Some marketers believe that PPC ad campaigns are dead but the truth is that they’re just as effective and efficient at generating high converting traffic as anything else out there. If you’re experiencing trouble with your PPC AdWords campaign, then you need to rethink some of your strategies. Here are four ways to increase your ROI on PPC AdWords Campaigns.
The first place to start is with your choice of keywords. These are a fundamental part of your ad campaign. If you don’t find and use the right keywords, then the rest of your campaign will fall apart. If you’re trying to sell a product, you need to use keywords with commercial intent. This means finding keyword phrases that contain an intent to buy. A few examples of keywords that show intent include the words like “discount, deals, free shipping, and price”. If people are including these words in their search then their intent is likely to make a purchase – they aren’t looking for blog articles or information posts. They’re looking to buy something. Generally, you can add transactional keywords to the front of your existing keywords but once you do this you should use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to research the new keywords and check their search volume and cost per click.
The second step is to use multiple ads. Each campaign should have multiple ads with the same landing page. This makes it incredibly easy to compare what works and what doesn’t. For example, if you have created a text ad for a new product that directs users to a landing page, you could create four or five variations of the same ad with different headlines and ad copy. Each ad should have the same settings other than the actual copy, so you can then compare the results of each ad within the same campaign. After you have compared the results, you can get a better sense of which ads worked best. Not only should you look at the click-through rate, but you should also look at the conversion rates of the traffic from each ad. When you notice major differences between multiple ads for the same landing page, look at the details of the ads determine what you did differently with each ad that resulted in different results. Doing this allows you to learn more about the campaign while gaining valuable insight that will help you improve your campaign.
The third thing you can do is to change your target location or region. Perhaps your products or services appeal more to people in a particular region. If you’ve done your research, you might discover higher conversion rates from prospects in one area than another. If this is the case then start targeting the locations with higher conversion rates with more ads. Increase your spending in these regions and decrease your spending on others. Perhaps honing into hyper-local areas will open up an entirely new market for you as very few businesses are marketing products or services in these geographical locations.
The fourth step is to use retargeting. After all, you have done all this work to bring new leads into your business with extensive keyword research, careful crafting of ad copy, and optimized your landing pages, only for the sale to fall apart a click or two before the conversion. This is where retargeting comes in.
When someone visits a product or service page on your website, and they decide to leave without making a purchase – for whatever reason – retargeting ads can follow them elsewhere on the Google Display Network for up to 14 days. You can set it up in a few ways, such as displaying a specific item, or service you are offering which they were viewing on your website until they eventually click on check out with the item, or get a quote. Retargeting is a cost-effective plan to increase your conversion rates.
The final tip is to avoid making too many changes at once. When you adjust your campaign, you are trying to fine-tune the results. Therefore, you should only be making one change at a time in order to allow your changes to take effect. Don’t rush this process. You need to wait a few days to gather enough data in order to properly analyze the effects of your changes. Analyzing your Google AdWords PPC campaign isn’t difficult, but it does take a lot of time.
Google AdWords campaigns are incredibly effective at helping you attract ready-to-buy visitors. You should always set aside a portion of your marketing budget for PPC ads, as they are one of the most effective parts of your overall digital marketing campaign. These same tips can be applied to almost any other PPC campaign you are running on other networks, including Social Networks. Thank you for reading. If you have tried any of these tips and found that they helped you produce better results or conversion rates, please share this article with a friend or a colleague.