The world of paid search marketing is constantly changing, and one of its most important shifts has been the evolution of keyword match types. In its traditional format, there are three main match types used to target specific searches: Broad Match, Phrase Match and Exact Match. Broad Match is the least restrictive while Exact Match yields only targeted searches at minimal traffic volume.
Phrase matches keywords with more than a single term linked together within quotes. The new robust broad match type helps reduce manual effort in campaign management while still allowing for some level of customization and control over targeting choices through accompanying KPIs and segmentation filters such as device exclusions or placements like Google Display Network sites that you may veto from future campaigns.
The traditional match types of a PPC campaign, like Broad, Phrase and Exact, were becoming increasingly inefficient in their ability to reach valuable customers. This eventually gave rise to the idea of consolidating and simplifying them into a single match type–Broad Match — designed to increase targeting potential with minimal effort.
Businesses now have much better control over their ads campaigns using this flexible form of matching across different variations of keyword searches quickly bidding for top spots accordingly. Smart use of negative keywords is also key here in disallowing irrelevant queries from being bid on under this simplified approach.
The introduction of greater flexibility with broad match has greatly expanded the possibilities for targeting in PPC campaigns. By utilizing this type of match, advertisers can reach users that previously may have not been exposed to their brand—opening up a wider net and likely driving more traffic to the website.
Additionally, compared to alternative options, such as exact and phrase match keywords, which limit searchability to specific words or word orders, broad match increases coverage by leveraging patterns rather than matching one specific form of query.
To effectively optimize and control broad match campaigns, start by segmenting them into their unique keyword type to better monitor performance. Define tight negative keywords terms, such as brand names or product lines, to avoid irrelevant user searches from skewing key metrics.
Monitor search queries regularly to ensure mid-campaign optimization stays relevant and use generic language instead of concrete terms when setting up campaigns appropriately.
Always vet each suggestion triple checking for abnormal keyword behavior before committing changes in order to limit wastage from drawn impressions. Finally, leverage automated strategies and be proactive rather than reactive with bid management based upon the seasonal trends of your target audience.
Managing multiple Paid Per Click (PPC) channels simultaneously presents a number of complex challenges. Having to manage, monitor, budget and adjust for each individual channel can be incredibly time-consuming, each requiring different specialized skillsets and knowledge to ensure optimal results.
Additionally, a lack of visibility across campaigns can lead to inadequate use of funds and associated resources will go unrecognized as well as provide minimal insights into customer behavior trends among platforms. To maintain control over large-scale PPC efforts while optimizing Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), creating efficiently blended campaigns effectively is paramount.
With the overwhelming number of available digital channels, automation and AI are now being leveraged to create blended campaigns which draw on data from various platforms to maximize reach and effectiveness.
Rather than managing ads for each channel separately, merged accounts combine performance insights across different mediums in one dashboard – presenting more consolidated actionable insights. This allows marketers to understand user behaviors in a range of contexts, build richer audience segments and set better goals tuned with specific digital strategies.
Cross-platform audience insights can help drive fully blended PPC campaigns to their maximum potential. When platforms and devices are linked, data behaviors can be cross-referenced for more comprehensive education on relative target demographics and preferences.
Through the distinct joining of user data coming from assigned channels, a clear understanding about an audience’s journey across different touchpoints in the buying cycle can be quickly obtained – ultimately allowing brands to act proactively instead of reacting after responder activity.
To create a successful blended campaign, drop strategies across PPC channels should be used that involve targeting, automation and optimization. The basic structure of the campaigns should take into consideration the different goals for each channel.
Additionally, ad messaging and creative across all platforms should remain consistent for maximum impact. Campaign optimization efforts must effortlessly play off in one another to intelligently shift the budget between channels based on daily performance trends.
Looking at combined KPIs from all channels allows a clearer picture of ROI overall so necessary changes can be made in regular intervals. Finally using experiments will further push your campaign making small tweaks over time to maximize effectiveness along every step designed in the journey against established marketing objectives.
The limitations of manual optimization are becoming increasingly apparent in the world of PPC campaigns. A paid search specialist is limited by time, and manual optimizations efforts can take a lot of it.
Manual bid adjustments, targeting strategies, vast keyword research all realistically require an allocated budget per month to yield effective results and also require frequent reviews for accuracy.
Therefore, auto-applied recommendations enable PPC managers to automate far more routine tasks and thus save significant time while still ensuring successful outcomes.
The rise of Optimization Score Suggestions has revolutionized PPC campaign management, putting more decision making power into the hands of automated algorithms.
Years ago, manual optimization attempts often fell short when considering all possible guidelines and conditions. But with these score suggestions, marketers can trust a comprehensive assessment to provide accurate advice so that counter-intuitive best practices become much easier to identify.
Auto-applied recommendations can even be set up for quick implementation; saving both time and money in comparison to traditional methodologies.
The advancement of automation and AI has marked a significant shift in the way PPC campaigns are managed. One effective tool is auto-applied recommendations for efficient management.
This feature builds off existing capabilities such as bid optimization, ad creatives, automated campaigns and more to provide smarter ways of controlling campaigns without sacrificing user choice or control.
Auto-applied recommendations allows users to quickly actionable insight at a glance, thus providing an easy, intuitive experience that both cuts time and results in increased performance efficiency simultaneously.
Automation and AI changes the way digital marketers carry out campaign management. Understanding how to balance control and automation when making decisions is essential in order to achieve optimal results.
A steep learning curve still remains in terms of awareness, but many services now integrate auto-applying suggestions from optimization scores that can save time and automate portions of PPC campaigns while allowing manual entries or adjust controlled variables as needed.
Therefore, constantly monitoring for better performance opportunities should remain in focus, backed up by collaborative effort between one’s skill set and that of automated tools which allow data-driven decisions ultimately leading to improved success rates.
The ongoing impact of automation and AI in PPC campaigns is enabling marketers to take advantage of the efficiency and effectiveness afforded by leveraging AI-powered bid management.
By utilizing specific algorithms, machines are able to flawlessly sort through high volumes of data to determine important finet points such as budget allocation, timing for offers, and customer segmentation, all without requiring hours upon hours from human workers.
Automation and AI have had a considerable impact on the way that PPC campaigns are managed in recent years. Through automated ad creatives and testing, digital advertisers are able to prepare multiple versions of ads quickly and effectively without sacrificing the quality or personalization that would usually take significant amounts of time with manual processes.
AI algorithms help recommend which combinations of visuals, copy text, images, headlines and descriptions should be used together to create the most effective set of ad variations for any given campaign.
With this technology, it’s possible to not only scale large campaigns faster than ever before but also capitalize on data-driven insights more effectively — allowing improved optimization based on past performance rather than simple guesses or intuition.
The advent of Automation and AI in PPC has changed the landscape of campaign management. The use of machine learning to collect vast amounts of data for advanced audience targeting and segmenting is a major benefit for optimizing campaigns.
From an in-depth understanding of demographics, engagements histories & interests to analyzing customer reaction patters through Analytics – these insights are helping businesses develop custom audiences that will effectively engage with their ad messages and drive conversions targets.
Such advances towards better campaign operations efficiency are set to revolutionize the field, making both day-to-day management more efficient as well as opening doors to alternate strategies never before considered possible.
PPC campaigns continue to evolve on a daily basis, creating new opportunities for marketers that embrace innovation and automation. Automation and AI can have significant impacts on an organization’s success in PPC marketing efforts, from enhanced data-oriented optimization to improved targeting strategies.
By mastering the key concepts of cross-platform campaign blending, auto-applied recommendations, intelligent bid engineering, ad testing improvements with creative automation, and more sophisticated audience segmentation attributes using machine learning algorithms – organizations are able to not just keep up with the changes but thrive.
Staying ahead in the dynamic world of digital advertising means continuously tapping into the power of automation and AI across all aspects of browser-based search or app store initiatives for long term success.
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When you want to use paid search marketing platforms, Google Ads often leads the list. Because of its versatility, simplicity, and popularity, it’s obvious why it’s a popular choice. But when you drop all of your PPC advertising money into one marketing strategy, you could lose some leads.
That’s why some businesses explore paid advertising marketing outside of Google, with many turning to Linkedin Ads.
Google Ads and Linkedin Ads are highly efficient ways to market your products and services to businesses and consumers. But each marketing channel has its advantages and disadvantages. Whatever you choose, make sure you discuss the matter with your web development company.
Below is a closer look at each option.
We think it’s reasonable to conclude that Google reaches a vast audience worldwide – its ad reach is a stunning 4 billion people. Google search handles about 70% of desktop searches, and many companies report that they get about 90% of their organic traffic from the search engines. Also, up to 95% of the mobile search market comes from Google.
People use Google’s search a lot, and having the ability to target search terms with specific search ads is a massive benefit of Adwords. People tend to search for very specific things in Google, so if you can customize your Google advertising for your targeted audience, you’ll receive plenty of leads.
So, we can assume that most people’s targeted audience uses Google to some degree. That’s a massive advantage for companies when they want to target an audience.
However, businesses that want to narrow down their search may have issues getting their Google ads settings right with both Google Ads. And if you blunder when segmenting your audiences, your digital ad campaign could suffer.
LinkedIn features a narrower audience – 500 million users – namely businesses and business professionals. But this more limited audience makes it the perfect place for effective B2B marketing. LinkedIn lets marketers serve online ads to decision-makers and vital audience members in several ways.
Summary: For B2B firms that want to reach decision-makers, Linkedin is a terrific advertising platforms. If your B2C company intends to increase its reach, Google Ads could be the best fit.
When you target your audience with Google Ads, you have a few options: location, affinity, technology, buyer behavior, demographics, and interactions with your app or website.
No matter how much you know about your buyer, you may struggle to avoid clicks from worthless leads that cost too much.
In some cases on Google, people may not even know what they’re looking for. You can try to advertise to your desired targeted audience on Google Ads, but it can be challenging to get to the precise people who will most likely buy what you sell.
When people sign up for LinkedIn, they usually provide many details, such as their occupation, title/job title, experience, industry, education, interests, and more. All of this information can be leveraged for great advantage when you start your marketing campaigns.
Also, LinkedIn users can join many groups, start conversations, and obtain followers. The data is priceless when you want to target a specific audience and market to them. LinkedIn also has a Matched Audience that helps advertisers match their email marketing lists and website visitors with users on LinkedIn.
Many marketing experts think that LinkedIn Ads offer more value. LinkedIn has refined targeting, and you can make your product known to them so that you can tell them about something they didn’t know existed.
Summary: For B2B and B2C companies looking for a broad audience, Google Ads has enough targeting features. But for B2B firms that want to target specific groups, LinkedIn Ads has about 100 segmentation methods for micro targeting.
When you want lead generation, Google Ads has a broader reach and is the most effective. First, you can bring in a lot of prospects to your site without breaking the bank. The audience you’re after on Google visits the search giant with the idea to find the best product or service. This makes generating leads easier.
Getting leads from LinkedIn can be more challenging. Users of the platform may sign in to read industry news or talk to group members. No matter how perfect your ad is, viewers may not be in the mood to buy anything.
That said, Linkedin has a way to target ad leads through in-site messaging, which can generate plenty of leads.
When it comes down to dollars and cents, LinkedIn Ads usually are more pricey than Google Ads. As in Google, you can select cost-per-click or cost-per-impression.
LinkedIn also features a cost-per-send for InMail advertising. Typically, you’ll pay about $5 for each click, $6 for 1,000 impressions, and .80 for each send.
With Google Ads, the average CPC is $1. But to leverage that low cost, you need to work on your audience segmentation. If you don’t your ROI may be below what you want.
Summary: Advertising budgets for each platform depends on several factors. On average, Google Ads cost less than LinkedIn Ads. If your B2B company has a tight budget, you may want to focus on a limited variety of LinkedIn ads instead of a broad range of Google Ads.
So should you advertise with Google Ads vs LinkedIn Ads? Yes!
What we mean is, it depends. The correct choice depends on your budget, product or service offered, marketing goals, and target audience. You should not assume that when you need a digital marketing campaign, Google Analytics Adwords is the only choice.
It’s critical to evaluate the market, understand who your buyer is, and make a data-driven decision about the best marketing platform to reach your well-defined goals. One type of company might do better with Google Ads, and another may find LinkedIn Ads preferable.
The great news is you don’t need to choose between the two platforms. Many businesses use both, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and others. If you have the budget, it may pay off to diversify your paid search advertising to get the best ROI.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Digital marketing is a classic marketing strategy that’s commonly used to supplement organic web traffic, but it’s hardly the most straightforward way to increase your site’s audience. In fact, from a technological perspective, it’s a rather fussy practice. That’s why brands that want to include a PPC marketing strategy in their overall strategic decisions need to work with an experienced agency. Agencies facilitate ad distribution, track clicks, and calculate fees – and the best ones can help their clients thrive. Unfortunately, there are a lot of subpar agencies and bad actors out there, and you need to know how to spot them.
So, how do you know if it’s time to fire your PPC agencies? Keep an eye out for these 9 red flags. They could indicate you’re working with the wrong agency and that it’s time to make a move.
Companies leave their PPC agencies behind for all sorts of reasons, but according to a 2015 report by the Society for Digital Agencies (SoDA), the most common reasons include outgrowing the agency’s capabilities, cost overruns, and dissatisfaction with their strategy. These are all valid reasons, and ultimately many of them can be reduced to an agency’s failure to generate any or enough growth. After all, disliking the agency’s strategy isn’t likely to be much of a problem if that strategy is generating major growth. Similarly, a brand is unlikely to view itself as having outgrown the agency is their accounts continue to grow.
Ultimately, what these different reasons for firing PPC agencies demonstrate is that, any way you slice it, no one wants to work with an agency that isn’t making them money. So, while it might take a little while for your PPC ads to gain traction, if you’re not seeing growth based on the launch of or changes to your PPC campaign, it’s time to move on to a different agency.
While most brands work with a PPC advertising agency to run their campaigns, it’s not only possible but advisable for you to set up your own accounts with the major PPC advertising platforms, which include sites like Google AdWords, Yahoo, and Facebook. Still, if you’re not the most technologically savvy, it can be tempting to let your agency do it for you. Don’t give in to the impulse. Instead, ask them to guide you through it so that you can ensure that you’re the one with owner access rights.
Unless you have the owner access rights to your company’s PPC accounts, you can’t be sure you have unmediated access to your campaign metrics or feel good/ confident that you’ll be able to transfer your accounts to another agency or bring them in-house if needed. In other words, your agency could be misrepresenting best results to you or could refuse to relinquish control if you end your contract. You need to retain those rights and then give your PPC agent the appropriate permissions to manage your campaigns. If they balk at this arrangement, show them the door.
Typically, when you look at your company’s profile on a site like Google AdWords, you’ll see that your PPC agency has set up specific goals to help your business grow. These commonly include such metrics as Cost Per Acquisition, Return On Advertising Spend, and Cost Per Lead, though there are plenty of other valuable metrics that are worth tracking. Such measurements assure you that you’re spending your Digital marketing money in the right place, help you budget for ad spending, and offer insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
Unfortunately, you’ll occasionally encounter PPC advertising agencies that fail to set up these metric reports, and they’re not to be trusted. Even if they claim to be using an in-house system, it’s your right to demand they use the standard reporting system for each PPC platform and to fire them if they refuse to. Dashboard-based metrics exist to provide consistent measurements regarding the success of PPC campaigns ad those are the numbers you want to reference.
In a similar vein, some PPC advertising agencies skip the core metrics noted above in favor of less valuable but more appealing “vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics don’t help your business make money and they offer limited insight into your operations. Examples of vanity metrics include any campaign value based on impressions, engagement metrics that don’t drive conversions, and even many of the behavior-based metrics that used to be considered the gold standard in website evaluation, such as bounce rate or time on site.
Ultimately, vanity metrics don’t serve your company because they can be created artificially. An untrustworthy PPC agency might drive up engagement numbers by sharing a great meme on your brand’s landing pages, which will drive likes and other reactions, but won’t actually funnel clients to your site or create sales. Similarly, you can get a huge number of impressions by getting your PPC new ads onto a very popular site, but if no one is clicking on it, all you’ve got is a tally of how many people visited/ web traffic to someone else’s website.
Having the right metrics is important, but if you’re going to meet your goals then your Good PPC agency needs to be adjusting your account settings regularly to refine your campaigns. At a minimum, that means accessing your account to regularly monitoring and fine-tune the settings at least once a week. Such regular check-ins allow your agency to quickly adjust your social media campaigns based on updates to the search engines algorithm, catch any conversion mistakes that could cost your company money, and even react to competitors campaigns.
Be sure that you not only ask your PPC agency how often they access and update your accounts, but that you’re also checking your accounts regularly for updates. The reality is that, although many companies run PPC campaigns, only 10% of AdWords accounts are updated weekly. If your PPC agency can’t meet that standard, ditch them for one that will stay on top of your campaigns.
Just as your PPC agency needs to be fine tuning your accounts regularly, they should also be reporting back on your campaigns at least monthly. While seeing week-to-week progress would be great, as with many kinds of growth, this can be hard to evaluate. Comprehensive, monthly reports, on the other hand, can help you see what your agency has been doing on your behalf, how your accounts are growing, and allow you to be an active participant in your Digital marketing strategy.
Never settle for a company that doesn’t offer substantive reporting. While great reports may offer added insights from your account manager or more labor intensive explanatory work, the majority of PPC reporting is automated – any company that doesn’t provide it is just lazy.
It’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll speak to the same person every time you contact your PPC agency; that doesn’t even happen at your bank or your doctor’s office. That being said, there should be one person who acts as the lead on your account because that allows them to master your brand’s voice, develop a big picture strategy, and generally build up a knowledge base around your brand’s needs and preferences. They might be busy or out of the office occasionally, but anyone whose experienced both approaches – a core account manager and a rotating cast of agents – can tell you that having a point person makes a difference.
If your PPC agency doesn’t have you working with a single, core agent, you may want to ask a few questions to get a better sense of what’s happening. Do they have an unusual in-house strategy, or are they having trouble with employee retention? Do they think it doesn’t make a difference? You can also request that they place you with a single representative, but if that’s not their standard practice already, you’re probably better off going elsewhere. It just doesn’t bode well.
Google AdWords isn’t a new program and there are plenty of other PPC programs out there, but if an agency is committed to this work, then they should have complete Google’s AdWords certification program. You can check on this by asking them to show you their Premier Partner page – it really is that simple. Not having one isn’t necessarily the worst offense a company can commit, but it’s a good indicator that you can do better and should commit your ads spend elsewhere.
Did you pick your PPC agency based on their portfolio of appealing PPC ads/ads or optimized images? That’s a great starting point – it certainly indicates that they can do high-quality work – but it’s not enough if they’re not actually showing you your brand’s own ads before they launch them. Obvious, right? It should be, but many entrepreneurs have been duped by PPC agencies who tell them that their ad is similar to another ad product, which is called ad copy; the client, not wanting to be pushy, walks away with their own notion of their brand’s ad, and meanwhile the agency may not have done any work at all.
Your PPC agency should be giving you the final say on all your paid ads, so if you’ve supposedly got a campaign running and you haven’t seen your ads, ask to see them right away. Odds are good that if your agency isn’t showing you your PPC ads before launching them that they either don’t exist or they’re extremely low quality for online visibility. Great PPC agencies are proud of their work and they want you to see it. Anything less should raise concerns.
Hiring an agency to manage your PPC campaigns will obviously cost more than just the fees for the campaign itself, but the costs involved in running ads with your agency shouldn’t be confusing. That’s because, ultimately, your money should only be going two different places – to the agency and to the ad platform – and everyone at the company should be clear on the split. So, when we say you should be wary about confusing fees, we’re not talking about total cost (that’s a matter for you and your budget), but rather about how the money is split up. For any payment there should be the fee to the agency and the ads spend and it should always be obvious what the division is there.
As popular as PPC marketing is with businesses today, many of the agencies that execute these campaigns don’t do a very good job. They’re wasting your ad spend and your time, and you deserve better. That’s why you should switch to PPC.co’s PPC Management Service.
At PPC.co, we’re committed to ensuring that your ads are reaching the right audience and we know that most agencies just don’t deliver that. Starting from our understanding that website conversions often top out at 2%, we emphasize PPC marketing that pairs first contacts with retargeting efforts to ensure that your brand remains a top-of-mind solution for past visitors. A non-converting visitor is often just someone who hasn’t seen the right content yet, and we want to help you make those connections.
What else makes our PPC Management program stand out? With dual Google Ads and Google Analytics certifications, we have a deep understanding of the systems & AdWords account that get your ads seen and can use tracking data to its fullest potential of web traffic. In fact, that’s why we start every client engagement with a full PPC audit, because even when we’re not leading the campaigns, our skilled professionals can quickly see what’s working and what’s falling short in your current campaigns. From the start, we put our expertise to work for you.
If your PPC agency has exhibited any of the above warning signs, you can’t afford to wait around for progress. It’s time for the protection of business and moves on – to PPC.co. Contact us today to learn more about our PPC Management Services and say goodbye to wasted ad spend and rock bottom conversions. Once you’ve seen the difference a top PPC agency can make in your campaigns, you’ll never believe you let anyone else handle your PPC needs.
