As many PPC marketers know, having access to AdWords makes auditing PPC campaigns much easier! Sometimes, we’re unable to get access to certain prospects’ AdWords accounts. If you’re in a similar situation (or you’re just sick of waiting around for log-in credentials), I recommend you think about the following when trying to determine how well a prospect’s account is doing.
1. Is your prospect bidding on its own name/website?
- Are its competitors?
- Is it using Google Ad Extensions, such as sitelinks, local extensions, and social extensions?
- Is it using different ad variations or is the same ad showing up every time?
- Do the ads have branding and registered trademarks?
2. Is your prospect showing up for non-branded searches?
- If so, search obvious “negative” keywords in conjunction with a relevant search query, such as “free,” “pictures,” “videos,” etc. If the company is showing up, negative keywords are underutilized, and it is wasting marketing dollars.
- Is it using different ad variations or is the same ad showing up every time?
- Is the company showing up for several different keyword matches (i.e. long-tail keywords, including color, model, etc.)?
- Do the ads have clear value propositions or unique selling points?
- Do the ads have a call-to-action or incentive?
- Does the landing page relate directly to the ad?
- Does the landing page follow conversion conventions?
3. After clicking through to your prospect’s landing page …
- Are users being sent to the homepage or some internal page that could be harming conversions?
- Are they being sent to a relevant page?
- Does the page contain only one call-to-action?
- Does the page provide unique selling points?
- If the landing page is for lead-gen, is the form “above the fold” and only asking for required fields necessary for a quality lead? Is the call-to-action on the form “submit” button or is there a strong call-to-action that indicates what a user will receive if a form is filled out?
- Does the landing page have testimonials and other credibility indicators?
- (Read more about the characteristics of quality landing pages.)
4. If your prospect is in e-commerce (selling products online) …
- Is it using product extensions? Are its competitors?
- Is it using product listing ads? Are its competitors?
- Does the prospect have Google seller reviews/ratings (stars)? Do its competitors?
- Are the ads being sent to the most relevant product(s)?
- (Read Fathom’s e-commerce PPC checklist)
5. Use competitive spy tools (such as SpyFu) to analyze how it compares to its top competitors and …
- See how your prospect’s ads compare to competitors’: Are competitors using ad extensions (local, social, phone, etc.)?
- Determine if competitors are offering better selling points, such as free shipping, 20% off, etc.
- Examine competitors’ use of calls-to-action that are reflected in both the ads and landing pages: Is your prospect doing the same?
6. Search branded and non-branded keywords on Bing.com:
- Is the company showing up?
- Is its competitors?
- After visiting the company site and browsing the Web …
- Are you seeing its ads on other sites, using remarketing/retargeting to bring users back to the company site?
- Do the remarketing ads you see send users back to the original page or do they offer something unique to help get users to convert?
The above are just a few ways to “audit” a potential client’s account from a distance to determine how its paid search campaigns are performing. Obviously, having a prospect’s account log-in credentials will allow you to see actual performance and have a better understanding of successes and failures. However, if you do not have log-in information, the above steps will help give you a better idea of how a campaign is set up, if it’s following best practices, and which potential areas you might ultimately address when delivering a report.
