Six Tips To Optimize Your Google PPC Campaigns
PPC Advertising this year has been very much like fishing for tuna. Most advertisers are trying to hit a moving target as consumers constantly change their online behavior. People are returning to work, while others are taking advantage of summer travel. Any way you slice it online consumer behavior has been far from the norm lately.
The Solution: Be Smarter Than The Tuna.
Below are Six Tips To Improve Your Google PPC Campaigns
1. Constantly Refine & Expand Your Keyword List
Your keywords are the beginning of the consumer advertising process. As I mentioned, consumers are searching for different things, in different ways, and on different devices. Consumer search behavior constantly evolving and changing. People are typing questions directly into the search box while others use voice-to-text when searching. Check your keyword list to make sure you are accommodating all the variations. Look for long and short tail keywords that your target audience may have recently adopted.
There are various keyword tools you can use to find hidden nuggets that might give your campaigns a competitive boost. Find one you like and keep it handy. Google’s is free.
2. Identify Keywords That Are Not Performing Well
Keywords are critical to optimizing your Google PPC campaigns. They control the quality of the click you are fishing for. Your keywords should align with your target audience. For instance a plumber may not want their ads to show in front of people shopping for a water heater. They would rather have their ads appear in front of someone looking for a plumber to come to their home today. Selecting the right keywords can help you increase the likelihood of visitors booking your service.
Analyzing which keywords are converting best is critical to the success of those campaigns. Poor performance may be due to many factors – bidding strategy, too broad, low search volume, high search volume and your Max CPC Bid. All of these attributes should be explored when optimizing your PPC campaigns.
3. Constantly Add To Your Negative Keyword List
If you are not using a Negative Keyword List you do not have efficient campaigns. You are spending more than you should be to attract customers. Negative keywords are like a black list, they tell Google which words (when present) that your ads should NOT appear. This will control your costs immensely, saving your budget so your ads can run longer. Perhaps the biggest advantage of a negative keyword list is that it helps you weed out the lookers from the bookers. They give your campaigns laser focus on search traffic that has the best chance of converting.
4. Review Your Geotargeting
Most people understand how to geotarget their ads because Google forces you to do this when setting up your campaigns. The problem is that often times it’s forgotten when people are looking for ways to optimize their campaigns. Your Location report will tell you which states, cities or neighborhoods are performing well. Conversely it will tell you which areas are running up spend without any ROI.
You can leverage your Location targeting to select specific areas where you want your ad to be shown, where you don’t want your ads to be shown and those areas where you want increase your bid. Geotargeting is a major Google PPC Campaign tuning strategy which can help reduce campaign costs and improve ROI.
5. Redefine Your Customer Profiles
It is easy to get lost in the (way too many) levers that control your PPC Campaigns. Often analysts get bogged down in the analytics and overlook their target audience. It’s important to constantly revisit these customer profiles to determine whether they have changed. Is there a seasonality to some buyer personas or has there been an outside force like a pandemic that may have caused your consumers to swim in different waters.
If things have changed in the marketplace, you probably have to adjust your campaigns to reach the new or obscure segments of your target audience. Consumer behavior constantly changes and you don’t want to risk missing out on potential leads by fishing with the same bait of the same old tired pier.
6. Refresh Your Landing Pages
Often when optimizing our PPC Campaigns we forget about the landing page. This is the goal line! We spend so much time, effort and money to drive people to our landing page we cant fumble on the goal line.
The most successful PPC strategies are the ones that are not set up quickly and forgotten. By regularly testing, analyzing and optimizing your PPC campaigns, you’ll in a better position to reach your target audience and beat your competition. Look for ways to optimize your landing pages to increase completed forms, phone calls or purchases. That may require a fresh design, a new funnel or a sleek new call-to-action point.
Summary
These tips to improve your Google PPC Campaigns are just a few of the different PPC strategies we engage to gain a competitive edge for our clients. If you would like to discuss how we may work together to increase the ROI on your advertising spend please give us a call or send us a note by clicking one of the buttons below.
Thanks For Reading!
