number of impressions and the number of your clicks, you’ll be able to compare the two and further optimize your ad copy.
Your clickthrough rate
The clickthrough rate or CTR measures how often people click on your ads that showed up in their search results. Essentially, when you divide the number of clicks with the number of impressions you’ll get your CTR.
If your results show at least 2%, you have a strong CTR. If you want to boost your clickthrough rate, try to use more branded keywords for your PPC ads.
The money you spent
Cost is another PPC metrics that is obviously necessary to get info on. In general, this tracks how much money a certain marketing campaign has cost your business within a specific time frame.
Cost-per-click on average
In order to calculate your average cost-per-click (Avg. CPC), you need to divide the cost of the entire campaign with the number of clicks your ads received for that specific campaign.
Of course, you never know how many clicks you’re going to get. Therefore, it’s recommended to set up your max CPC for every keyword you’re using for your PPC marketing ads.
The position of your PPC ads
Another useful metrics to track when using PPC marketing is the position of your ads. Essentially, this will tell you how your ad performs compared to other marketers. That way, you’ll know the exact rank of your ad in the search results.
This is very important if your goal is to beat your competition or establish yourself as an authority within your specific niche.
Keyword quality score
Google will give a grade from 1 to 10 to each keyword that you use for your PPC ads, which will also be the grade for your ad and landing page which URL you used for the ad in question.
While it’s not quite clear how exactly Google grades your keywords, the grade will still affect your ad position.
How to improve PPC campaigns
Boost your PPC campaigns with callout extensions
Essentially, callout extensions include 25 characters that you can place together with your base copy in order to provide more information about your offers.
This practice can be very beneficial if you want to make sure that only high-quality traffic and ideal audience clicks on your ad and spends your marketing money.
Generate more traffic with sitelink extensions
If there’s one sure way to improve your PPC campaigns, it’s definitely with the use of sitelink extensions. You also get 25 characters for this addition to your paid ad.
Basically, sitelink extensions include links to other pages of your business website, aside from the landing page in the main link, that may be of interest to the users.
Actually, if the users know what they’re looking for, this practice will definitely boost your website traffic. Of course, make sure to use only the pages that provide the most important and valuable information about your brand.
Improve responsiveness with call extensions
If you want to truly impress your ideal target audience and provide the best service possible, call extensions are a must-have for your PPC campaigns.
Essentially, a call extension presents a call button that a mobile user can press to call you. Of course, it would be best to schedule this particular option during the hours when there’s someone available to talk to prospects in your office.
Precisely because of this possibility, you can hope to improve the responsiveness and overall results of your paid marketing efforts.
Make the most out of your CPC on a budget
Cost-per-click refers to the exact cost that you are obliged to pay for each click you earn when you launch your PPC campaigns.
Bid directly for your brand
If you do not have an organic presence and your unbranded clicks are high, you should use the name of your brand in the campaign. These clicks are cheaper and prevent your competition from overshadowing you on your own terrain.
Use Google Display Network
When done right, this is a perfect choice to impact users as they navigate. This is undoubtedly the best tool to drive traffic to small and medium businesses.
The types of ads range from the most common (a simple text) to the most dynamic such as an image, video and interactive media. Google Display Network also has the advantage of being less competitive than the Google Search Network.
Use retargeting to capture your target audience
Retargeting is a way to reach those customers who have previously shown interest in your brand. Invest in this particular strategy so that these potential clients return to your website and stay aware of your business.
These customers are your warmest leads and their clicks are a big part of your PPC campaigns on a budget.
Push ads strategically
When working on a small budget, check your prospects’ schedules in order to strategically show your ads.
If potential customers are most active between 9 am and 7 pm, for example, you may need to deactivate your ads after those hours, or simply minimize their visibility to make the most out of them during their prime hours for display.
Consider a shared budget
A shared budget can be spread across multiple PPC campaigns. This way you will have more chances for success, which will optimize the results effectively in the end.
Add negative words to your PPC campaigns on a budget
As mentioned, the use of negative keywords is a common practice to control the budget after launching a PPC campaign. If you know your target sector well, then you can do this trick from the very beginning.
Limited geo-targeting
Direct your PPC campaigns to the target audience within the location in which you operate as well. Limit the campaign to your country, and exclude all geographic locations that you do not ship to. This way you can save yourself some more money.
Create ‘call only’ campaigns
These ads only appear on mobile devices, and their call-to-action is to receive a call. If your company offers this type of customer support, you may want to add this feature to your campaigns as well.
Common PPC errors and solutions
Accompanying your PPC campaigns with a landing page is one of the best ways to ensure a high conversion rate. However, this is only if you work based on the same goal.
If you are sending poor quality traffic to your landing page your conversion rates will be affected. When you make a mistake you cannot go back in time to fix it, so it’s vital to make a good first impression.
Neglecting to discard low-performing keywords
It can be too easy to fall into the habit of adding new keywords to your PPC campaigns. One can then forget about the responsibility of periodically removing low-performing keywords.
Very often this results in a lose-lose situation:
- Create a bad experience for potential customers who click on your ads and arrive at a destination that is not exactly what they were looking for.
- This lack of agreement between the ad and the landing page leads to lower conversion rates, higher cost-per-click and lower quality levels throughout the account.
To avoid this you have set some strict rules related to the experience that your keywords should provide and how they connect to landing pages in terms of an offer, call-to-action, and intention.
The keywords have to be reviewed and segmented into sets that you can reject, ignore or contact. Most importantly, you must do this regularly.
Solution — keep only the advantageous keywords for your business
Do yourself a favor and do not let the excessive use of keywords consume most of your budget. Consult a simple keyword report in the ad group or campaign level and set rules for your clickthrough rate and cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
The rules you establish to control your work will be unique to your account and list of keywords. Everything must be aligned with the same objectives to achieve your goals in terms of income or business opportunities.
Lack of strategy in your daily budget
Is traffic to your landing page interrupted in the middle of the workday? Is the AdWords budget ending even before 10 am? That is one of the common bad PPC business practices related to volume and cost.
You could have the best landing page in the world, but if the budget is scarce, do not expect amazing results. You have to pay to play. If you do not have money to go for it, be creative and use alternatives.
Solution — schedule ads during peak hours
To be more responsible with your daily budget, schedule ads to attract traffic when users are actually willing to convert.
If you adjust your bids to be smaller or even turn them off completely based on performance or peak hours, you can stretch your budget much more. Also:
- Divide campaigns and ad groups into narrower groups with short lists of keywords.
- Use negative keywords liberally.
- Eliminate any keyword that is expensive (and does not lead to conversion) so that you save your money and use it for keywords that convert.
Your ads and landing page don’t match
Nobody likes the combination of ad and landing page that is not accurate; and if your CTR is high, there is a considerable disbalance between them.
Solution — give your potential customers a perfect message match
This type of perfect message match helps you earn points in PPC, to have a lower CPC, a higher conversion rate, and better quality levels.
The best of all is that it creates a great experience for your visitors and reaffirms that they have made a “good click”.
The perfect message match between the PPC ad and the landing page gives you a better return on investment. What’s more, your potential customers will be satisfied.
Your ads send the wrong message
The PPC keyword lists should be grouped not only by a type or topic, but also by the context of the purchasing process. In other words, when selecting keywords, you must take into account the user’s intention. In the end, you want to guarantee that you have answered the question someone asked.
If you are not paying attention to the user’s intention and do not use terms accordingly, you will have a low CTR due to the lack of concordance between what attracts users and what you are proposing. Therefore, no one will ever see your beautiful landing page, which is one of the very serious and unfortunately common PPC errors.
Solution — meet your prototype and send a strong message
- Do your ads and landing page take into account the awareness, consideration or purchase? Do they match the right keywords? For example, “you can buy a house” is a keyword that people look for when they are in the awareness phase, while “where to buy a house” is for potential customers in the purchase phase.
- Search for your keywords on Google. Do the ads and articles that appear match the goals of your PPC campaign?
- Ask someone. If you know someone who fits the profile of your ideal client, show them the ad or the landing page, and analyze if it catches their attention.
Even with best PPC business practices via paid SEM, you’ll be directing your prospects to your business website. Therefore, you have to make sure that the site is functional, user-friendly, responsive and easy to navigate.
