You probably know that the quickest way to start getting quality search engine traffic to your website is by launching a pay-per-click (PPC) search campaign.
If you’ve already launched a PPC campaign, or if you’re just getting started with one, there are several strategies you can implement to boost your campaign’s performance, and get the most out of a large or small budget.
Keyword Selection
Starting with the basics of keyword selection, there are several tools available, both free and paid to help you choose keywords for your campaigns. Paid tools include WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, while Google offers a great free keyword research tool. To use these tools you simply enter a keyword or phrase that you’d like to target, and they provide you with a list of related terms and the volume of searches that each receives in a 30-90 day timeframe.
Depending on your goals and your budget, you want to choose a combination of high volume terms and lower volume, but more targeted long-tail terms. For instance, if you are in the health food industry, your high volume keyword may be “health food” and a more targeted long-tail keyword could be “natural health food store”.
Refine and target even further by including negative keywords. If you run a health food store, but don’t deliver, you could add “delivery” as a negative keyword, ensuring that your ad won’t show up for searches that include that term. By spending a little more time on research and keyword selection you can vastly improve volume of sales as well as control your budget.
Refining Your Ad Copy
Now that you’ve spent that extra time targeting the right customer, be sure to capture their attention with compelling ad copy. Study your competitor’s ads. What do they have in common? What can you do to stand out amongst them?
To increase your clicks be sure to include your targeted keyword in your ad. A quick and easy way to do this with Google AdWords is to use their Dynamic Keyword Insertion tool, but many have had success writing custom ads for each keyword. Try using quirky or funny language, experiment with punctuation, and most importantly include a call to action. The key is to always be testing!
Location Targeting
Most PPC campaign platforms offer a variety of location targeting options, with Google AdWords being the most robust. Depending on what kind of business you’re running and in what part of the world, the ability to laser-focus your campaign can make a big difference in its performance. Consider targeting by Region, Country, State, Zip Code, or even a radius around particular streets, which could be particularly helpful if you run a pizza delivery business, flower shop, or even a courier service.
Several factors may come into play when deciding where to target your ads in your PPC campaign including your country’s business laws, potential language barriers, and your willingness to ship internationally. If none of these factors apply, you may choose to target worldwide. The important thing is to think carefully and make sure you can successfully do business in the locations you target.
Seasonal or Holiday Campaigns
If you have a tight budget, turning your campaigns on and off based on seasons or holidays could be a great strategy for maximizing your ROI. If you run an online sporting goods store, you may want to split your campaigns by summer and winter sports and then turn your campaigns on in the weeks leading up to those seasons. Turn your ads for bathing suits and water skis on in April and turn them off in August when you turn on your snowboard ads.
If you run a tiny print shop and sell custom greeting cards online, you could create targeted campaigns around Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Christmas and only turn your campaigns on for those big holidays. Again, the key is testing. Find out which holiday gets you the most bang for your buck.
Dayparting
A close cousin to the seasonal campaign, dayparting is a fancy term for showing your ads during certain times of day. Dayparting can play a pivotal role in making sure your ads are showing during peak business hours and making the best use of your budget. Again, this could be particularly useful if you are running a delivery service – pizza, flowers, or otherwise.
It can also be helpful when used in conjunction with analytics data. If you notice that your target customer is consistently searching for your keywords during the hours of 8AM and Noon, you may want to schedule your ads to run only during that time. A little tweak to your campaign using dayparting may just make a big difference in sales.
Placement Targeting
Once called Site-Targeting, Placement Targeting is specific to Google AdWords. Creating a Placement Targeted campaign will allow you run ads on Google’s Content Network, but on a smaller scale. Placement Targeting allows you to choose which sites – or even which sections of a site – you want your ads to show on.
Placement Targeting is particularly useful if you are launching a new product that people aren’t searching for yet, or if you are in an industry that doesn’t receive a lot of search traffic. Perhaps you know what kinds of sites your audience visits. If they are in Google’s Content Network, you are able to target those sites, without having to waste impressions on other sites in the network.
Placement Targeting is also a great way for testing out advertising on a site that has a rate card beyond your current budget.
Whether you are just thinking about starting your first PPC campaign, or have been managing one for a while, the above tips can really help increase clicks and sales while maximizing your allotted budget. Remember to keep the nature of your business in mind and keep testing to determine which PPC strategy is best for your business.