Pay per click (PPC) is by far one of the most important aspects of digital marketing today. Here's a guide on how to optimise your pay per click campaign.
Consider this:
That’s a lot of people using the internet, so how do you go about getting seen on the web? Paid advertising, that’s how.
Well that’s a tough question to answer. Matthew, the big cheese here at Articulate, once wrote:
‘If you knew you were going in the wrong direction, you wouldn’t walk faster, you’d change direction. If you keep optimising an inherently bad strategy all you do is become better at being bad.’
This is too true. Many campaigns fail to live up to their full expectation because people are unsure of how to optimise their paid advertising. Yes, it’s a challenging process, but if you know what you’re doing, PPC can become your most powerful tool, especially when 64.6 percent of consumers click on Google ads when they’re shopping online.
Did you know that:
So, how can you get the most bang for your buck out of your PPC campaign? Here’s our guide.
I won’t waste your time by telling you that you need to create compelling text that will attract and convert in your advertisement, let alone the content that you’re trying to plug. You know this. Instead, I’ll give you some pointers. Here goes:
Google AdWords, LinkedIn advertising and Facebook marketing all require a degree of targeting to operate effectively. Failing to target the right audience means you’re literally flushing money down the toilet.
LinkedIn is by far the greatest tool for targeting the right B2B audience. Its capabilities are impressive. You can target by:
The list goes on and on. LinkedIn suggest you target between 60,000 and 600,000 people when implementing text adverts, and that you target an audience of more than 300,000 people for sponsored content.
But, unlike LinkedIn (which targets people), Google AdWords targets specific keywords. Google uses your budget to bid on the keywords you select, and generalised keywords are often harder to successfully rank for because of their increased competitiveness.
My advice? Be specific with selecting keywords. Not only will you rank higher, you’ll likely drive better marketing qualified leads through the door for the sales team.
Variety is the spice of life, and when it comes to PPC, this couldn’t be truer. An effective PPC campaign has two or three variations, whether it’s a Google sponsored ad or a LinkedIn InMail campaign.
Marketing is experimenting, and by experimenting you can figure out what works, and sack off what doesn’t. Just like A/B testing a call-to-action, varying your PPC campaign means you can make iterative adjustments throughout its lifetime, always ensuring it’s fully optimised.
Definitions are important. To know if your campaign is operating effectively (or ineffectively) you need to know what to measure and adjust accordingly. Here’s the run down:
By understanding these figures, you can confidently adjust your campaign to get the very best out of your advert. For example:
Let’s say that your advert has made over 1,000 impressions, but has less than 10 clicks. This indicates that people aren’t resonating with the advert they’re seeing on the screen. Perhaps it’s your writing, maybe it’s your use of images, who knows. What you do know, however, is that something needs to change to boost that click-through rate. The only way to find out is to experiment.
I’ve said this above, and I’ll say it again. Manage your PPC campaign.
If you’re creating an advert and pumping money into it, you need to be monitoring it. Failing to do so is as effective as stuffing your money in a duffel bag and giving it to that shifty looking man on the street corner who said that he’d look after it.
Managing a pay per click campaign is like working as a teacher. If your eyes are always on your students, nothing ever goes wrong. But the moment you turn your back to write on the whiteboard, anarchy ensues.
Just remember,
A well-managed PPC campaign is an effective PPC campaign.
All together now…