When pay-per-click was first invented, it seemed to be a miracle worker for driving conversions and taking care of your ad campaigns. Though many businesses were successful in their PPC campaigns, more found it to be a big money eater, particularly as time went on. The cost per click went up almost $0.60 in the span of three years, but the click through rate when down. The cost of doing PPC campaigns has caused some businesses to opt out of the prospect altogether.gr
The rising cost of PPC advertising is daunting, to say the least, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely ineffective. It’s a hassle-free method of boosting traffic on your blog and website through organic keyword search. The solution here is not to eliminate PPC from your marketing schemes but to reduce the costs.
- Optimize with Geo-Targeting
As the name suggests, geo-targeting is the method of targeting your advertisements according to geographical location. With this tool activated, it will display your ads to specified areas only. This is an excellent way to get your products in front of people when you’re a localized business. This process keeps you from wasting money on ads that your target audience won’t see.
Geo-targeting isn’t a necessary step for every PPC campaign. If you’re an online business, it usually doesn’t matter where your clients are, and localizing your ads could actually hurt your business. But if you’re a localized company like a real estate agency, your entire clientele is centered on a single area, underscoring the importance of marketing properties and services towards that region.
- Boost Your Quality Score
Google has a tool called Quality Score (QS) which determines rankings in SERPs. When your ads are more relevant and higher quality, it naturally boosts your QS. This is all about making highly targeted ads that perform well to a single keyword. Ultimately, this leads to your CTR going up, which naturally brings up the QS. Once your QS rises, you receive higher returns that make PPC more affordable.
- Use Ad Scheduling
If you had an unlimited budget, displaying ads at all times of the day would be a cinch. As it is, most companies have a strict and limited budget that makes it difficult to get your ads in front of the right people. Scheduling ads through Google Adwords’ dayparting feature ensures your ads run during optimum times of the day for keyword search, rather than running them all day, even if there are few searches for your keyword. This reduces the amount spent on each ad and raises your chances of the ad being seen by someone who will actually click on it.
- Manage Underperformers
Analyze data regularly to track when your PPC ads are performing well and when they’re tanking. Weed out the underperformers that are sucking up your budget without adequate ROI. This is all about tracking negative keywords and understanding their potential impact on a campaign.
Similarly, look for ads that are doing okay, but aren’t performing at the level you’d like to see. When this happens, slow things down and put more focus on other, higher performing ads. Lowering bids on groups or keywords, pausing keywords and driving leads at a higher CPA, and qualifying ad text more aggressively to maintain qualified traffic can reduce spending in any of these areas while optimizing ROI.
- Emphasize Click-Through-Rates
PPC leads to rapid results, helping you decide where to go after users interact with the ad. To keep the momentum going, marketers must frequently develop new advertisements that will compete with existing ads and raise your QS.
Your CTR will rise exponentially from your efforts. As you know well, the higher the CTR and quality score, the more returns you’ll see.
It’s not impossible to lower your spending in the PPC category, but it will take some work. It’s very important to put the effort into reducing spending so that you can enjoy the effectiveness of PPC without compromising your bottom line.
