Using Google Adword’s Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign can be one of the most efficient and most effective ways to drive highly targeted traffic to your websites and/or landing page in relatively shorter time than other Digital Marketing campaigns. There is cost involved however, as do other paid advertising campaigns, but the cost is far smaller compared to advertising channels while delivering highly targeted results that would speak well for the bottom line.
There are more comprehensive articles about PPC advertising here at Digital Marketing Philippines so we won’t go into that detail now. In summary though, PPC or as the name pay-per-click implies, payment is made by an advertiser to a publisher for every clickthrough – when an online user clicks on an ad in the publisher’s website. The amount paid per every clickthrough varies according to several factors involved and is different from other paid online advertising schemes like banner advertising and CPA (Cost Per Action).
When there is cost, small business owners simply could not make any blunders as costly mistakes like these can wipe out a digital marketer’s entire advertising budget in just one sitting without producing any favorable results. If executed properly, paid PPC campaigns delivering targeted results can be a very cost-effective way of marketing and advertising online. With this in mind, Digital Marketing Philippines delivers the following list of Do’s and Don’ts that will help digital marketers get the most from their Adwords PPC Campaign.
Things You Should DO in Your Adwords PPC Campaign
If you have now known the basics of conducting a profitable PPC Ad campaign, the next step before you take specific concrete actions is to know exactly and in greater detail the things that you must do to conduct a successful adwords PPC campaign. You can start with this list that begins with:
- DO perform extensive keyword research before setting up your ads. There are several tools available for you to perform this, including Google’s own Adwords Keyword Tool that you can use for free. With the use of proper keyword research you can get the results you want with your PPC campaign
- DO categorize your keywords according to theme and relevance to a particular targeted group. The key to PPC success is to get results from a targeted audience. That is why you need to make sure the keywords you are using are relevant to this particular group of audiences. The more relevant your ads are, the better chances your CTR (Click Through Rates) will increase, which in turn will improve your Quality Score and better costing for your ads.
- DO make sure your ads are well-crafted enough to attract the right kind of audience you are targeting. Together with well-research keywords and quality ad copy, you can attract people who will click on your ads because they are genuinely interested in what your brand, products or services have to offer.
- DO make sure that you have a professionally-built website or landing page that your targeted audiences will like and spend time in. These online users click on ads because they are seeking for information on a product or service that they need, and if you’re website or landing page will not give that data – they’ll be out there as fast as they could click or swipe. With a really good website or landing page that is relevant to your targeted audiences, you can expect better conversion rates that will move you towards your digital marketing goals.
- DO understand some of the technical aspects on how your ads are being displayed. Things like CPC (Cost Per Click) per targeted keyword, your campaign budget, your competitors’ CPC for the same set of keywords, your search phrase popularity, and your Quality Score. Knowing these factors will give you an insight on how your ads will appear so you can gauge the effectiveness of your campaign and make adjustments if necessary.
- DO make use of Geographic Targeting. Unless you are intentionally targeting the whole world as your audience, it would be best to target audiences based on their geographic location. This will ensure that they will be familiar or interested in what you are offering them through your products or services. This is most important if you can deliver services only to areas that are adjacent to your place of operations.
- DO separate PPC campaign levels for Search and Display. If you want to maximize your budget, it would be best to separate campaigns for Search and create different campaigns for Google’s Display Network, which will have differences in terms of reaching out to targeted audiences. If you are planning on targeting mobile users, it would be best to create separate campaigns for them as well to optimize your AD visibility on smartphones and other mobile devices.
- DO make use of Conversion Tracking. Setting this up will make sure that your shopping cart will send conversion feedback to your Adwords, thereby providing you with a better insight on how your campaign is affecting your sales. This will give you precise information regarding your ROI or Return on Investment as well as provide you with a clear view of what ads, keywords, and traffic sources are generating the best results.
- DO conduct ad split testing and measurement. Your PPC campaign should make use of different variations of your ads and landing pages, which you can then test for effectiveness in terms of clickthroughs and conversions. Doing so will help you streamline your campaign and use only ads, landing pages, keywords and traffic channels that work. This will help you avoid spending too much in your advertising campaign and gain better returns for the advertising investments you are putting in.
- DO Re-Targeting and Re-Optimize your ads. Targeted audiences may come and go to your websites or landing pages. Some may convert or some may just visit and leave. Optimizing your PPC campaign can help attract these prospects anew through better and more eye-catching ads that will attract these highly targeted audiences who may have more than average chances of conversion as leads or sales.
Things You Should NOT DO in Your Adwords PPC Campaign
Now that you’ve known what to DO with your Adwords PPC campaign, it’s high time for you to know the other side of the coin to help you gain a better understanding of things you should NOT DO, starting with these following DON’Ts:
- DON’T choose keywords based on search volume. Keywords that reflect high monthly search volumes seem like a good choice for your ads, but there are other factors that will affect how your ads can be successful. For one thing, keywords with high volume mean more advertisers and more competition, which could set you up higher in terms of cost. Another point to ponder is the relevance of that particular keyword with your targeted audience. It may be popular to many, but not to those who matters.
- DON’T use generic keywords. You might end up paying for a very expensive PPC campaign that draws very little targeted traffic and conversion. Online users now have come to a point that they are savvy enough to use longer and more specific search phrases when making search engine queries. Using similar keyword phrases can help your campaign reach out to these highly targeted audiences and get better results.
- DON’T underestimate the power of Negative Keywords. These words and phrases may appear as not directly associated with what you are trying to promote but may generate ad impressions from online users that have less than favorable chances for clickthroughs. This will affect your Quality Score and thus affect your overall costs.
- DON’T focus too much on keyword popularity. It is very enticing to choose keywords that Google suggest as “popular” because of the volume of searches focused or related to that particular keyword. No matter how popular a keyword is, if it is not relevant to your targeted audiences then it would be best to avoid using them and focus only on keywords that will most likely generate higher clickthroughs.
- DON’T try to attract as many website visitors as possible. Unless you are sure that all your traffic will convert upon landing on your web pages, it is really not practical to try and attract all these numbers. Focus your ads to target specific audiences, web visitors who you are sure will most likely be interested in what your websites or landing pages has to offer. The more relevant these are to your audiences, the better the chances they can get converted into leads or even sales.
- DON’T send all traffic only to your home page. Of course, you may want visitors to see you main website and browse through all your content and what you have to offer. But as a paid advertising campaign, it would be best to direct traffic generated by your PPC ads to a landing page or a web page where they are expected to take action – by either becoming a lead by providing contact information or subscribing to a newsletter, or be a paying customer by making a direct purchase of products or services.
- DON’T underestimate the power of your landing page. Your PPC campaign should be directly tied to your landing page for it is through these pages that conversion can occur. It would be to your best interest to fully optimize and put greater effort into your landing pages, making sure that they are designed well enough to entice targeted traffic to know more about your products or services, subscribe to a newsletter, download an ebook after giving their contact information – or even go directly to your sales page and make a purchase.
- DON’T underestimate the power of your sales page. Earlier, it was advice not to stuff traffic solely towards your home page and drive targeted traffic to an optimized landing page. You can also send highly-targeted traffic from a specifically designed ad directly to a sales page. The ad may already give specific information about a product or service. You may even throw in discounts or special promos you may be conducting in relation to that product or service. With such ads, it would be more appropriate to directly send people to the sales page, since people who will click on such ads will be specifically interested in that particular product or service advertised in the first place – with greater chances of making sales.
- DON’T underestimate the capabilities of your competitors. Digital marketers and business owners sometimes would really want to do everything they can to have their advertisements placed on top, including outbidding their competitors. Unless you have an endless stream of advertising money, your budget will most likely run out before getting any favorable results if you continue on this path of trying to be too competitive for your own good.
- DON’T get into the habit of simply setting up a PPC campaign and then leaving it to work on its own. You can’t just set it and then forget it. PPC campaigns work best when closely monitored as the feedback you will be getting from monitoring and tracking results will help you improve and optimize your ads, so you can make them better and gain better results.
Traditional offline advertising is slowly losing their flavor in this world of smartphones, laptops, and other internet-connected devices. Results from such advertising channels are often vague and at the same time will cost businesses considerable amounts of advertising budget which may or may not generate good sales results as compensation. PPC advertisements are low-cost online alternatives that can deliver more precise and more targeted results. However, the success of PPC campaigns rely on doing the right things and focusing on the best practices, and avoiding things that are not. Hopefully, this list of Do’s and Don’ts from Digital Marketing Philippines will help you towards PPC advertising success – and achieve all your digital marketing goals.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.