Programs produced by Google such as Google AdWords have made it incredibly easy for practically anyone to make their very own PPC advertising campaign. I remember when I first joined AdWords I was given £50 free for just signing up! The incentives to start using PPC are all there. However, this doesn’t mean you should start creating and run a campaign as soon as you sign up with a PPC program. In reality, you need to go through a check list to make sure you have everything you need before you start creating and run your very own PPC campaign. Without further ado, here is that check list.

Have You Got a Business Plan?

I have many articles on PPC.org that highlight similarities between a PPC campaign and the advertising sector of a business. This has led me to create articles where PPC advertisers can take advantage of business concepts such as the Ansoff and Boston matrix. As an advertiser, it is vital to have a business plan which underlines everything you plan to do. This should include elements such as:

• Objectives, aims and targets.
• Background research into the area you are advertising into.
• What you are trying to advertise.
• What USPs and benefits are you going to advertise.
• Life span of your campaign.
• Budget.

This is what you need to do before you make a PPC campaign. Below I will go into detail why you need to have each of the above bullet points in your PPC business plan:

• Objectives, aims and targets – You need to set yourself a few aims and targets that you wish your campaign to achieve. Make these numerical such as to achieve a certain CTR or to make a profit by X amount before X time.
• Background research into the area you are advertising into – It is important to have a firm knowledge on the sector of the market you are about to create a PPC campaign into. This involves looking at competitors and their campaigns, what they are offering compared to you and the target market.
• What you are trying to advertise – You need to give a complete description of just exactly what you are trying to advertise. This should include both the benefits and the drawbacks to what you are advertising with reasons why web users will give you a conversion (and possibly reasons why they won’t so you can see where to improve your campaign before you have even created it).
• What USPs and benefits are you going to advertise – This links into the above point in the sense that you shoudl include what sets your campaign apart from competitors.
• Life span of your campaign – Every PPC campaign has a life span and you will need to know how long you want your campaign to run for. Making it run too short will result in you losing potential conversions while keeping your campaign running for longer than it needs to will result in your campaign losing you money since people will click but will probably be less interested in giving you a conversion.
• Budget – By knowing how long you want to run your campaign for and the CPC you want to adopt, you can work out how big/small a budget you are going to need for your campaign.