Are you tired of not getting enough out of your organic traffic? Check out another way to get leads and make sales.
Organic traffic is invaluable to any business. And one key factor that determines the amount of traffic you get is the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.
With that said, there are many ways to increase a campaign’s reach, but among the most effective is the use of pay per click (PPC) advertising.
Plenty of business owners implement this type of advertising to achieve a variety of goals.
For example, it’s a quick way for them to boost incoming traffic to a website. Furthermore, it can also help them identify new leads and increase the online visibility of the business. It’s also an easy-to-use strategy for increasing conversions.
However, most would primarily use PPC advertising when making an effort to grow a sustainable business at a consistent pace. But like any other crucial element of a successful digital marketing campaign, it does take some know-how and planning to get this right.
Understand that PPC advertising isn’t going to deliver the best ROI unless it’s optimised for your particular business. As such, you should know some tips and methods to make it work in your favour.
Eight Tips for Running Successful PPC Ads
Tip #1 – Optimise Your Website
Imagine having a restaurant and running a PPC ad for pizza.
People looking at the ad would click it because they want to see the details. More importantly, potential customers would expect that the ad’s landing page will feature promotion details, coupon codes, and things that relate to the ad content.
Why is this example important?
PPC campaigns depend on landing pages that work in tandem with the ads. While the ad content has to engage prospects, the landing page also has to follow up on the ad’s promise. If that doesn’t happen, prospects are likely to leave the page.
Because of this, an optimised website is crucial to your success, at least from a content theme standpoint.
But keep in mind that website optimisation isn’t all about ad content. Speed is another factor. If your goal is to generate new leads and grow, then prospects who click the ad have to arrive on a page that loads quickly.
Slow-loading or difficult-to-navigate websites aren’t pleasing to anyone. And if a website displays too many technical issues, people won’t stay, explore, and see what you have to sell.
Needless to say, a fast website that’s easy to navigate can significantly increase your conversion rate.
Tip #2 – Focus on the Right Keywords
Another key aspect is keyword research. It’s arguably the very backbone of rolling out a successful PPC campaign across any sector.
Search engines need keywords to figure out when and how to display an ad. However, having the best keywords for every scenario can increase the effectiveness of the campaign further.
Better keywords can almost guarantee more views, traffic, and conversions. So, how do you know what keywords to use?
One of the first things to try is to check out the competition. Your competitors should give you a good idea of what to use and what not to use. From there, you can try putting yourself in your customer’s shoes.
What would you search for if you needed your own product or service?
It’s worth mentioning that specific keywords work better than generic ones – vague keywords just make the playing field too competitive.
And in some cases, local keywords can boost your visibility and traffic even higher.
Furthermore, a lesser-known concept is that of negative keywords. You may want to use those, too, so that you can exclude specific words or phrases from your PPC campaign.
And, last but not least, try leveraging digital tools to find or create the right keywords for your business.
If you use better keywords, you’ll increase your ad hits. And that may even help lower the cost of your campaign.
Tip #3 – Have a Strong CTA
Do you want people to contact you immediately? If so, you should make it as clear and easy as possible for them to do that.
A strong CTA doesn’t have to be a complex CTA.
That’s why when working on this element of your copy, you can start by nailing the simplicity. Don’t have your prospects do too much thinking or digging around your website to find the next logical step.
Then, work on setting some goals. Every CTA can work towards a specific outcome, so you’ll have to know yours. That way, you’re speaking clearly to your target audience.
If you know what you want to give, you can ensure your audience will get what it wants. Just don’t forget to deliver on your promise.
Remember to push the appropriate action, whether it’s filling in a form, calling, chatting, and so on, on your PPC advertising.
Tip #4 – Write Killer Copy
Creating the copy is often the last thing you want to do when setting up a PPC advertising campaign. You’ll do it last because you need to choose your keywords first and set some goals.
PPC ads are short, so you won’t have to write a lot of content. That also means you can’t waste time engaging prospects. The primary goal is to catch people’s attention quickly.
So, how do you start writing killer copy?
First, you’ll want to stay limited to a specific goal you’ve set. Imagine wanting to boost sales on Father’s Day. That means your PPC copy should revolve around your Father’s Day sales – or anything else you might offer.
The big tip here is to stay on topic.
Moreover, don’t forget that holding someone’s attention isn’t easy either. PPC ads that work are those that have unique value propositions. They’re distinguished from their competitors in terms of benefits or workable solutions.
Tip #5 – Create and Stick to a Budget
Any marketing campaign you run has expenses. It’s no different with PPC campaigns. The good news here is that you can achieve great results with a much more limited budget.
You are in complete control over your spending, so don’t let somebody else tell you otherwise. And if you’re unfamiliar with PPC, know that you can do something as minor as testing the waters with a couple of bucks.
To set your budget, you should look at past data to work out some costs.
For example, you have to understand the commissions involved. And from there, you can set your sights on a target profit and how much of it you feel comfortable sacrificing to create your campaign.
Ideally, you’ll want to always work out your maximum cost per click (CPC). Knowing this figure can save you time and money when deciding what keywords to advertise. After all, some won’t be as profitable as others.
Tip #6 – Do A/B Testing
Testing is an integral part of any good campaign. If you want to maximise results, you need clarity on the things that work best in your favour.
As such, your job isn’t over once you’ve launched a PPC campaign. You’ll want to monitor and measure the performance. Look at the data, see the results, and try to identify changes that can make the campaign more effective.
Consider the A/B testing strategy in this scenario.
How does it work?
With A/B testing, you have two nearly identical versions of a single ad. But you change one element in one ad to see if it produces different results.
For instance, you can alter some keywords or use different CTAs in each ad. Whichever ad gives you the best result, that’s the one you want to keep. That’s the successful blueprint you should follow.
Tip #8 – Identify the Level of Customer Demand
Here’s another interesting thing that you may not realise:
If there’s not enough market demand or searches for your brand of products or services, PPC campaigns won’t be super effective.
Yes, they’re designed to boost visibility and increase traffic. But without enough customers searching for your offer, PPC campaigns tend to fail.
So, try to work out two key things regarding customer demand.
- Do your keywords have significant search volume or is no one looking for what you’re offering?
- Are people looking at your ad buyers or are they simply doing their own research? Focus on using more buying intent keywords to attract the right customers.
Tip #8 – Pick Your Bidding Strategy
You have two ways to implement a PPC campaign – manual bidding and automated bidding. Picking the best one for your needs will require you to account for a couple of factors.
Your goals, PPC experience, budget, and everything else matters here.
For example, you may prefer manual bidding at first. It’s low-budget and offers decent control over the investment, but it’s not as customisable.
On the other hand, you have automated bidding. It’s a bit more expensive but can also free up your time.
Note that every subcategory of automated PPC bidding strategy can do something different. For instance, one strategy could work towards giving you more visibility. Another might focus solely on conversions or traffic.
While manual campaigns sound great initially, they don’t provide enough freedom to get clear separation from the competition. As you can experiment with this type of marketing, consider using one of the several automated bidding strategies.
Elevate Your Marketing
To some, PPC advertising is more trouble than it’s worth. But when you think about it, you can’t always rely on organic traffic to bring in all the prospects.
Organic traffic requires some help, of which running a PPC campaign can provide a significant boost. The fact that it’s relatively easy to pull off is even better. Granted, there’s some planning and research involved, but nothing that you’ll require a great deal of experience.
Proper preparation will get you the results you’re after in terms of visibility, conversions, leads, and general growth.
While Automation Agency doesn’t develop PPC campaigns, there are areas in which we can help. Our team of experts can help you create relevant landing pages for your ads. We can help you streamline the process and automate a variety of tasks to make it easier for you to run frequent PPC campaigns.
Get in touch with our Concierge Service and find out how to scale your agency by running effective ads. The Automation Agency team can help create your ad graphics, as well as setup your lead magnets and email automations.
