As an advertiser, getting more ad impressions and clicks is a constant battle. Sure, you can pay your way to the top of sponsored search results, but this can get expensive fast and cause your marketing ROI to suffer.
Another way to improve your ad performance is to work on ad relevance (aka keyword relevance). Search engines like Google and Bing will reward you with higher ad placements if your ads are more relevant to user searches.
In this article, we’ll go over what ad relevance is, why it’s important, and six ways you can start improving ad relevance today.
Let’s get started!
Google defines ad relevance as” how closely your ad matches the intent behind a user’s search.” Bing defines it the same way: “how relevant your ad and landing page are to the customer’s search query or other input.”
Basically, ad relevance is how closely your ad (including keywords and landing pages) matches what users are looking for.
Ad relevance is also one of the three main components of your ad’s Quality Score (along with expected clickthrough rate and landing page experience), which Google uses to give your ads a status of “above average,” “average,” or “below average.”
Source: https://help.ads.microsoft.com/apex/index/3/en-us/50813
To measure ad relevance, Google compares your ads to other ads targeting the same keyword over the last 90 days.
Ad relevance is important for a couple of reasons.
For one, it helps you cater your ads to your target audience. The more relevant your ads are, the more likely users are to click on them and turn into leads that ultimately buy your product or service.
But improving ad relevance also helps you indirectly by lowering your ads’ cost per click (CPC). Let me explain.
When you score higher on search engines’ ad relevance (and overall ad quality) metrics, they will favor your ads in their search engine results pages (SERPs). How? By displaying your ads over (or higher than) other ads.
This means your ads will gain more impressions and clicks, and more clicks for the same budget means a lower cost-per-click (CPC) rate. Basically, it’s getting more bang for your buck.
If that sounds like something you want, here’s how to start making your ads more relevant today:
The first step to making your ads more relevant is to match them with search terms.
Think like a customer. If you were searching for a new pair of men’s running shoes, you might type “buy new men’s running shoes” into Google.
As a consumer, you’d be more likely to click on an ad that said, “shop for new men’s running shoes” than one that said, “buy men’s apparel.”
Why? Because the first ad is much more specific to your actual need, whereas the second is broader and more generic and may not be what you want.
Focusing your ads on long-tail keywords (keywords that are longer but more specific) will not only help you target specific types of buyers but will help you gain more qualified leads.
For example, even if you manage to place an ad for the keyword “buy men’s apparel,” you may attract people looking for things you don’t sell (e.g., men’s ties), and that doesn’t help you or them.
So, target specific keywords and place them upfront in your ads. Search engines bold keywords in search queries, so your ad will stand out more if the relevant keyword is displayed in the ad headline, body, URL, and display path fields.
When it comes to search ads, users are telling you what they’re looking for. So, make sure to deliver by targeting relevant keywords.
Poor ad relevance usually comes from copying ads from one ad group to another without editing or tailoring them. To ensure your ads stay relevant from one product or service to the next, create multiple tightly themed ad groups. You can create separate ad groups for different products, buyer personas (segregated by gender, age, location, and other demographics), and more.
As a rule of thumb, you should limit ad groups to about 5 to 20 related keywords. Then create different ads based on these different keyword variations while also ensuring strong landing page relevance.
The more specific you can make each ad, the more relevant they will be to users, improving both your ad rank and overall landing page experience. Additionally, optimizing your landing page content will help maintain a seamless connection between the ad and the user’s expectations.
Source: https://www.adzooma.com/blog/how-to-use-ad-groups-to-boost-success/
Once you’ve targeted different search terms and grouped your ads, it’s important to make sure each ad is as simple as can be.
Write ad copy that can be understood by a third grader. Why? You have a very short amount of time to grab readers’ attention with your ads. So, the simpler an ad is to digest, the more likely someone is to stop and read it.
It may be tempting to try to make your ad clever because you want it to stand out, but the truth is that this rarely works. People on the internet want instant gratification, so if they have to put in the slightest amount of mental work to understand an ad, they’ll give up and move on.
Instead, make your ads clear and direct. Tell users exactly what it is you’re selling without trying to impress them with your words.
Every ad needs a clear call to action (CTA). Without it, your ad isn’t really an ad because it’s not telling people what you want them to do.
CTAs will look different based on what it is you’re advertising. If you want users to buy some men’s running shoes on your website, your CTA might say “buy men’s running shoes now.” If you want users to download your free men’s running ebook, it might read “download free men’s running ebook.”
You get the point. Tell users exactly what you want them to do and exactly what they’ll get by clicking.
Crafting compelling ad copy is half the battle. From there, you also need to make sure the landing page quality is high and that the landing page your ad leads to is relevant.
The job of the landing page is to close the deal. It’s where users actually become leads or customers by signing up for a newsletter or making an online order. As a result, the landing page needs to match whatever the ad promotes. If the ad promotes men’s running shoes, the landing page better be an eCommerce storefront where users can place an order.
If not, you’ll disappoint and lose potential customers because you’re not giving them what they signed up for by clicking the ad, which could result in a low quality score and hurt your ad rank.
Landing pages should contain all the same relevant keywords as the ad and exclude negative keywords and missing ones. It’s also important to design landing pages to be user-friendly.
Good UX design could be the difference between gaining a lead or a customer, ultimately leading to better ad placements and increased conversions.
Peter Drucker once said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” And the same goes for improving ad relevance.
To measure how well your ads are performing, conduct A/B tests. This means creating two slightly different versions of an ad and then running both to see which performs better on common ad metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR), ad position, number of impressions, and cost per click (CPC).
You can A/B test different ad copy, keywords, ad channels, and more.
Source: https://www.optimizely.com/optimization-glossary/ab-testing/
If you don’t have a dedicated A/B testing software solution, you can always set up custom experiments on Google’s ad platform.
You can also identify poor-performing ads with the help of Google Ads Scripts.
Whatever you do, constantly reevaluate your ads so you can fine-tune their relevance over time.
Not sure you have the time or resources to run your own online ad campaigns? No worries. PPC.co is here to help.
We can help you run top-performing ad campaigns on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and more. You can be involved every step of the way or sit back and relax and let us handle all the hard work. It’s up to you.
Get in touch today for a free proposal. We look forward to chatting!
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This report compares the month over month performance across the date ranges of December 1st - 31st 2025 and January 1st - 31st 2026.
For the month of January, we found the results to be quite impressive and optimistic, with the highlighted results below:
Overall, the results for Nutrition/Health Product Company in January were positive across the board, with each campaign garnering more conversions, lower cost per conversion, and significantly increased month over month ROAS.
Management of this account is going better than anticipated, and we will continue to find opportunities to garner more conversions and drive ROAS up as much as possible through bid modifications and the addition of new, contextually relevant keywords.
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January’s performance demonstrates a meaningful shift from learning to efficient acquisition:
This indicates that every £1 spent returned £7.90 in revenue; 6.5x more than December’s 122% ROAS.
MoM Campaign Comparison
January - Nutrition/Health Product Company - 29.33 conversions, £6.76 CPA, 14.04% conversion rate (1389% ROAS)
December - Nutrition/Health Product Company - 8.28 conversions, £42.84 CPA, 3.30% conversion rate (129% ROAS)
MoM increase of 1260% ROAS
January - REMARKETING - 6.27 conversions, £9.41 CPA, 8.33% conversion rate (627% ROAS)
December - REMARKETING - 3 conversions, £55.88 CPA, 0.44% conversion rate (168% ROAS)
MoM increase of 459% ROAS
January - PMAX - 15.10 conversions, £10.56 CPA, 5.74% conversion rate (422% ROAS)
December - PMAX - 5.22 conversions, £63.11 CPA, 1.29% conversion rate (negative ROAS)
MoM increase of 422%+ ROAS
January - Local Doctor Campaign - 4 conversions, £16.55 CPA, 5.71% conversion rate (264% ROAS)
December - Local Doctor Campaign - 3 conversions, £30.58 CPA, 3.26% conversion rate (160% ROAS)
MoM increase of 104%+ ROAS
This campaign benefits from high intent brand-adjacent queries combined with carefully controlled generic terms, making it one of the most reliable drivers of low-cost, and more volume of conversions. Continued prioritization here will compound returns.
Day-of-Week Performance
Certain regions are showing higher purchase intent, such as the UK and Greater London this month. Geographic bid multipliers can be further refined to capitalize on these micro-markets, all the way down to the zip code, and we’re in the process of doing this.
Keyword Performance
Top keywords show clear brand and authority alignment:
These terms demonstrate exceptional intent density and should remain protected with:
Expansion into close-variant and long-tail branded queries
January’s performance reflects extremely strong numbers month over month and we are more than thrilled with the performance, with main highlights being:
With continued optimization and controlled scaling, we expect further efficiency gains and revenue growth in the coming months, and will be modifying based on the increase in CPCs.
Cybersecurity is arguably one of the toughest industries to compete in when it comes to paid advertising. You’re basically selling to tech-savvy, skeptical buyers like CISOs, IT directors, compliance officers, and security teams. Most cybersecurity companies tend to expect hard proof of all claims and you can’t capture their attention easily. Generic ads and broad PPC marketing tactics won’t cut it in this competitive landscape. Because of this, high CPCs across major search engines, vendor saturation, and long evaluation cycles mean that poorly targeted cybersecurity PPC campaigns can be a huge waste of advertising spend.
To win in this arena, firms need advanced PPC for cybersecurity strategies like targeted intent segmentation, tightly aligned messaging, intelligent audience modeling, AI-powered optimization and bid strategies, technically accurate ad copy, and conversion paths designed for enterprise-level buyers. In this article, we’ll dive into the advanced cybersecurity PPC techniques modern cybersecurity firms must use to generate high-quality leads, reduce wasted ad spend, and stand out in a highly crowded search space.
Cybersecurity search queries represent a wide range of intent that spans from broad research to urgent remediation needs. You don’t want to treat all search terms the same or you’ll waste most of your ad spend. Here’s what you should do:
1. Segment keywords by intent
Start by dividing your PPC ads into cybersecurity PPC campaigns based on the following general categories of user intent:
· Educational. These searches might include terms like, “What is endpoint security?” and “Types of cyber threats.” They support content marketing, awareness-stage paid campaigns, and early-funnel marketing efforts.
· Research. These are phrases like “Buy SIEM software” and “24/7 SOC as a service price.” These keywords align with cybersecurity marketing services, gated assets, and evaluation-stage marketing strategies.
· High urgency. Urgent searches are phrases like, “Ransomware removal help now” and “Breach response service.” These searches demand immediate cybersecurity solutions and direct-response PPC advertising with strong CTAs.
This segmentation ensures you match your ad copy, ad relevance, landing pages, click through rates, and offers to exactly where the buyer is in their journey. This improves the relevance of your ads, reduces wasted ad spend, and increases conversions and overall campaign performance.
2. Prioritize longtail and high-intent keywords
Using long tail keywords and targeted keywords attracts higher-quality website traffic. These terms usually reduce marketing costs, improve conversion rates, and drive more efficient paid advertising.
3. Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic
Since a wide range of people search for cybersecurity terms, including students, hobbyists, and researchers, every marketing agency should use a negative keyword list to filter out irrelevant searches will protect advertising spend. For example, filter out queries using the terms “free course,” “tutorial,” and “certification exam.” Anyone searching for these phrases is unlikely to be looking for a cybersecurity product or service. This ensures your PPC campaigns reach potential customers, not job seekers or students.
The best compelling ad copy will fall flat if they don’t reach the target audience who make purchase decisions. If you cast your net too wide, you’ll miss those people. Many people searching for keywords related to cybersecurity are just curious or looking for free solutions. AI-driven ad targeting allows cybersecurity marketers to refine their highly targeted audiences and focus on the people who are most likely to convert.
To identify the right targets, you can use AI and upload campaign data from your CRM, like MQLs, SQLs, demos, and closed deals into Google Ads and Google Analytics so the model can learn what a “good lead” looks like. This will help you build a lookalike audience that represent your best customers – the people most likely to buy your cybersecurity offers.
Cybersecurity buyers are usually high-level roles in regulated industries. To reach them you can use filters for specific industries like healthcare, finance, enterprise tech, etc. and also filter for company size, geography, and job titles (like CISO, IT director, compliance, etc.). This is the best way to minimize wasted clicks and build targeted campaigns that improve campaign effectiveness and drive better data driven decisions.
Cybersecurity buyers expect total clarity, accuracy, and trust. They don’t respond to vague or sensationalized copy. To get their attention, use specific terms thar resonate in the cybersecurity world. Terms like: SEIM, MDR/XRD, SOC as a service, IAM/PAM, 247 monitoring, zero trust, end-to-end encryption, and compliance-ready. These phrases signal credibility.
Keep in mind that regulated industries are highly concerned with compliance, so highlight frameworks like HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 when relevant. These small signals can be powerful triggers. Including compliance language boosts ad quality, improves search engine rankings, and increases ad visibility across search results.
The best cybersecurity ads will create urgency and offer a benefit-led call to action. Ads like “Protect your business from ransomware now – schedule a free security assessment” and “Ensure 24/7 threat detection for your enterprise” work better than vague promises. By speaking the language of your buyers and addressing their real fears and needs, your ads will appear more credible. This approach consistently produces successful PPC campaigns and supports scalable cybersecurity PPC advertising.
Great ads will get clicks, but your landing pages decide whether someone converts. For cybersecurity brands, generic “contact us” landing pages (and homepages) won’t cut it. Successful PPC campaigns rely on intent-matched landing pages to convert potential clients. You need threat-specific, offer-focused landing pages where the copy matches exactly what’s in the ad. For instance, if the ad is for ransomware protection that’s what the landing page needs to promote. Whether it’s a cloud security audit, SOC as a service, or a compliance assessment, make sure your ads and landing pages match. This improves seamless user experience, increases conversion rates, and supports long-term business growth.
Use case studies, certifications, compliance credentials, client logos if they allow for that, audit results, and security whitepapers to build trust with your audience. These elements can help buyers overcome their initial skepticism and compliance concerns.
Using a value-first approach is a great way to get more relevant clicks through cybersecurity lead generation and filters buyers actively seeking solutions. All you need to do is offer value people can access immediately. For example, free vulnerability assessments, security posture quizzes, and compliance readiness evaluations are all valuable on the spot. They also filter high-intent leads that are more likely to book a demo or discovery call with you. This strategy improves campaign performance, increases lead generation, and helps convert leads into pipeline opportunities.
Cybersecurity sales don’t usually happen on the first click. They often involve multiple stakeholders, extended review processes, compliance checks, and internal approvals. It won’t work to use one-click, last-click attribution.
· Use data-driven, multi-touch attribution models. These models credit all meaningful touchpoints (not just the final click) to give you a clear picture of how your PPC ads are contributing to real conversions over time. It helps justify ad spend and reveals which ads, keywords, and campaigns are influencing your decisions.
· Sync PPC leads with CRM and offline conversion data. Track your leads through all stages (MQL, SQL, Demo, Proposal) and feed this data back to your PPC platforms to train the algorithm on what quality conversions actually look like for you. This is how you’ll improve your targeting and bid optimization.
· Combine retargeting and content marketing. Buyers often visit a site multiple times before deciding to buy. Use remarketing gated content (like whitepapers and threat reports, webinars, and email sequences to nurture leads and lead them toward a purchase.
For B2B cybersecurity firms, a multi-touch, multi-step conversion funnel is the most realistic way to measure PPC ad success. Multi-touch attribution allows teams to track key performance indicators, analyze campaign data, and uncover valuable insights.
Using data insights, actionable insights, and data driven insights helps teams refine PPC strategy and justify marketing costs.
Cybersecurity keywords can be pretty expensive. Without intelligent bidding, you’ll overspend and underserve. AI-driven bid strategies, including a smart bidding strategy, optimize bids across search engines in real time. This reduces marketing costs, improves efficiency, and drives sustainable revenue growth.
Automated bidding strategies like Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Max Conversions are ideal when trained with clean, qualified conversion data. These strategies will adjust your bids based on the time, device, location, user behavior, and competitive factors – all elements humans can’t easily track at scale.
While it’s nice to get leads who visit your site and even fill out your form, keep your priority on conversion quality, not just volume. Don’t just optimize for clicks or form fills. Feed your bidding models real conversion events like qualified leads, demos booked, and deals closed. Empty form submissions aren’t helpful – your goal should be to build a real pipeline.
Most importantly, test and refine your ads continuously by split testing your ad copy and landing pages to see what works best. In cybersecurity PPC, even small tweaks can yield big results because you’re targeting a narrow, high-intent audience. With a well-trained AI bidding system, your campaigns will do well even in a competitive market.
Since cybersecurity buyers don’t convert on hype, value is essential. Long-form assets like whitepapers, threat reports, case studies, and compliance guides strengthen content marketing, improve online visibility, and support paid advertising across social media platforms, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, and Bing Ads.
Use your PPC ads to drive traffic to content offers like “2025 Ransomware Trend Report,” “Enterprise Security Readiness Checklist,” or “Cloud Compliance Guide.” These types of content will draw in decision makers who are researching solutions.
Make sure you gate the content you provide to people who click on your ads. Use progressive profiling forms that adapt to the user’s role or company size (if possible) to capture qualified leads. Then feed those leads directly into your lead nurturing workflows and retargeting sequences.
After a lead has downloaded your information or has made the first engagement, retarget them with ads offering free audits, demos, case studies, or consultations. This approach increases immediate visibility while building trust in the cybersecurity space and is highly effective for the long B2B sales cycles that exist in cybersecurity.
Since cybersecurity buyers usually need time to make a purchase, retargeting has to be precise. General remarketing will just burn through your ad budget and will be ignored by serious buyers.
To create specific segments for remarketing, start with intent and behavior. For example, if a user visited a ransomware page, don’t show them ads with general security content. Serve them ransomware-specific ads.
For the best results, segment your remarketing audiences based on:
· Pages visited (threat type, service)
· Actions taken (whitepaper downloaded, demo requested, form filled)
· Role/company size (if available)
Then tailor your messaging by funnel stage. Start with the awareness stage and offer more educational content like guides and webinars. For those in the consideration stage, push case studies, vendor comparisons, and ROI calculators. Finally, for those making the decision to buy, offer demo scheduling, free audits, and compliance checklists.
Be sure to always exclude low-intent and irrelevant audiences. There will always be researchers, students, job seekers, and random curious tire kickers searching for cybersecurity keywords. As discussed earlier, use negative keywords and exclusion lists to avoid wasting your ad spend.
Segmented remarketing improves ad relevance, strengthens marketing messages, and boosts click through rates. This approach supports successful campaigns while reducing wasted advertising spend.
Since many cybersecurity buyers are evaluating multiple vendors at the same time, competitor conquest campaigns can be highly effective if done correctly.
The right way to do this is to target your competitors’ weaknesses while maintaining compliant messaging. Avoid naming your competitors directly to stay within ad policies but highlight how your offering solves common complaints about your competitors. For instance, you might note that you have “Faster setup,” “Better support,” “Flexible pricing,” or “Stronger compliance reporting.”
Build out landing pages that compare your features to your competitors’ features without naming names. Show real differentiators like detection speed, compliance, and support, and highlight testimonials or case studies from clients who “switched from Vendor A.”
Never expect single clicks to convert. Treat competitor conquest campaigns like the first touchpoint in a series. Pair it with remarketing, content nurture, and follow-ups to maximize conversions from buyers who are currently in evaluation mode.
PPC ads can generate plenty of leads for your cybersecurity business, but closing deals will require a strong sales strategy. That’s why aligning your PPC campaigns with your sales workflows can help.
Sync your ad data with your CRM for full visibility. Capture data on keywords, ad groups, landing pages, and funnel stages for every lead. This will help your sales team know exactly what triggered their interest so they can tailor their follow-up conversations accordingly.
Provide your sales teams with assets to help your messaging stay consistent. For example, give them your case studies, compliance docs, whitepapers, audit reports, and technical comparisons. Doing so will help them maintain credibility when engaging with potential clients.
When PPC efforts align with sales workflows, marketing teams help cybersecurity businesses close deals faster. This improves campaign effectiveness, reduces friction, and lowers customer acquisition cost.
The cybersecurity industry is a battlefield. A basic PPC campaign won’t work when you’re competing for attention in the cybersecurity industry. The firms that invest in cybersecurity marketing, cybersecurity PPC, and data-backed marketing strategies know that precision and trust win conversions across digital channels. To win leads, you need to reach targeted audiences with intent-driven keywords and technically correct messaging, and it all needs to align with your sales process.
If your competitors are using these strategies and you’re not, you’re invisible. This is the time to sharpen your strategy and strengthen your funnel by implementing a stronger PPC strategy.
If you want to generate qualified enterprise leads, reduce wasted ad spend, and build a scalable, data-driven PPC engine that speaks directly to cybersecurity decision makers – an experienced cybersecurity marketing agency like us can help.
At PPC.co, we specialize in building paid ad strategies that convert clicks into real clients. Contact us today and we’ll position your firm as the credible, trusted authority cybersecurity buyers want.
