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PPC Agency Blog

PPC Case Study: Tampa, Florida Apartment Complex
How to Get Coaching Leads Through Cost-Effective PPC Campaigns
How to Build Better PPC Campaigns for Your Law Firm
The Electrician’s Guide to Running PPC Ads That Actually Bring In Paying Customers
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PPC Tips to Help Plumbers Get Real Leads Without Wasting Money on Clicks
Strategies for Maximizing ROI with PPC Management
How to Use Google Ads in a Restricted or Sensitive Category
Google Ads vs. Linkedin Ads: Which is Better for Commercial Targeting?
9 Reasons To Fire Your PPC Agency
How To Start A PPC Agency?
What are the Right PPC KPIs to Track?
How to Write Great PPC Landing Page Headlines
Basic Guide to Retargeting in Google Ads PPC
Display URLs: Optimizing Display URLs for Google Ads & PPC
What Marketers Should Know About Automated Bid Algorithms in PPC
Ultimate Guide to PPC Remarketing: Bring Users Back When They Don’t Convert
Should You Avoid Automated Bidding With Google Ads?
How To Dial In Your Cost-Per-Lead Using PPC?
How to Find the Best Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Services
PPC Management Pricing: What Should I Pay My PPC Agency?
How Much Does it Cost to Sell On Amazon?
10 Most Important PPC Metrics to Track
What Makes a Good Click-Through-Rate in Google Ads PPC?
Implementing Flexible Bid Strategies in PPC
How to Set Up Facebook Retargeting
How to Increase Landing Page Conversions
Understanding Google’s Ad Rank Formula in PPC
How to Improve Facebook Ads Conversions
How to Implement a Successful Video Ad Campaign
Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads: Which is the Better Advertising Medium for Your Business?
Negative Keywords: The How & Why of Negative Keywords List Building in Google Ads
How to Use “Not Provided Keywords” to Maximize Google Ad’s Impact
How to Avoid Choosing the Wrong Ad Rotation Setting
Chiropractor PPC: Google Ads Guide for Chiropractors
PPC Keyword Match Types & Why They Matter
PPC Marketing Management for Law Firms: A Comprehensive Guide
Broad Match: Best Practices for Targeting Broad Match Keywords in PPC
How to Use Shared Campaign Budget in Google Ads
How to Adjust for Seasonality in PPC Advertising
7 Alternative PPC Ad Networks
Improve Your PPC with Conversion Funnels
How to Use Google Keyword Planner
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Dynamic Search Ads for Beginners
How to Take Over Management of an Existing Google Ads Account
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Most Common PPC Questions & a Few Answers
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How To Calculate The ROI For PPC & Improve It
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Exact Match Keywords: How to Target Exact Match Keywords in PPC
How to Perform B2B Lead Generation on Linkedin
Google Ads Suspension: ‘How-to’ Guide for Fixing a Suspended Google Ads Account
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Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
10 Common Keyword Mistakes in PPC

Keywords are, arguably, the most important piece of your pay per click (PPC) advertising strategy.

Choose the right keywords and you’ll reach the right people. You’ll get more impressions and clicks. You’ll get more purchases from the clicks you generate. And you’ll even spend less money in the long run, since you won’t be wasting money on bad matches or weak opportunities.

The problem is, choosing and controlling keywords in PPC advertising is challenging.

Yes, even for the pros.

There are so many keywords to choose from and so many different controls you can use to tinker with your campaign that it’s almost inevitable to make conversion mistakes – and if not outright mistakes, then inefficiencies that reduce your potential.

Fortunately, once you understand some of the most common and impactful keyword mistakes in PPC advertising, you can take caution to avoid them and optimize your campaign for the better.

The Most Common Keyword Mistakes in PPC Advertising

These are some of the most common keyword mistakes in PPC advertising we see from clients, competitors, and other advertisers online.

1. Using too many keywords.

Using too many keywords

Optimizing a PPC ad campaign is all about improving efficiency. It’s almost impossible to be efficient if you’re using too many keywords at once. On one hand, we understand the temptation to keep adding keywords; each new keyword is a new potential demographic segment and a new opportunity for your brand. But it’s usually better to keep your selection of keywords relatively narrow and focused.

There are a few main problems with using too many keywords. For starters, your attention is going to be split across too many different areas; instead of becoming a true expert on a small handful of keywords, you’ll end up knowing very little about the dozens you’re following. Additionally, you’ll be wasting money on keywords that are strictly underperforming your best options.

If you want to fix this problem, simply focus on a narrower range of keywords. Generally, you should only keep the keywords that are generating around 200 clicks or more – and filter out any keywords that seem to perform worse than your best ones (as well as ones that seem irrelevant).

2. Using broad match keywords recklessly.

At first glance, using broad match keywords seems like a no-brainer. With broad match turned on, your keywords are going to appear for a wide variety of different searches, including those that are synonymous with your main keyword and some types of related searches. That means your ad is going to appear to a wider range of people and earn more impressions.

However, using broad match keywords recklessly and without strategic focus is usually bad for your campaign. More isn’t always better in the world of PPC advertising; in fact, it’s usually worse. You’re better off targeting a small handful of people who are positioned to buy your product than targeting thousands of people who are practically irrelevant. This is one of the common keyword research mistakes that can drain your budget without delivering real results.

You can fix this in a few different ways. For example, you could stop leaning too heavily on broad match keywords and start focusing on phrase match and exact match keywords, which give you much more precise targeting options. This aligns better with search intent, ensuring your ads are shown to users who are genuinely interested in what you offer.

You can also use broad match more effectively with the use of modifiers, which allow you to control how your keywords are considered with respect to search engines and user searches. As examples, adding a + to a word will ensure it appears in every search – and including phrases in [brackets] will make sure the entire phrase is present in every search. Implementing these refinements is a crucial part of a strong SEO strategy and effective keyword research.

3. Compiling keywords into bulky ad groups.

Ad groups exist to give you more insight and control over your PPC ad campaigns, so try to avoid misusing them by compiling keywords into bulky and unnecessarily large groups. If you put all your conceivable targeting options into one gigantic mass, you’ll have difficulty delineating the different elements of your strategy.

Instead, make sure each of your ad groups is laser-focused on a specific theme (such as a product or service you offer, a geographic location, etc.). The exact theme doesn’t matter much, as long as you’re using ad groups strategically.

4. Failing to use negative keywords.

Negative Keywords in PPC Campaign

Most newcomers to the PPC game are so focused on finding the perfect keywords to add to their campaign that they don’t realize how powerful negative keywords can be. In case you aren’t familiar with them, negative keywords are keywords that you don’t want to appear for a given search. You can use these to filter out specific types of people who may not be interested in what you’re selling – and save money in the process.

If you don’t use negative keywords at all, you’re probably missing out on your true potential in this field. For example, imagine you’re advertising a bakery and you’re placing ads for people who are searching for “chocolate chip cookies.” You want to appeal to people who might buy your chocolate chip cookies, but people who search for this phrase might be looking for recipes or instructions for how to make their own; you can filter out this traffic simply by adding negative keywords like “-recipe.”

5. Putting your campaign on an endless, stagnant repeat.

There’s a certain point in most PPC ad campaigns when managers begin to feel confident in what they’re doing. Your ads are working period you’re getting clicks. You can claim the campaign is profitable. What do you do at this point?

Novices are typically tempted to keep things running exactly as they are, potentially indefinitely. After all, if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it, right?

The logic here makes sense, to a degree, but if you go this route, you’ll be crippling your potential. You’ll miss out on all the experiments that could push your campaign further and all the little refinements that could make your campaign even more efficient. Instead of remaining complacent with decent results, you should always strive for better results. That doesn’t mean you have to change your entire campaign, but you should be allocating at least a portion of your budget to pushing for more.

6. Making ads not relevant to your keywords.

What’s your ad conversion rate like? If this metric is disappointingly low, it could be an indication that your ads aren’t relevant for the keywords you’re choosing. This may sound like a simple and obvious problem, but it’s something that many advertisers run into.

Remember, the people searching for this keyword phrase are looking for something specific. If your ad isn’t carefully crafted to appeal to those people, it’s not going to get much interaction. Always make sure that your keywords and advertisements are very closely aligned.

7. Ignoring the sales funnel.

Conversion Funnels for PPC Campaign

When it comes to audience targeting, you have to think beyond mere demographics. You also have to think beyond simple product or service searches. If you want to add more power to your campaign, you need to think about your specific sales funnel and how searchers might fall into that sales funnel.

Different businesses and different industries model their sales funnels in unique ways, but usually, sales funnels follow a process similar to awareness > consideration > purchase. Targeting the right people at the right stage of the sales funnel could dramatically increase your results. Choosing specific phrases and including keyword modifiers targeted to people at the end of the sales funnel could greatly increase the number of people making purchases after clicking your ads. At the same time, targeting people earlier in the sales funnel could help you avoid some of the most prominent competition in your industry, saving you money while earning you customer loyalty.

The only wrong approach is to ignore the sales funnel in your strategy entirely.

8. Mismatching your landing pages.

Building Your Dynamic Landing Page

Landing pages play a massive role in determining the success of your PPC campaign. No matter how well your ads perform or how much traffic do you generate, your campaign is going to fall flat if you aren’t able to convert your new visitors.

The critical flaw here for most PPC advertisers is a landing page that doesn’t match the ad or doesn’t match the keyword phrase. If you promise a special discount in your ad, that discount better be present on your landing page. If you’re advertising running shoes, don’t take your visitors to a landing page that features boots.

Obviously, you’ll also need to spend time optimizing this landing page so it’s as persuasive and perceptibly trustworthy as possible.

9. Never bidding on your own brand keywords.

The bulk of your campaign is going to focus on product and service keywords, but if you totally neglect brand keywords, you’ll be sabotaging your own potential.

Many people ignore brand keywords entirely because they feel like these targeting options are practically irrelevant. After all, if a customer already knows about your brand, there’s no use trying to raise their brand awareness further. And there’s a good chance your brand website is already ranking at position one for brand keyword searches.

However, there are some good reasons to bid on your own brand keywords. Branded keywords have the potential to increase your account’s quality score. They almost guarantee your brand will be featured at the top of the search results page. You’ll generate more traffic to your website. And perhaps best of all, this serves as a competitive defense – so your worst competitors can’t try and dethrone you by targeting your branded keywords.

10. Targeting competitor brand keywords without a plan.

Targeting competitor brand keywords, eh? If you’ve never considered the option before, you’re certainly considering it now. Bidding on the branded keywords of a competitor can be a powerful, if cutthroat move. You can siphon traffic from a major competitor, increasing your traffic while dealing a blow to your peers simultaneously.

However, it’s reckless to approach this without an effective strategy. If your ads aren’t relevant to the people conducting these searches, you’re not going to generate clicks, and your quality score could go down. If you don’t have a plan to convert these prospects, you’ll end up wasting money trying to sabotage competitors rather than building your own business. And the worst part is, if you’re actively trying to sabotage your competitors, you could end up harming your brand reputation.

None of this means that you have to avoid targeting competitor brand keywords. It just means you need to have a carefully considered strategy in place for them.

Golden Rules for Avoiding PPC Mistakes

We’ve covered 10 of the most common mistakes that people make with keywords in the PPC world, but this list is by no means comprehensive. There are many other strategic flaws and examples of poor decision-making that can negatively impact your campaign.

On top of that, the PPC ad world is always changing with new controls and features for advertisers, new competitors, and changing consumer attitudes. Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, which means what worked yesterday might not work today.

If you want to avoid all PPC ad mistakes (or at least as many as possible), you should follow these important golden rules:

  • Work with an agency. Consider working with an agency, rather than doing the work yourself or working with random freelancers. Yes, we are an agency, so we’re not-so-subtle promoting ourselves here. But realistically, working with an agency is one of the best things you can do if you want to see better PPC advertising results. Agencies typically have more experience, they have better campaign managers, they have access to more resources, and they’re always looking for ways to get an edge in this highly competitive environment. It’s true that agencies are going to artificially increase the costs of running your campaign, but they can also help you make sure that every dollar you spend on advertising is spent as efficiently and meaningfully as possible. They can also refine your keyword strategy, ensuring you’re not wasting budget on irrelevant keywords that don’t convert.
  • Do your research. Next, do your research. Make sure you understand all the nuances of running a PPC campaign, and that you fully understand all the controls you’re using on the back end. For example, are you confident you can tell the difference between a phrase match and an exact match? Sure, it’s a trivially simple question for experienced PPC ad runners, but you’d be surprised how many people are spending thousands of dollars on PPC ads without knowing the answer to this question. This is why keyword research tools are invaluable for researching keywords effectively.
  • Question your assumptions. Confirmation bias and status quo bias can blind people to their true PPC advertising potential. If you falsely believe something about how PPC ad campaigns work, or if you always follow the same approach with near-religious adherence, you’ll set yourself up for failure. Always question your assumptions and be ready to learn new things. For example, if you’ve been relying only on high volume keywords, consider testing long tail keywords for better targeting and conversion rates.
  • Never settle. When your PPC ad campaign starts to see consistent results, and you turn a reliable profit, it’s tempting to let things coast. But it’s usually much better to avoid resting on your laurels – and keep pushing for better results. That means tweaking the variables, running experiments, and challenging yourself to do better. Ongoing SEO efforts can complement your PPC strategy, ensuring long-term success in both paid and organic search visibility.

Are you tired of PPC advertising mistakes bogging down your otherwise profitable campaign?

Do you need some extra guidance in targeting the best possible PPC keywords?

PPC.co is here for you. We’ve got the experts. We’ve got the experience. All you need to do is reach out and we’ll send you a free proposal. Contact us today!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency

So, you want to start a digital marketing agency.

Awesome.

You probably already realized this is a challenging endeavor – or else, you wouldn’t be looking for guides like this.

But don’t fret. With the right strategy, the right resources, and enough diligence and follow through, you’ll be in a position to make your digital marketing agency successful.

Why Start a Digital Marketing Agency?

Advertising Agencies in the US

There are currently more than 90,000 marketing agencies in the United States. That’s a lot of competition. But it’s also an illustration of just how appealing the idea of owning your own successful digital marketing agency is.

These are just some of the reasons that attract people to the realm of digital marketing company ownership:

  • It’s easy. Okay, it’s not really that easy. But it’s easy compared to starting other types of businesses. You don’t need to create an advanced new tech product, you don’t need to spend millions of dollars on factories, and you may not even need to hire people. As far as businesses go, navigating the digital marketing landscape is relatively straightforward. With the right digital marketing tools, you can efficiently manage campaigns, track analytics, and optimize results without massive upfront costs.
  • It’s indefinitely valuable. A successful digital marketing agency is also an excellent money-making opportunity. Whether you do the work yourself or outsource it, you can charge a premium for the services you offer. As long as your client portfolio is robust and diversified, your agency can be a revenue-generating machine for years, if not decades. And in some cases, you can sell your mature agency for a massive profit later on. Expanding services like social media management and paid advertising campaigns can further increase your revenue potential.
  • It allows you to be independent. Most people don’t like the idea of working for someone else; it’s just something we feel like we have to do. But as an agency owner, you can be independent, setting your own hours and working the way you want. Building your own business in digital marketing means having the flexibility to choose your niche, define your services, and scale at your own pace.
  • It puts you in control. If you’re already involved in the world of marketing, you might be especially attracted to starting a digital marketing company so that you can be in the driver’s seat. As the leader of this agency, you will be the one choosing clients, making creative decisions, and ultimately guiding the business. You’ll also have the freedom to build a digital marketing team that aligns with your vision and specializes in different areas such as social media platforms and paid advertising campaigns.
  • It uncaps your income. As a business owner, there’s no fundamental limit to how much money you can make. As long as you keep attracting new clients and providing more services, you can keep scaling up your revenue and profits. Whether it’s through SEO, content marketing, social media management, or other strategies, a successful digital marketing agency has virtually limitless growth potential.

How to Start a Digital Marketing Agency: The High-Level View

In this guide, we’re going to cover all the little elements of starting a digital marketing agency.

But first, it’s helpful to establish a high-level overview – the architecture on which we’ll build our next points.

Starting a digital marketing agency usually unfolds over four distinct phases:

  • Individual development. First, you need to make sure you’re in a position to start an agency and make it successful. That could mean fleshing out your skills as a digital marketer, gaining more experience as an entrepreneur, or even shadowing and learning from existing agency owners.
  • Strategy and planning. Next, you need to focus on strategy and planning. How is your agency going to work? How is it going to be distinguished from its main competition? And what is it going to take to make it successful?
  • Founding and establishment. With a business plan in place and all the skills you need, you’ll be ready to officially create and start running your business.
  • Growth. From there, we’ll focus on growth. Your business is already running and (hopefully) making a profit. We just want to make it run bigger and better.

Individual Development: Digital Marketing Skills and Knowledge

Digital Marketing Skills

Let’s start by focusing on the initial skills and experiences you’ll need to be successful in the digital marketing world.

As an agency owner, you may or may not be doing the ground-level work responsible for helping your clients succeed. Either way, you’ll need to have a grasp on the fundamentals of digital marketing so that you can communicate with clients effectively, appropriately pitch your services, and step in as a leader when necessary.

  • Learn the basics. Make sure you understand the basics of digital marketing. if you have a degree in marketing, or significant experience in the field, you may already have this down. You should be familiar with the “four P’s” (product, price, promotion, and place), popular digital marketing channels, and relevant industry terminology. If these concepts are unfamiliar to you, consider taking some marketing courses online or doing your own research to increase your competence.
  • Become a contractor. It’s helpful to become a digital marketing contractor in at least one field before trying to start your own agency. This way, you’ll get an immersive view of how digital marketing transactions work, how campaigns run, and the best ways to interact with clients. Not all contractors make for good agency owners, but all good agency owners have at least some ground-level experiences.
  • Network. Consider networking with other digital marketers. It’s a great way to learn about different sides of the industry, different marketing channels, and how different agencies are run. Additionally, building your professional network can help you find clients, employees, and contractors when it’s time to officially start your agency.
  • Find a mentor (and shadow them). There’s a reason why 84 percent of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs: they work. Consider reaching out to existing digital marketing agency owners to see if you can shadow them and get some advice before heading off on your own. Always be respectful and mindful of your mentors’ time.

Individual Development: Entrepreneurship and Management

Digital marketing skills can help you significantly, but there’s more to running a digital marketing agency than just practicing digital marketing.

You also need skills and experience related to entrepreneurship and management.

In other words, how do you run the business?

  • Do your research. Business fundamentals aren’t the type of subject that can be taught or learned in an afternoon. If you have a business degree, you’ll have an edge here. Otherwise, you’ll need to do your own research and potentially take classes to learn the basics of entrepreneurship and management. What does it take to make a business successful? What do successful business owners have in common? How do you write a business plan?
  • Develop your soft skills. It’s a good idea to develop your soft skills as well, especially if you’re going to be directly managing people. Skills like effective communication, negotiation, and conflict resolution are essential.
  • Anticipate your biggest challenges. Every business owner is going to have strengths and weaknesses based on their past experiences, their personality type, and their existing biases. What are your biggest challenges? What are your blind spots? You need to be able to analyze, acknowledge, and work on these weaknesses.

Strategy and Planning: A Business Plan for Your Digital Marketing Agency

A Business Plan for Your Digital Marketing Agency

Once you feel confident in your skills and experience, you can begin developing a formal business plan for your digital marketing agency.

While it’s not strictly necessary to have an official, written business plan, it’s typically helpful.

This is your opportunity to evaluate the idea behind your digital marketing agency, from start to finish, and project how it’s going to operate. This is also going to serve as the blueprint for founding and establishing your digital marketing agency.

Pay close attention to:

  • The business model. How is your digital marketing agency going to make money? Obviously, you’re going to charge your clients for the provision of digital marketing services. But what kinds of arrangements are you looking for and how are you going to charge? Digital marketing agencies can take different approaches, such as charging a flat fee for each project, charging a monthly retainer fee, charging a fee based on percentage of advertising spending, billing based on hours, or even making money on commissions. As you might imagine, these approaches have different strengths and weaknesses; monthly retainer fees lead to more consistent income, but it also locks you into more client obligations.
  • Products and services. What types of products and services are you willing to offer? Some digital marketing agencies specialize in a specific channel, field, or tactic; for example, you might choose to exclusively focus on link building for SEO or PPC ads through Google. Other agencies pride themselves on offering a range of different services, fulfilling all the marketing needs of their clients in one place. There’s no right or wrong answer for your approach; what’s important is that you choose the best fit and plan around it.
  • Areas of expertise. What are your areas of expertise going to be? This is one factor in your competitive differentiation; in other words, this should distinguish you from your top competitors. Are you going to focus on serving a specific industry? A certain size of business? Businesses hoping to achieve a specific type of goal?
  • Your target audience. Who is your audience going to be? Who do you envision as your main clients and how are you going to reach them? What’s going to convince them that your digital marketing agency is worth using? Why is this audience valuable? The more market research you do, the better you’ll be able to answer these questions.
  • Competitive differentiation. Don’t forget that the world is overrun with marketing agencies – and there’s an even greater number of marketing contractors in circulation. If you want your digital marketing agency to succeed, you need to competitively differentiate. What does your digital marketing agency do that’s different from everything else on the market? What are your biggest competitive advantages? Pricing, quality, specialized expertise, and geographic targeting are common options here.

Start Your Digital Marketing Agency: Founding and Establishment

With a business plan and a solid vision for how your digital marketing agency is going to develop, you can find the business and begin establishing it.

  • Build the brand (and the website). All great digital marketing agencies have a professional, cohesive brand. These brand standards serve as the foundation of all your forthcoming marketing and advertising strategies, and they form the first impressions of the people who interact with your brand initially. Your logo, your color scheme, your brand name, your tagline, and even your voice all plays a role in how people perceive you, so take this project seriously and be prepared to invest in your brand. Additionally, you should build a compelling, conversion-optimized, and fully functional website. Most digital marketing agencies operate with their website as the central hub of communications and operations, so don’t skimp on the details.
  • Start hiring (or building partnerships). Next, you can start hiring or building partnerships. Depending on your service model, you might provide digital marketing services from an in-house team, a network of contractors, or a third-party agency that offers white label services – or all of these simultaneously. As you might expect, there are pros and cons to each approach. And no matter what, you’ll need to do your due diligence before bringing someone on board. In the earliest days of your digital marketing agency development, it’s unwise to hire too many people; labor is expensive, so you’re better off practicing minimalism until you have a steady stream of revenue.
  • Attract your first clients. Your digital marketing agency won’t last long unless you have paying clients keeping it alive. That’s why your next priority is attracting your first clients. If you spend time developing your professional network, you might already have contacts who could serve as potential clients. Otherwise, you’ll need to carefully analyze your target market and find ways to reach out to new prospects; fortunately, as a digital marketing expert, you already know how to do this. Just keep in mind that people may be reluctant to work with you if you don’t have much experience or a robust portfolio of work; if you meet much resistance, consider sweetening the deal by offering a discount or other incentives.

Growth: Scaling Your Digital Marketing Agency

Growth: Scaling Your Digital Marketing Agency

At this point, your digital marketing agency has all the fundamentals in place to make money and continue operations.

But if you want to make even more money and keep growing, you’ll need to invest in scaling your operations. There are many marketing and advertising strategies that can help you here, such as:

  • Pay per click (PPC) advertising. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that we strongly recommend pay per click (PPC) ads for scaling a new digital marketing agency. You’ll get guaranteed traffic, you can target people with pinpoint accuracy, and over time, you’ll learn more about your campaign so you can optimize it for better results.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO). As far as long-term strategies go, there are a few approaches better than search engine optimization (SEO). With excellent content, a steady supply of backlinks, and technical optimization, you should be able to climb the rankings of search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more organic traffic. However, the digital marketing industry is highly competitive in this area, driving up costs.
  • Content marketing. In a similar field, you could focus on content marketing. Providing people more information they genuinely need builds their trust and will eventually attract them to your brand.
  • Social media marketing. Social media accounts for your business are free and easy to set up, and you can post and interact with your audiences for free as well. Social media is an excellent distribution platform for your content, and it could be a lucrative source of new traffic and leads.
  • Email marketing. Marketers love email marketing because of how inexpensive and easy to automate it is. If you’re able to get a list of relevant prospects and leads, you can generate a drip email campaign that steadily helps you secure new clients.
  • Referral marketing. Referral marketing is especially powerful in the early days of your business – so give your existing clients a good reason to recommend you!

It’s also important to recognize that people are going to pay close attention to how you market yourself. You’ll be describing yourself as a marketing expert on your website and throughout your marketing and advertising materials, so if the quality of your work doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, you won’t be able to scale successfully. Think of yourself as your first major client.

Are you ready to start your own digital marketing agency?

Are you looking for a partner who can support you with white label PPC services?

Or do you need help scaling up your own PPC ad campaign?

We can help you with all of it. Just drop us a line and we’ll send you a free proposal for any of your PPC advertising needs!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
How to Improve Ad Relevance

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!

What Is Ad Relevance?

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.”

Google Ad Quality Score

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.

Why Is Ad Relevance Important?

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:

1. Match Ads to User Search Terms

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.

2. Create Specific Ad Groups

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.

Google Ad Groups

Source: https://www.adzooma.com/blog/how-to-use-ad-groups-to-boost-success/

3. Keep Ads Simple

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.

4. Include Clear Calls to Action (CTAs)

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.

5. Optimize Your Landing Pages

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.

6. Test Your Ads

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.

AB Testing

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.

Partner with PPC.co

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!

Samuel Edwards
|
December 6, 2024
4 Google Ads Audience Exclusions

Google Ads is one of the most effective platforms for reaching potential customers and driving brand growth. To become truly successful with this platform, it’s essential to understand how targeting works — who you want your ads to be seen by, as well as those audiences you don’t necessarily wish to target.

Audience exclusion techniques allow advertisers better control over their campaigns and greatly improve return on investment (ROI). At its core audience exclusion consists of strategically excluding certain demographics or types from a targeted ad campaign in order to redirect time and resources towards more profitable segments.

There are many different aspects that require consideration when setting up an efficient audience list such as competitors, geographic locations, or custom parameters based on specific goals like raising awareness levels within specific groups, etc.

All these need careful evaluation before implementation but once done right can yield exceptional results further along during the course of your Google Ad-based campaigns.

In this article, we will dive into understanding exactly what kinds of audience exclusions exist through examples provided at each step making sure everybody has crystal clear comprehension tools going forward throughout our journey together so stay tuned! We start off by looking into why implementing accurate categories is fundamental for success then look deeper at four main areas where reconsideration about included identifiers may raise performance followed by all manner wise conclusions suggesting.

Top 4 Google Ads Audience Exclusions

Competitor targeting exclusion

Excluding your competitors in Google ads

Competitor targeting exclusion is a technique used in Google Ads to exclude other advertisers from seeing or interacting with your ads. This kind of audience exclusion prevents competing products and services from appearing as part of the ad’s target audience, thus allowing you to separate yourself more effectively by tailoring unique campaigns for each set of audiences.

Competitor targeting minimizes any disruption or interruption within the paid search results page that could potentially divert traffic away from your business’s advertisements toward competitors. By using this exclusion, marketers can optimize their campaign performance while maximizing reach efficiency at the same time.

Steps to exclude competitors from ad targeting

Competitor targeting exclusion is an effective way to reduce irrelevant traffic and improve the performance of a Google Ads campaign. To exclude competitors from ad targeting, users should:

First, identify their competition by researching similar products or services offered in the same geographic area.

Once identified, it’s important to set up negative audience lists for competitor businesses through Audience Manager in Google Ads campaigns.

This allows you to explicitly indicate who not to target with ads based on keywords people used yourself as well as any associated website domains they may have visited while searching online or engaging with brands outside your own.

Geographic location exclusion

Geographic location exclusion

Geographic location exclusion is a Google Ads targeting strategy used to limit ad delivery and maximize visibility within target areas. With this technique, advertisers can exclude locations that are not relevant to their campaigns or business objectives in order to save money on ad spend, increase ROI, and optimize the performance of their ads within their Google Ads account.

Excluding geographic locations from an ad campaign also helps improve relevance by ensuring advertisements only appear in regions where they will be seen by people who would actually be interested in what’s being advertised. By leveraging detailed targeting, businesses can refine their audience selection, ensuring they reach the right in-market audiences based on user intent rather than wasting impressions on uninterested viewers.

Additionally, it ensures better budget management; allocating different budgets for each specified region allows brands to get closer insights into how successful certain markets have been performing compared with others without wasting resources elsewhere. Marketers can further refine their efforts by tapping into app audiences, creating more precise and effective ad campaigns.

Steps to exclude geographic locations from ad targeting

To set up this exclusion:

Simply go into your campaigns settings page and select ‘Exclusions’ from the dropdown menu under ‘Location Targeting’. Here you can add territories that you don’t wish for your ads to appear in.

If needed as well, cities or postcode areas may also be excluded through detailed tracking reports available within AdWords tools such as Shared Library’s Sources Report or GEO Performance report which list impression share by country code worldwide.

By setting geography dimensions parameters like Continent > Country > Region & City (and Postal Code) drill down option on these Reports results in pages allow deeper insights enabling easier segmentation when excluding geographies not giving desired performance outcomes based upon conversions rate related KPI.

Demographic exclusion

Audience segmentation, importance of demographic exclusion

Demographic exclusion is a technique used by online marketers to target or exclude certain age groups, gender, interests, and income level when creating digital advertising campaigns.

By applying this method of audience segmentation within ad targeting parameters it allows the advertiser more control and flexibility over whom they want their advertisement to be served to.

This can help improve ad relevance while decreasing costs as irrelevant audiences are excluded from viewings that do not align with their brand message appropriately.

Excluding individuals through demographics also enables larger messages for smaller sizes markets in which all other conditions may consume outside budget limits if broadened market scope occurs otherwise without demographic exclusions implemented properly first prior to setting up any type of campaign targets initially before launch time happens.

Steps to exclude demographics from ad targeting

To exclude specific demographics from ad targeting, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to “Audiences” under the Shared Library tab
  2. Use advanced options such as age range, gender or parental status to specify targets
  3. Enter criteria that identify which audiences should be excluded (for example if you don’t want children seeing your ads enter “no one younger than 13”)
  4. Set an end date when necessary
  5. Verify any active changes are accurate before they go into effect by comparing report results over time.

Demographic exclusion enables advertisers to tailor messages more effectively while saving budgets since wasted spend is prevented via smarter segmentation of potential viewers!

Custom audience exclusion

Custom audience exclusion

Custom audience exclusion is a powerful tool for optimizing ad targeting in Google Ads campaigns. It allows advertisers to specifically target or exclude audiences who have interacted with their brand – either online or offline, such as through email lists and retargeting.

The purpose of custom audience exclusions is to ensure the right people are seeing the ads while avoiding wasting resources on those not interested in them.

Doing this helps reduce overall marketing costs by efficiently delivering relevant messages that increase engagement levels, lower click-through rates (CTR), and maximize ROI from targeted campaigns. Advertisers can use both positive and negative custom audience methods when creating an effective campaign strategy: Positive targeting includes showing your ads exclusively to customers similar to existing clients; Negative targeting means avoiding competitors’ already saturated customer bases.

Steps to exclude custom audiences from ad targeting

To exclude custom audiences from ad targeting, customers can utilize Google Ads’ Audience Manager feature for customization based on their campaign objectives and target demographics.

First, users should create an ‘audiences list’ that stores all relevant customer lists in order to set up exclusions on those predetermined settings most efficiently. Then customize the exclusion targets by either selecting previously made segments or creating new ones using restrictions such as demographic parameters including age, gender, etc.,
geographic locations or even language preferences and specific types of website visitor information like pageviews per session etc.

At last pick ‘exclude this segment’s option after setting desired criteria so Google Ad does not show you’re required advertisements are people who already meet certain conditions. By taking these steps marketers will ultimately be able to effectively exclude desirable groups while gaining higher conversion rates at lower costs Timely refining existing strategies can further maximize performance.

Best Practices for Implementing Audience Exclusions

1. Consistent evaluation and refinement of exclusion lists

When leveraging Google Ads audience exclusions, it is essential to maintain a consistent review schedule and make ongoing refinements. As you monitor how users interact with your campaigns over time, you may need to adjust exclusion lists accordingly in order for them to be as effective as possible.

A good practice here would be allocating specific times during the month or quarter when evaluations can take place and then making changes based on those assessments. Additionally, using reports from within Google Analytics such as geographic location data could also provide additional insights that aid in creating more accurate excluded audiences down the line.

2. Customization of exclusion lists based on campaign objectives and audience insights

Customizing exclusion lists based on campaign objectives and audience insights is an important best practice to keep in mind when implementing audience exclusions.

Knowing whom you want your potential customers to be will help inform which audiences should be excluded and how the list of exclusions may need adjusting over time as your goals evolve or if market conditions change. If needed, create multiple versions of audience lists tailored for each campaign objective; such as one focused more heavily on competitor targeting versus another better suited towards a geographic location focus, etc..

Additionally, analyzing past ad campaigns’ performance data along with relevant industry trends — by understanding who has already converted from previous ads that have been served it can bring further clarity around what groupings are most likely to respond positively to future engagements/ads ensuring maximum return-on-investment (ROI) for all ad spend efforts going forward.

3. Experimentation with different exclusion techniques

Experimentation with different exclusion techniques can be a powerful way to optimize audience targeting and improve ad performance. Through trial and error, advertisers are able to eliminate irrelevant audiences from their campaigns while discovering valuable insights about the characteristics of customers most likely to convert.

Advertisers should begin by applying simple exclusions such as competitors or geographic locations, then experiment on top of that foundation. Additionally, marketers may consider adjusting combinations in order of age groups/genders and interests for greater complexity in their campaign structure so they can test various customer segments more effectively over time and continue enhancing results.

Experienced digital teams typically use A/B testing where two identical ads featuring slight variations target specific customer groups: one is left unrestricted (control), whereas another includes an advanced combination of parallelization & segmentations via audience exclusions (test group).

This allows a direct comparison between both sets of efficiency figures which indicate if any particular technique works better than the other before proceeding further into wider application across all current running campaigns without delays due to budget restraints related to large-scale tests run simultaneously.

Conclusion

In conclusion, audience exclusions are a powerful tool in Google Ads that can significantly enhance ad performance and ROI while optimizing budgets. By carefully crafting your own custom exclusion lists tailored to specific campaign objectives and insights gleaned from analytics data, you can leverage the power of audience targeting to hone down on ideal audiences whilst excluding those who will not be likely targets for conversion or profit generation.

The four main categories of targeted exclusions— competitor targetings competitors geographic locations demographics and custom audiences – provide unique opportunities to tailor ads far more effectively than without such sophisticated tools at our disposal.

Therefore by utilizing effective use of these leading-edge techniques advertisers should experience an overall increase in click-through-rates Cost per Conversion Volume results as well as improved Return On Investment compared with campaigns conducted prior to advanced targeting strategies being available.

‍

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