Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a wonderful way to direct more qualified leads to your brand’s website. But, getting users to your site is just the first step. The best PPC campaigns will convert these leads into customers.PPC advertising can be executed across many platforms, but we’ll focus today on the biggest one: Google’s AdWords. PPC ads will appear on search engine results pages (SERPs). Better yet, on the first page of search results.Three PPC ads are even shown before the best-performing organic search results on the page.Don’t double that PPC budget just yet, though. PPC management and content are both equally crucial to a campaign’s success. Without high-quality ads and managers, PPC campaigns can cost more money than they bring in.As the first rule of business tells us, the only thing worse than no ROI is a negative ROI.Put the following 4 tips and tricks to work for your digital marketing strategy today to get more out of your PPC campaigns.
1. Keywords are king
Well-executed PPC campaigns are known for their capacity to direct not just any users to your site, but qualified prospects to your corresponding URL embedded in the ad. This is where we first see the importance of PPC strategy in performance (read: click-through rate). Make sure you are targeting users querying for your brand. For example, photographers would likely not want to utilize the keyword “camera” in their PPC campaigns. While certainly relevant to their profession, someone Googling cameras is likely a photographer him-/herself. A click is not just neutral, but bad if the person clicking is not your target market.
2. Ensure a topical landing page
PPC may include “click” in its name, but the real purpose is to drive sales on your site, not just traffic to it. Congratulations, you’ve successfully gotten the eyes of your target customers on your site with the aforementioned attention to keyword detail. Now it’s time to make sure the same relevancy to keywords clicked carries through to your company’s site. The message on your landing page should align with your keywords, which, in turn, should align with your ad copy. Carrying this message through your campaign will improve not only your click-through rate, but your conversion rate, as well.
3. Don’t neglect negative keywords
Indicating what keywords to not display your PPC AdWords campaign for is just as important as the keywords you do select to include. Negative keywords can be added both at the campaign level, as well as specifically to each set of ad groups within the overall campaign.
4. Keyword matches matter
By now, you’ve selected which keywords are and aren’t relevant to your brand’s products or services, and composed your landing page to reiterate the relevancy of the keywords the user clicked through expecting to see. Next up is selecting match types for keywords. The kind of keyword matching you select will determine how Google defines the relevancy of a user’s search to improve the quality of leads your ad is displayed to. There are 4 kinds of matches within AdWords, shown in ascending order of specificity:
- Broad: as its name suggests, this is the least specific way keywords in ad campaigns can match with queries. Synonyms of keywords will be included.
- Broad match modifier (BMM): this search match type does not include synonyms, but allows the keywords to appear in any combination or order, and is denoted by adding a “+” in front of the keywords.
- Example keyword phrase: +photographers’ +cameras
- Example search ad would appear for: cameras for photographers
- Phrase match: this type of keyword match is denoted with quotation marks. Ad will still show if words appear before or after the phrase in a search, but not if the phrase is interrupted by any word(s)
- example phrase: “apple picking in Chicago”
- example search that would show ad: autumn apple picking in Chicago
- example search that would not show ad: apple picking during fall Chicago
- Exact match: Unlike phrase match, exact matches do allow for the breaking up of a keyword phrase, so long as the meaning is not changed. However, no words before or after are permitted.
The more specific your match type, the fewer impressions you will get, but the more relevant those few impressions will be.Contact KitelyTech today to discuss the details of how we can add value to you and your online business.Phone: (800) 274 2908Email: info@kitelytech.com
