According to the Corporate Finance Institute, PPC (Pay Per Click advertising) is an “online advertising model in which an advertiser pays a publisher every time an advertisement link is ‘clicked’ on”. It is a method of buying visits to your site, as opposed to gaining them organically. This model is based around keywords searched, that will then appear with related products or services being promoted.
But how can we ensure that your PPC achieves the best results possible?
1. Do your research
It is particularly important to create a list of key words that fit and target your product offerings. In order to do this, you must put yourself in the customers’ shoes and think how they would search. For instance, start with generic terms such as “shoes” but then expand that to include phrases such as “shoes for women” and “black heeled shoes for women”. This will refine your search so it is more targeted. It means consumers are more likely to click on your advert and follow through with a purchase as it’s exactly what they are looking for.
Broadly related words are important to add as not only does this create a high search volume, but a user may want to buy a related item. For instance, if you are selling makeup, include topics such as makeup artists, makeup remover, makeup bag, cotton pads, (the list goes on).
You should also create a list of the negative words that may appear to fit your product, but don’t. For example, for a search of interior lighting, you would omit the words “outdoor lighting” or “solar lighting” so they do not appear in the search bar when a customer is trying to find something different.
2. Do you know who you are writing to?
Using demographics to target your consumers is crucial to getting a successful click rate.
You can target your audience through the segments of age, gender, income level, geographical location, relationship status, and educational level. The key is to use the correct people to target through these segments, as this can determine the level of your campaign success.
Review this in detail when optimising your PPC.
3. Separate your networks
There are two separate networks for PPC: display and search.
The traffic sources for each network perform completely differently. You may need more tightly themed ad groups and keywords in the search compared to the display network, and these would then need to be adjusted accordingly. The network bids are also a lot lower on the display network, therefore if you leave them in the search section, you could end up wasting a lot of money.
Separating each network means you can manage them well, and assign appropriate settings to each.
4. A great landing page
The landing page is where the users are sent when they click on your ad.
Therefore, make the page they land on worth the read to influence their purchasing decision.
You can use a list of what to highlight. For instance, have a good quality picture of the product, a clear price which appeals, information about the product with every relevant detail, and finally an impactful “call to action” that is appropriate to the product or service. All of these aspects should stand out and convince your user that they should make a purchase.
5. Campaign extensions
This is an additional piece of information returned by the search engine that expands on your advertisement to make it more useful/attractive to users. This can include, for example, seller reviews, telephone numbers, location, and additional links from your website.
Ad extensions clearly improve the quality of your ad and, importantly, can dramatically increase the search engine ranking (ie the order in which ads are displayed in the search results) which will again increase your overall click rate.
6. Test ad copy
In order to test your ad copy, you can set up an A/B test, which will allow you to assess two different ads to see which one receives the best click through rate. Google is able to serve your two ads randomly to different users in order to have a good idea of what option is the most effective, and which ad that they should use.