Many small business owners understand the value of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, but few understand how to execute and manage a PPC campaign correctly. According to a Google Economic Impact study, businesses receive $8 in profit for every $1 they spend on Google Ads, but if you’re not seeing those types of results, it may be time to evaluate and refine your Adwords PPC management best practices.
Peppermonkey Media has worked on Google Ads, even back when it was known as Google Adwords, and we’ve helped hundreds of businesses with our PPC services in NJ. Continue reading to discover how to get the most out of your PPC campaigns.
Review and Optimize Your PPC Budget
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and keep allocating funds to the same paid media channels. However, digital advertising trends and user preferences change rapidly — mobile traffic shot up from 31.6% in 2015 to almost 60% in 2022, and having a mobile-friendly site is essential to any modern digital marketing strategy. Instead of sticking to the same budget for years, consider evaluating your budget and adapting your media spending to take advantage of recent trends.
Here are some of the best practices to optimize your PPC budget spend:
- Conduct semi-annual reconciliations of projected vs. actual spending for each campaign to see that you’re correctly allocating funds to where they need to go.
- Consider removing poor-performing campaigns, especially those that have run for several years and undergone rounds of optimization.
- Allocate funds to capturing competitive metrics that allow you to accurately measure the success of any particular campaign.
- Decide whether some PPC campaigns need additional funding to operate at peak performance.
Keep Up with New Features
Google Ads and other search engines are constantly adding new features to their search ad platforms that give marketers more control over target demographics, keywords, and ad extensions. For instance, Google Ads allows you to record any calls you receive from click-to-call ads, provides auction insights to improve bidding, and is set to release multimedia ads shortly.
Unfortunately, many businesses will fail to notice these changes, especially if their campaign already generates a stable revenue stream. However, leveraging these changes early can give you a competitive advantage while diversifying your paid search ad campaigns.
Re-Evaluate Keywords
Google and other paid ad platforms often adjust their algorithms and how the platform handles keywords for search ads. For instance, Google recently discontinued the broad match modifier (BMM) to focus on phrase match. While Google designed this change to simplify how the platform handles keywords and should reduce the number of keywords marketers need to manage, it does affect PPC campaigns allocating budgets based on match types.
Re-evaluating keywords semi-annually ensures you’re allocating resources where they have the most impact. Keyword reviews should focus on the following:
- Noting and adapting to phrase match changes
- Identifying potentially irrelevant search queries and using negative keywords to address them
- Reviewing technical keyword changes that may impact your PPC campaign in terms of shifts in traffic volume and resource allocation
Organize Your Ad Groups According to Best Practices
Google Ad Groups are a powerful way to specifically target potential audiences, which can be exceptionally useful if an organization sells multiple products to several demographics. However, it’s easy to quickly fall down an increasingly complex rabbit hole and spend a lot of money on groups that don’t deliver on their investment.
Ad Group best practices include the following:
- Maintain the same ad structure in each group; a good rule of thumb is to have three ads per group and ensure that the group’s primary keyword is in the headline of each ad.
- Keep ads that share related keywords in their own separate groups; this prevents contamination of a single group while still capturing users searching for similar products.
- Center each group around a narrowly focused theme and ensure each ad conforms to this theme. Google recommends basing groups around a single keyword and having a maximum of 20 related keywords per group.
- Make sure that each Ad Group ad leads to the correct landing page
Optimize Ad Copy
Google’s search engine algorithm prioritizes the user experience, so producing high-quality content is essential in PPC and SEO campaigns. Creating engaging ad copy does more than improve your paid search ad chances; it’s also more appealing to customers and may result in better-qualified leads and higher conversion rates.
Some ways to get the most out of your Google Ads copy and Adwords PPC management include:
- Create an eye-catching headline that contains your primary keyword
- Have a strong, non-generic call to action
- Select valuable keywords that align with customer intent
- Provide a clear and easily identifiable site link at the bottom of your ad copy
Don’t Neglect Your Landing Page
PPC campaigns are excellent at generating page traffic, but since each click costs you money, you must have the infrastructure to convert that traffic into paying customers. Your landing page is almost as important as your ad copy and must align with your PPC campaign goals and strategy.
If you have set up Google Ad Groups, consider designing a separate landing page for similar groups. While you don’t have to have a unique landing page per group, consider your customer’s search intent and how the landing page interacts with the user’s search queries.
Some landing page best practices include:
- Ensure it’s visually appealing while remaining in line with your branding.
- Have a clear and actionable CTA.
- Ensure the page loads quickly and is mobile-friendly.
- Have the same keywords as the ad in the title, metadata, and main page content.
- Display your business contact information and company logo on the landing page to foster trust.
Pay-per-click campaigns can be valuable in driving high-quality traffic to your website, but they can also quickly become expensive and time-consuming to manage. If you already know why PPC is important for business, the next step is implementing best practices to ensure you get the best possible return on your investment.
Contact Peppermonkey Media online or at 1(888) 231-9764 to schedule a free consultation and discover how we can optimize your Adwords PPC management.