No matter what type of business owner you are, everyone faces the same issues when it comes to optimizing PPC campaigns. Typical concerns include a small budget, limited staff, and not enough time to dedicate to AdWords.
This is especially relevant with startups and smaller companies, but there are ways to make the most of scarce resources. Simply using WordStream’s PPC Performance Grader can show you where you are and get you on a smarter campaign trail.
The good (and bad) news is that PPCs always have room for improvement, but you can do a lot in just 30 days. Give yourself the 30-day challenge and revamp your account, get better results, and stop wasting time.
Start by making sure you have a strong account structure and knowing how many keywords you have in each ad group. You should also know how many ads are in ad groups and just how relevant each keyword is to the ad.
Clean up your act
While every business is different, a solid approach is to run just a handful of campaigns for each product/service and location. This will align more accurately with your business goals and show a clear breakdown of ad groups/campaigns.
If you have a particularly tight budget, consider a “top seller” campaign instead of a slew of activities. The same issues that plague viruses such as Heartbleed can also terrorize your campaign: Not knowing where you stand and being ignorant can lead to sudden disaster.
Next, set your sights on the high-performance PPC keywords. You’ll know if it’s a high performer based on your individual goals as well as key performance indicators (KPIs). Look at your conversions, click-through rates, and metrics to figure out which campaigns are most successful.
A single keyword might be dominating your campaign, and if that’s the case, you can capitalize on it.
Make smart moves
Utilize a tiered bidding strategy on the KPIs, and bid highest on “exact,” because your ROI is slated to be a lot higher. You know exactly what people are searching for, so there’s no blanket approach like with broad match, so it’s worth the cost.
Once that’s in place, focus on building out your negative keyword list. It sounds obvious, but continually building out and monitoring your negative keywords helps to keep costs down.
You’ll also enjoy better results with this approach. Consider what users are typing into search queries to make ads for your business appear (the QueryStream does that for you). If your ads are appearing when someone Googles “dog grooming Tampa” but you don’t offer that service, it’s wasted money and you need to nix those negative key words.
At the same time, put a stop on keywords that aren’t performing well. You’ll know this is happening when there’s enough data to support it (give it a few days) and if the keyword bid isn’t very high.
The grand finale
Finally, make sure to optimize those ads and continually create new content. If this isn’t happening on a steady basis, you’ll be left in the dust.
Your ads need to be superior, compelling, and keyword relevant. Otherwise, you won’t get any clicks or traffic. PPC management requires constant tweaking and testing, so don’t fall behind.
