What does it mean to optimize a PPC campaign?
In the abstract sense, optimizing a PPC advertising campaign is simply making changes so that the campaign performs better. But then, what exactly is “better”?
It’s a tricky and complicated equation. Your optimization practices will require tweaks to your advertising, your targets, your landing pages, and possibly even what you sell to your customers.
Most optimizers make all of these changes in pursuit of one or a small handful of different metrics. But I’m here to make the case that if you optimize for CPC, CPA, CPL, or even ROI, you might be missing out on your true potential.
Instead, you need to optimize for profit.
Part of the problem here is that there are so many different metrics you can track in a PPC campaign. We live in an era where data is abundant, and where even inexperienced marketing managers must take on the role of a data analyst at least occasionally.
When there are so many different variables and metrics to juggle, it can become overwhelming.
Just take a look at the following:
All of these metrics can tell you how your campaign is performing, and all of them are worth optimizing for. But when it comes down to it, are some of these superior to the others? If you have high marks in each area, does that really mean you’re performing to your fullest potential?
Let’s explore this idea.
Now let’s make the case for why profit should be your number one concern when optimizing a PPC campaign.
Let’s say we have two different businesses, Alpha and Beta.
Alpha is currently operating with a $100 CPA and an impressive ROI of 10x, ultimately earning 10 times their initial investment.
Beta is currently operating with a $200 CPA and an ROI of 5x, ultimately earning 5 times their initial investment.
Which business is doing better overall?
Your first instinct should tell you that Alpha is doing better. Getting your CPA lower is a mark of higher efficiency, and many advertisers treat ROI as the gold standard for measuring campaign effectiveness. With both a higher CPA and a higher ROI, we should expect Alpha to be better.
But of course, we wouldn’t present a hypothetical situation like this if the answer was so obvious.
The reality is, either one of these advertisers could be doing better; we simply don’t have enough information to tell.
We’re already using our imaginations, so let’s imagine a few more details.
Let’s say Alpha currently gets 15 conversions with a per-conversion margin of $1,000.
Beta, however, currently gets 40 conversions with a per-conversion margin of $1,000.
The margins are the same – but which company is doing better?
Alpha’s gross margin with 15 conversions should be $15,000.
Beta’s gross margin with 40 conversions should be $40,000.
Alpha spent $1,500 to get there, leading to an ROI of 10x.
Beta spent $8,000 to get there, leading to an ROI of 5x.
Cool! Alpha still has better overall metrics than Beta.
But let’s look at their total profitability. Alpha made $15,000 and spent $1,500, giving them $13,500 in profit. Beta made $40,000 and spent $8,000, giving them $32,000 in profit.
Now tell me – would you rather have a $13,500 profit or a $32,000 profit?
In this scenario, Beta is actually doing better. Are you surprised?
Seeing this scenario unfold is like witnessing a magic trick. It feels like there’s something wrong or something missing in this equation, but the crux of the trick is actually quite simple. The big difference is volume. Though the efficiency metrics of Alpha are far superior, Beta is securing more conversions. Assuming the profit margins are the same, Beta is doing better because the company is ultimately seeing more conversions from their campaign.
If you choose to focus on optimizing profits, rather than optimizing for other metrics, you can see similarly powerful results. Instead of trying to chase peak efficiency metrics or brag about your low CPA, you’ll be maximizing profit by leveraging sophisticated pricing strategies to stay competitive. This approach ensures that you are not only increasing conversions but also securing the highest possible returns – greatly benefiting in the long run.
Too often, PPC ad managers suffer from status quo thinking.
They believe that as long as they’re getting clicks with a positive ROI, the campaign is worth continuing to run as is.
Part of this is a fear of loss; if you tinker with too many variables, you could end up compromising your results rather than improving them. Another part of this is sheer laziness; why bother trying to improve your PPC campaign if it’s already performing decently enough?
In any case, it’s your responsibility to step up and continue optimizing your campaign for better performance. That doesn’t mean you can’t be satisfied with good results – it just means that you have to keep pushing for better results.
So, how do you see those better results?
What actionable steps can you take to optimize for profit in your PPC campaign?
Are you interested in optimizing your PPC advertising campaign for profit?
Or are you struggling to get your PPC engine up and running?
PPC.co could be the perfect partner for you. Contact us today for a free consultation or to learn more about our PPC advertising services!
There are few variables as important to your PPC campaign as your cost per click (CPC).
It represents what you’ll pay for each user who clicks on your targeted ads – which means a difference of even a few cents can add up to thousands of dollars in a large-scale campaign.
Unfortunately, you can’t directly manipulate this variable the way you can, say, the number of ads you run or the total budget of your campaign. Your CPC is determined by Google (or the advertiser of your choice, though we’ll be mostly focusing on Google in this guide).
But you can influence your CPC with the right strategies.
And if you’re persistent, you can bring it down to a very reasonable number.
So how do you do it?
Why should you care about lowering your cost per click in PPC?
The obvious benefit is that it can save you money.
Think about it; if you can maintain a consistent conversion rate, with a consistent conversion value, a lower CPC will lead directly to a higher ROI for your strategy. It’s a lower cost basis, with all other factors being (mostly) equal.
Lower CPCs can also help you target better keywords more aggressively, make the most of a thin budget, and compete with rivals that would otherwise outspend you easily.
In this guide, we’ll focus on several tactics that can help you lower your CPC. These factors can be grouped into two main categories:
We’ll start by focusing on your Quality Score; again, the higher this rating is, the lower your CPC should be.
In this section, we’ll be focusing on Quality Score in Google Ads. Keep in mind that other PPC platforms have similar advertiser ratings that may function differently.
According to Google, Quality Score is typically calculated based on three factors. Each of these three factors is rated as average, above average, or below average.
Above average ratings in all three areas should lead to a higher Quality Score, which in turn, should lower your CPCs.
Here are some of the best tactics you can use to boost your Quality Score reliably:
Let’s say you’ve maxed out your Quality Score and you’re still not satisfied with your CPC.
What can you do?
A secondary option is to avoid high-demand niches and limit your competition.
Apart from strategic business decisions (like a full pivot), these are your best tactics here:
Do you want to lower your overall CPC?
Do you find yourself hoping for a more cost effective, higher-ROI PPC campaign?
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Search volume is one of the most important variables to consider when studying any keyword, regardless of whether you’re building a pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign or are optimizing for organic search.
In the context of a PPC campaign, search volume indicates how many people are searching for a given keyword or group of keywords. The higher the search volume, the more people are actively searching for it.
Obviously, high search volume is a positive sign that your targeted search term is popular, since it’s being searched by thousands of people.
But high search volume is also associated with more expensive advertising costs.
Today, we’re going to look at the other end of the spectrum: low volume keywords. Keywords with low search volume can be a hindrance to your PPC campaign, especially if that search volume is so low that ads don’t even show up for searches of these keywords.
At the same time, there are some opportunities for PPC strategists to get an edge when they manage low volume keywords correctly.
First, let’s clarify our terms.
A “low volume” keyword, in a generic context, is one that has relatively low search volume.
For our purposes, we’re referring to keywords that are listed in Google Ads with a specific “low search volume” designation.
These keywords have such a low search volume that Google isn’t even willing to display advertisements for people who search them. If the search volume climbs to exceed the threshold set by Google, the network will begin displaying ads for them.
There are many reasons why a keyword could be low volume. It could be because the topic itself is relatively unpopular. It could be because a similar, stronger keyword is cannibalizing traffic. Or it could be because the keyword or phrase is peculiarly worded, making it less popular for average searchers.
In any case, a low volume keyword is not going to contribute to your PPC campaign – at least until you make some modifications.
Are low volume keywords harmful for your PPC campaign?
For the most part, the answer is no. If a keyword is designated as low search volume, you won’t display any ads for it; this is a neutral consequence, since you won’t gain anything, but you also won’t lose anything.
However, it’s worth noting that low volume keywords can affect your quality score, ultimately impacting your campaign in a negative way if you aren’t careful.
Managing low volume keywords in a PPC campaign is typically less about avoiding negative consequences and more about making the best possible use of the keywords, tools, and resources available to you. If a low search volume keyword can be replaced by a better keyword, you should do it.
One of the best ways to deal with targeting low volume keywords is to avoid them whenever possible. A low search volume keyword isn’t going to add anything to your campaign – so you should probably put your energy elsewhere.
An easy way to do this is to target a similar but more “general” keyword phrase related to your low competition keywords, then utilize a broad match type to get more keyword coverage.
Broad match keywords and keyword close variants allow you to target many different interrelated search queries at once. Rather than specifically targeting individual keywords, one by one, you can target an entire group of keywords related to a general subject.
For example, if you use a broad match keyword like “veterinary training program,” your ads may also appear for high volume keywords and phrases like “vet training program near me” or “veterinary training classes.”
Unfortunately, there’s a significant downside to this strategy; it usually results in increased costs. General terms with high keyword search volume are associated with much higher demand than their hyper-specific, low-volume counterparts. That means more companies are bidding on ads for them, which in turn, drives ad prices up.
So what’s better – enjoy cheap, minimally competitive ads for low competition keywords that hardly get any traffic, or deal with the high prices of advertising to high volume keywords?
This is the dilemma PPC ad managers must navigate.
Additionally, you can avoid targeting low volume keywords by choosing totally different targets. Instead of targeting a more general phrase, you can use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner to find long tail keywords that are still relevant to your industry but have better traffic potential. This may or may not be viable, depending on your industry and target audience.
Avoidance is usually the best strategy for low search volume keywords; in other words, find a way not to use them.
But what happens when your low search volume keywords are some of your best targets?
This happens in a variety of different conditions. If your business is in a relatively new industry, or an unusually niche industry, there may not be significant search demand for your most important target keywords. If your business has a very strict budget, you may not have the financial resources necessary to compete with your competitors on a broad scale. And if you need hyper-specific keywords for your advertising strategy to work, avoidance doesn’t make any sense.
Thankfully, there are some management options available to you in these conditions.
RLSA (remarketing list for search ads) and the closely related ALSA (audience list for search ads) are examples of strategic options that allow you to use audience-based criteria to control how your ads are displayed. These allow you to target your audience members more specifically, giving you greater control over your advertising and potentially giving you an affordable path forward.
Pursuing more focused audience targeting can help you bring down the average cost of your advertisements (when targeting broad terms), while simultaneously boosting the relevance of your ad content (assuming you’ve done your market research).
Another option is to intentionally stimulate demand for your most important low search volume keywords. The big problem with low search volume keywords in Google Ads is a limited number of people conducting searches for them; if you can drive those searches up, the problem disappears.
The only problem with this approach is that artificially stimulating demand for new searches can be prohibitively expensive and difficult, depending on the subject.
Also, keep in mind that search volume is always fluctuating. Just because one of your keywords is qualified as low search volume currently doesn’t mean it will remain there indefinitely. If there are low volume keywords that could be valuable to you in the future, consider pausing them temporarily and returning to them when search volume increases in the future. This is especially valuable if you predict a surge in search volume for this term in the near future.
These are some of the most important takeaways for how to manage low volume keywords in Google Ads:
Are you struggling with low search volume keywords in your PPC campaign? Or are you interested in earning a higher overall quality score? No matter how much PPC experience you have or how many campaigns you’re managing, we have the experts and the tools that can help.
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PPC (Pay Per Click) marketing is an effective way to drive relevant organic traffic to your website. It’s a paid advertising mechanism that involves bidding on specific keywords in search engine results pages in order to occupy the top spots or paying for Google ads that are displayed at the top of those results.
Crafting an effective PPC campaign requires careful attention and planning; keyword research, audience segmentation, content optimization, conversion tracking, search engine optimization, and more all come into play when marketers look to deliver successful Paid Search advertising.
However, many overlook how their website design can also affect their PPC campaigns—yet it has just as large of an impact if not more, than any other factor considered during setup. Website design has become increasingly important recently due to its ability to create customer relationships, which ultimately impacts long-term profits.
In this article, we will discuss why good website design ties directly into successful PPC campaigns and how you can use web design to increase your returns on ad spending.
Having a tailored landing page for your ads is one of the most fundamental steps toward succeeding in PPC campaigns.
Without one, you’re essentially shooting yourself in the foot and limiting your potential ROAS (return on ad spend).
The importance of placing a call-to-action (CTA) on your landing page cannot be understated when running a successful PPC campaign. A CTA is essentially an instruction to the user, either prompting them to take action in some form or simply encouraging further engagement with content.
CTAs ensure that users know what it is you’re trying to accomplish from each visit and where they need to go once they have arrived at your site.
Having multiple CTAs not only allows you to better segment audiences but also keeps website visitors engaged for more extended periods as there are numerous paths available for them within your site structure—ease of navigation does wonders for overall user experience and therefore affects conversion rates directly related to effectiveness campaigns.
Having a clear continuity between the messages of your PPC ads and corresponding landing pages is paramount for success in most campaigns.
If an ad has targeted certain keywords, you must make sure to adjust any given page content accordingly so that customers don’t feel misled or confused when they get there—one metric known as ‘intent landing rate’ looks into whether visitors meet what they were promised with the initial message.
It might sound like a slight difference, but subtle elements such as typos and minor grammatical standings affect the level of engagement around calls-to-action (CTAs) regardless of how attractive chosen design layout themes may have been, so the best practice is to keep everything consistent from the beginning to end for a very successful campaign.
Having a website that offers great usability is as essential to PPC campaigns as any other metric related to it.
Aspects like how quickly users can access information, ease of navigation while they’re within a page, and logical structure all play their part in ensuring a good user experience. If these elements are neglected, then you may find yourself paying more for clicks than competitors or, worse – falling behind on the goals set out for your overall campaign performance.
Utilizing proper calls-to-action (CTAs) on your landing pages is an excellent way to help increase user conversion rates and return on investments –contact forms, add-to-cart buttons as well subscription emails effectively guide visitors in the desired direction, which, in this case, directly correlate with having a successful PPC campaign.
It is important that these CTAs are configured correctly so there are no confusing paths for users to take, which may lead them away from whatever it was you were trying to accomplish beforehand.
For example, contact forms have become somewhat standard optimization tactics due to their plethora of benefits, including gathering valuable insights around customer interests and any products/services offered, helping marketers segment visitor types even further detailed levels of conversions conducted as well as gaining additional information about who may visiting business website just generally being companion much success single campaigns across many platforms.
It is of great importance that websites are designed to offer logical pathways for users in order to access information quickly and easily.
This means focusing on user experience when designing a website or its associated landing pages—good navigation, clear brand messaging, and detailed descriptions of products/services being offered must all be taken into account.
Having organized content helps guide potential customers toward the goals set out by your campaign rather than being left confused.
In addition to having good website design and usability, what ultimately determines the success of your PPC campaigns comes down to monitoring tracking & measurement tools over time.
Data Analytics features such as heatmaps & click maps serve a great purpose in understanding how people interact with content when arriving from different channels such as organic search or Paid Advertising – it is known that people behave differently depending on which route they take, for instance, so this form of analytics can be valuable in finding out exactly who visitors are looking for products/services through.
Additionally, A/B testing has become extremely popular due to its effectiveness in demonstrating better results when trying experiments by making small tweaks without necessarily having drastic changes being made while undertaking CRO projects.
Data analytics features such as heatmaps & click maps are essential in understanding user journeys from when they first arrived on a page through to when they take the desired action you set out for them – this type of analytics helps give marketers insight into how people behave and interact with content, what areas should be focused more attention on and other useful information.
Additionally, it is possible to use A/B testing experiments extensively in order to find the best way of attracting customers using small changes while undergoing various conversion rate optimization (CRO) projects.
The use of heatmaps & click maps, form analytics, and A/B testing can be utilized to acquire a greater understanding of user behavior.
Heatmaps show us how users interact with content within sites by displaying popular clicks as well as less popular elements while also focusing on page loading times; this is an important metric in terms of website design since speed matters significantly when it comes to creating great user experiences.
Click-maps focus more closely on interactions such as dropdowns, forms, and buttons which are commonly used for data collection purposes –they display the percentages at which visitors succeed or fail when navigating particular pages so marketers can adjust CTA placements accordingly.
Form analytics help tracks various behaviors, including list opt-ins, site registrations, etc., whereas remarketing tactics further help keep customers engaged over time -all these methods will eventually lead to larger ROIs if executed correctly since better target segments have been accessed through proper tracking efforts implemented throughout any campaign setup.
Remarketing tactics come into play when it comes to maintaining tracking & measurement tools over time. These methods are extremely important for long-term campaigns since they serve as a reminder of what once attracted customers and can help boost conversions in the future, thanks to its “cookie sync” feature that can be used across different channels while also offering insights into previous successes and serving as a roadmap pointing out paths one should choose to keep performance up optimally.
Using conversion tracking tools helps marketers gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of their campaign by allowing them to track various metrics such as referred sales, sign-ups, abandoned cart items, etc. – this is especially germane when during CRO projects as it may become necessary to analyze traction levels through logging points within customer journey reach the ultimate goal.
In conclusion, boosting your paid traffic through optimized web design is vital to the success of any PPC campaigns that you run. It is essential to have a tailored landing page with relevant messaging and an effective call-to-action (CTA), so visitors are not misled when they land on the page.
Furthermore, ensuring continuity between an ad’s message and its corresponding destination pages can be beneficial as it prevents confusion or false expectations from customers due to contradicting messages being experienced in different channels.
Additionally, focusing on creating a great user experience through usability optimization will do wonders for conversions. From optimizing PPC to tailoring your landing page, our comprehensive PPC or SEO campaign have everything you need to win.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you!
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