Have you wanted to optimize your paid search campaigns?
The thing is, managing your paid search campaign is all about data, and data comes faster after you launch a new digital marketing campaign.
Before you optimize your campaign, you should be sure your top goal is from your paid search marketing campaign.
The last thing you want to do is attempt to optimize everything.
If you follow our strategies outlined below, you’ll be on the way to getting more for your digital marketing dollar.
When you advertise in several channels or campaigns in Google Ads, it’s vital to watch which channel produces the best residuals for your primary keyword performance indicator (KPI).
For instance, paid search has a higher conversion rate than YouTube, but that doesn’t mean the latter isn’t involved in the sale that paid search results gets credit for.
You should take time to grasp which search results campaigns and channels perform the best and then direct more of your budget that way.
Another vital factor in optimizing is the budget and search impression share. This is especially important when you are bidding on branded search terms in your niche.
Go over your impression share for locations where you defend the keywords for your brand, as well as any search terms that often convert to sales for you.
If you find yourself falling behind on share as you have a small budget, review how the funding is allocated.
If you don’t know what your competitors are doing in their PPC campaigns, you may flounder when forming your own. They will either dominate you when it comes to getting clicks or you’ll make errors they figured out long ago. You don’t want to be playing catch up with your competitors, right?
There are many ways to leverage what you know about your competitors as you form your paid search campaign strategy.
PPC tools help you to analyze the paid search marketing strategy for each of your competitors.
You can find tools that show the ad keywords for your competition, as well as their current paid search advertisements.
Some even allow you to review their advertisement history, which offers you insight into the google ads/ppc ads that do the best for them.
Outstanding performance in your PPC campaigns depends on a robust account structure.
You should ensure that ad groups clearly defined and that the keywords in each ad group are closely related to each other.
The more organization and relevancy in the account, the easier it is to focus on improving PPC ROI in different parts of your business.
Experts in the industry report that it’s ideal to have several ad campaign for each of your products and locations. Another way to organize your campaigns that work well is to base it on your site structure.
You can make bid adjustments at many levels. If you’re doing traditional, manual bid management, you do this at the keyword level.
But there are various aspects of your paid search campaign where you may consider applying additional bid adjustments.
For instance, you can adjust your bids by the day or hour of the day. Also, consider if you want to exclude certain times of the day or days during the week to ensure you get the best results.
Many recommend accessing Account Settings/Ad Schedule and putting in the dayparting schedule there.
Even if you run google ads 24/7, you have an appealing visual to review to check performance. Otherwise, you need to pull a new report every time.
After you do your competitive analysis, you should know how you can improve your online advertising copy to get more clicks.
Paid search ad copy is short – only 25 characters per headline and 70 characters for the ad – the text you write needs to get the person’s attention and get them to click.
If you see one of your competitors using a certain ad for weeks, there is a reason for it. The ad probably is getting clicks, so it’s a good template to use. Don’t copy what they’re doing, but look at the style and tone, as well as the keywords. After you look at some successful ads for your competitors, you probably can get an idea of what to do.
As well as getting some inspiration from your competitors, you should test your google ads to see which does the best. So, you should have two or more versions of the same ad so you can see the one that gets the most clicks.
Many marketers don’t realize how important performance by location is; some geographic areas perform differently from others. As you review and make adjustments to your top goal, you can increase the efficiency of your paid search campaigns.
If you are running your ad campaign nationwide, it’s also vital to keep track of how much budget the cities eat compared to how well they convert the prospect into a client.
You can look at the reports that reveal your location performance by accessing Campaign/Locations/User Location Report.
You can reduce your bids on locations that don’t perform as well or even think about excluding them.
If you review what users are searching for to get a match with your keywords, it informs about how paid search logic operates. But also helps you pinpoint the parts of queries that you don’t want to show up for.
This is where negative keywords can play a vital role and may help you avoid wasting money.
What the system counts as a conversion plays a vital role in determining the bidding mechanism performance.
Goggle allows you to monitor many user action types, but consider the difference between having the actions checked in conversion and bidding formulas vs. having it only for additional information.
Over months, older conversions may not matter as much. Or you could include a conversion type that was getting double counted because it was part of a current conversion type.
It’s wise to review these every quarter to ensure only counting the proper user actions for a conversion.
Keywords are the basis of paid search and organic paid search marketing, so doing a regular keyword review is a vital step in this process. The keywords you select in your campaign need to be focused on getting clicks from prospects. So, only keywords that have commercial intent can apply to your campaign.
So, you want searchers using those keywords to be as close to purchasing as possible. And remember: Don’t only select the most expensive keywords; there are niche keywords that can perform well that cost much less.
Adjusting bids by keyword is crucial because you need to review how they perform vs. the goal. You should ask yourself: Are there some keywords that don’t perform even though you check search queries, adjust bids, test landing pages, and testing various match types?
If that is the case, it may be time to remove these keywords from your campaign.
The landing page may be overlooked when measuring performance because they aren’t part of the ads account.
Nonetheless, the landing page is crucial to your ad account’s performance.
Why do people overlook landing pages?
First, landing pages are not as easy to adjust as other elements of a campaign.
Also, some brands may not want to spend money on landing pages. But landing pages often are the best way to convert prospects into clients.
Remember: Keywords and ads attract prospects to your website, and landing pages seal the deal.
It’s also important to review your campaign’s performance on various devices. Are your landing pages and pages easy to view on mobile devices?
How are your advertising campaigns doing on mobile vs. tablet vs. pc? And do you need to make adjustments to a particular device or exclude it from your ad campaign?
Don’t forget to check how each remarketing list is doing in a search and any necessary adjustments. If you’re using demographics for your inquiry, how is a particular age range doing vs. others?
Put in as many audiences as you wish at the Observation level, and see how they compare to baseline users.
Well, much depends on your goal.
Also, it depends on how your current campaigns are working.
For example, are your ad campaigns getting many clicks with a high click through rate (CTR) but only a handful of conversions?
Then it may be wise to review search queries to see how relevant they are.
Then, look at the landing pages to ensure they use best practices.
Also, review performance by device to note a big difference in different electronics your users are using.
The bottom line is there are many parts of paid search that you should review, analyze and optimize with regularity.
Let our paid search management services help you shine above your competition and maintain the ROAS you deserve.
Contact us today!
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Pay-per-click (PPC) remains one of the fastest paths to pipeline, but the economics vary widely by industry and are shifting as AI reshapes the SERP. CPCs are up versus prior years, conversion rates have improved in many categories, and lead quality is increasingly a function of how well advertisers feed first-party data into bidding models.
The table below summarizes 2025 search-PPC benchmarks by sector—CPC, conversion rate (CVR), and cost per lead (CPL)—so you can compare what “good” looks like in your niche and calibrate ROI assumptions.
Use these numbers as directional guardrails, then layer in your own close rates and LTV to get to the only metric that matters: profitable growth.
| Sector | CPC (2025) | CVR (2025) | CPL (2025) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attorneys & Legal | $8.58 | 5.09% | $131.63 | High LTV offsets cost; intake speed drives ROI. |
| Home Services | $7.85 | 7.33% | $90.92 | Strong local intent; geotargeting and call flows matter. |
| Healthcare (Physicians & Surgeons) | $5.00 | 11.62% | $56.83 | Wide variation by specialty; appointment UX boosts CVR. |
| Real Estate (Agents/Brokerages) | $2.53 | 3.28% | ~$100.48 | Lower CVR keeps CPL high; lean on LSAs/retargeting. |
| B2B / Business Services | $5.58 | 5.14% | $103.54 | Longer funnels—optimize to qualified pipeline value. |
| Restaurants & Food | $2.05 | 7.09% | $30.27 | Efficient lead costs; fast payback with online ordering. |
| Automotive – Repair/Service | $3.90 | 14.67% | $28.50 | Top-tier CVR; excellent for local lead generation. |
In short, AI is changing the way PPC campaign management is occurring, and it's happening FAST.
ROI ≈ (Close-Rate × Avg Customer LTV ÷ CPL) − 1
Example (legal): if close-rate 12% and LTV $6,000 on CPL $132 → ROI ≈ (0.12×6000 / 132) −1 ≈ 4.45x (345% net). Improve any one input (faster intake bumps close-rate; better routing lowers CPL) and ROI jumps. Benchmarks for CPL/CVR above provide solid starting points. LocaliQ
PPC will keep paying when two things are true:
(1) you can convert and qualify leads quickly, and
(2) your bidding models are trained on the outcomes that actually make you money.
As AI compresses differences in targeting, the edge shifts to first-party data, creative velocity, and value-based bidding.
Treat the benchmarks above as starting points, then rebuild your ROI math from the ground up: ROI ≈ (Close Rate × LTV ÷ CPL).
Contact us today for your customized PPC audit to see how we can improve your search engine marketing ad spend.
When you’re running pay-per-click (PPC) ads, it’s easy to assume clicks mean genuine interest, but most car shoppers are just kicking tires online. Seeing your inventory once doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy anytime soon or even at all. If you want to reach the portion of clicks that come from serious buyers, you need to use retargeting.
The reality is that even prospects who intend to buy a car will bounce before contacting you or visiting your lot in person. And if you don’t have a way to keep them aware of your business, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll buy from a competitor. Running retargeted ads will keep your dealership in their awareness even after they bounce.
According to a 2022 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study, the average person spends more than 14 hours searching for a new car, which includes visiting around 5 websites before making a purchase decision. The sites they visit include automakers, dealers, third-party sites, and pre-owned car lots with online inventory. Your prospects aren’t going to buy right away, so to get the sale you need to reel them back in. If you’re not using retargeting – also called remarketing – in your PPC campaign, you’re missing out on hot leads.
Buying a car isn’t a small decision. People compare makes, models, and deals and look for dealerships with great reputations. Getting a single click from a potential car buyer isn’t enough to make the sale. And when they bounce, there’s no guarantee they’ll remember you exist. You’re paying for all those initial clicks, and if potential leads never come back you’ve wasted your ad spend. When you use retargeting, you’ll have another chance to turn their curiosity into a conversation, and that’s why remarketing is an essential component in every PPC ad campaign.
PPC ad retargeting for car dealerships shows your ads to people who have already clicked on an ad or visited your website. When implemented strategically, it keeps your dealership visible across multiple platforms and follows those people across the web. For example, when you run retargeted ads on the Google Display Network, your display ads will show up on the blogs, news sites, and apps your prospects frequent.
You can also run retargeting campaigns on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. As long as your prospects scroll through their daily feed, your ads will show up for them if they’ve already interacted with you. YouTube also offers retargeting options with video ads that play right before the content. In fact, don’t underestimate the power of YouTube video advertising. According to data from Wyzowl, video ads convince 84% of people to buy a product or service.
Not everyone searching for a new car will respond to the same bland, boilerplate message. For example, someone browsing luxury SUVs isn’t going to click on an ad that says, “Low APR on all models!” That’s where remarketing shines. It lets you tailor your message to what each user actually wants, which increases response rates.
With retargeting, you can segment your audience based on their interests and behavior. For example, someone comparing financing terms won’t be swayed by flashy sports car imagery. With retargeting, you can show truck shoppers truck ads and sports car shoppers sports car ads. It sounds simple, but it’s one of the most powerful marketing methods of all time. People are far more responsive to messages that feel personal. You may have caught their attention with a general ad at first, but once they start browsing those SUVs on your website, you can retarget them with SUV ads.
When you use retargeting, you can provide different calls to action (CTAs) to users based on how they’ve engaged with your web pages. A visitor who spent a lot of time on your truck inventory pages can be served ads for your latest truck deals. Someone who checked out your lease specials can be hit with ads that talk about financing offers. It’s deceptively simple and brutally effective. Relevance is everything. When your ads reflect what the prospect was already thinking about, it feels personal and resonates.
A next-level tactic is using engagement depth to determine how strong your call to action should be. For instance:
· Multi-page viewers and long dwell times. These are warm leads and can be retargeted with stronger CTAs like “Book a test drive” and “Get a quote today.” They’re close to converting and just need a little push.
· Single-page bouncers. These are people who just peeked at your site. They can be re-engaged with lighter touchpoints like a general promotion or model comparison guide to reel them back in.
· Abandoned lead forms. If someone started filling out a form but didn’t finish, retarget them with a reminder and a stronger offer to sweeten the deal (e.g., “Complete your form for $500 off!”).
This level of nuance turns retargeting into a conversion machine and allows you to show the customer exactly what they want to see.
People don’t buy cars from whatever dealer they find first. That’s too risky. They buy from dealerships they trust and that feel familiar. You can build that sense of familiarity and trust through retargeting. For example:
· Consistent branding across ads. Using consistent branding, design, and messaging throughout your ads reinforces your dealership’s identity.
· Frequency builds familiarity. People need to see a brand between 5-7 times before they’ll remember it. Retargeting puts your dealership in front of people over and over again. Even if they don’t click right away, it’s helping to establish your credibility.
· Social proof works. When you use social proof like customer testimonials or awards in your ads it builds trust with your prospects.
Trust is earned over time, and retargeting will help you get it.
If you’re not using retargeting, your competitors definitely are. Car dealerships operate in one of the most brutally competitive markets out there, with national chains and franchise giants dominating search results and flooding ad channels with endless budgets. If you’re not showing up again and again, your competitors will, and they’ll scoop up all your leads.
The good news is you don’t need a massive marketing budget to get results. Retargeting allows smaller, local dealerships to play smart rather than trying to play big. When you focus on local PPC with hyper-targeted remarketing, you can reach a smaller, more qualified audience – people who are actually in your area, browsing your inventory, and likely to buy soon.
And unlike those cookie-cutter campaigns from national dealers, you can make your messaging feel personal and specific to your local community. That’s an edge big budgets don’t have.
Every visitor who leaves your website without converting is a potential sale but not necessarily lost. With smart retargeting, you can bring them back into your funnel and stay top-of-mind while your competitors waste money shouting into the void. Persistence wins the sale and retargeting is how you stay on the map.
To be blunt, search ads can get expensive fast, especially when clicks can cost a couple dollars per click. Pouring money into cold traffic is gambling on people who may not be ready to engage. Retargeting changes everything.
Display retargeting clicks typically cost a fraction of what you’d pay for search ads using competitive keywords. You’re no longer paying top dollar to get someone’s attention from scratch – you’re nudging people who already know who you are, and those people are more likely to respond. This makes retargeting one of the most cost-effective ways to use your advertising budget.
· Lower CPC, higher intent. Retargeting costs less per click, but you’re targeting people who already visited your site and showed interest.
· Better conversion rates. Familiarity breeds trust. Retargeted visitors are statistically more likely to convert than new users who just clicked an ad out of curiosity.
· Higher ROI. Since retargeting reaches warm leads, the cost of acquiring a lead is usually lower, which means your overall cost per lead is lower and you get better ROI.
If you’re skipping remarketing because you think it’s just something “extra” that doesn’t make a difference, you’re not saving money – you’re losing easy wins. Instead of perpetually chasing new, cold traffic, invest in converting the traffic you’re already getting. That’s exactly what remarketing does.
Generic ads are fine for first impressions, but once someone has browsed your inventory it’s time to get specific with dynamic retargeting. Here’s how it works:
When a prospect views a specific vehicle on your site, you can use retargeting ads to show them the exact vehicles they viewed and others like it down to the year, color, trim, and mileage. For example, if they looked at a black 2005 BMW 535i, that’s exactly what they’ll see in the ad – the same photos, same specs, all across sites like YouTube, Facebook, news platforms, and more. This reminds your prospects of exactly what they want.
Dynamic retargeting works by integrating your live inventory feed with your ad platform, like Google Ads or Meta. This means the vehicles displayed in your ads will always be up to date and won’t feature cars you sold last week.
Beyond personalization, dynamic ads are an incredible tool for creating a sense of urgency:
· Leverage scarcity. With these ads, you can leverage the power of scarcity by stating that your inventory won’t last. Using messages like “Only 1 left” or “Recently reduced” signals that the opportunity won’t last.
· Show what’s popular. If a particular model is getting a lot of views, let your prosects know. People don’t want to miss out on a good deal.
· Trigger action with FOMO. Fear of missing out is real, and when people see the car they want again – with a reminder that it might sell soon – they’re more likely to come in for a test drive.
By using retargeted ads, you can increase conversion rates by up to 200% compared to standard display ads. These ads feel more like a helpful reminder than an outright advertisement.
If you’ve never run paid ads before, it’s easy to assume your only options are basic keyword targeting and generic follow-up ads. But today’s ad platforms give you a buffet of hyper-specific targeting capabilities to fine-tune exactly who sees your ads, where, when, and how.
One of the most effective PPC retargeting tactics for car dealerships is location-based targeting. With radius targeting, you can serve ads to people within a specified distance from your dealership, like within 10-15 miles. These will be prospects who are not only likely to visit your site but could realistically walk into your showroom today. Don’t waste ad spend on clicks from people three states away.
Then there are device-specific campaigns. If your analytics show that 75% or your traffic comes from mobile (this is common), you can launch a mobile-only retargeting campaign with click-to-call buttons, mobile-optimized landing pages, and a map and directions built right into your ads. This will improve the user experience and increase conversion rates.
Timing also matters. When you schedule your ads you can control when they appear. Run them during lunch breaks, in the evenings, or on weekends when people have more time to browse car listings and are more likely to make big purchase decisions.
Other strategic targeting elements include:
· Demographic targeting. You can tailor your messages based on age, income level, and household status. A 25-year-old college grad and a 45-year-old parent are not shopping for the same reasons even though they might buy the same car.
· Behavioral triggers. You can create audiences for your retargeted ads based on repeat visits, clicks, video views, or interaction with a specific feature like a trade-in calculator.
· Lookalike audiences. Build new audiences that resemble your best customers. Platforms like Meta and Google are really good at identifying similar users based on their behavior online.
The bottom line is that retargeting doesn’t have to be broad. With the right strategy, it becomes a smart, cost-effective system for reaching the right prospects at the right time.
Have a sale, lease offer, or year-end clearance? Retargeting can amplify the urgency to act now. By offering short-term discounts and financing deals, you can tap into the urgency people feel when presented with time-sensitive offers. Emphasize the end date using a countdown timer or final deadline to create FOMO (fear of missing out).
With this type of retargeting, you can align your ads with your email messaging to increase conversions even more. For example, if you sent out a promotion to your email list, they’re likely to see your retargeted ads and be reminded of the deal you’re offering.
Retargeting is the PPC secret weapon most car dealerships don’t take advantage of. Using this strategy can make the difference between a one-time curious visitor and a buyer ready to schedule a test drive. If you’re spending money on clicks without retargeting your visitors, you’re wasting your ad spend.
At PPC.co, we specialize in high-performance white label PPC campaigns that include smart retargeting from day one. Whether you’re launching your first campaign or looking to tighten up your existing ad strategy, we can help you capture more leads, drive more traffic, and move cars off your lot. Let’s turn those clicks into closed deals – contact us now to get started.
