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If you’re beginning your first PPC campaign, it is essential that you understand why it can be extremely beneficial to your company. Unlike traditional forms of marketing (television, radio, newspaper, etc.) where you are advertising to a mass audience, paid search marketing is advertising to people who are actively looking to get information about your products or services. This is why PPC can be so profitable compared to other types of marketing.
In order to build a successful paid search campaign, there are a series of best practices that one should follow:
1. Everyone who is considering PPC must have a goal that they want to achieve. These goals can include revenue generated (Return on Advertising Spend), leads generated per dollar spent, and branding (although less common). If a lead generated is your company’s goal, you should have an idea of how much the lead is worth to you. Knowing your goals will be paramount to how you set up your campaign.
2. Choosing keywords. Next, you must brainstorm “root” keywords that are most relevant to your company. By “root” keywords, I mean base keywords, such as PPC or Paid Search. These are search terms that will receive the most traffic, but generally have a lower conversion rate compared to more specific “long-tailed” keywords. Long-tailed keywords are generally 3-5 keyword phrases which are built off your base set of keywords. An example of this would be “PPC Companies in Cleveland Ohio.” Although this keyword will receive less traffic than “PPC” or even “PPC Companies,” the conversion rate will generally be higher, especially if the end-user is looking for a PPC company in Cleveland, Ohio. So, start with your small set of targeted keywords and then expand into long-tails for a breadth of search possibilities.
3. Organization is Key. If your company sells multiple product lines or services, you should break them down into product or service specific campaigns, such as Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Internet Video and E-mail Marketing. You then can build ad groups in each of these campaigns that relate to the “root” keywords discussed above. For example, have an ad group called PPC Companies. Inside each ad group, there would be keywords that relate to this keyword, such as "PPC Companies," "PPC Company," "Best PPC Companies," "Top PPC Companies," "PPC Management Companies," etc. The more granular you can break keywords into ad groups, the better.
4. Writing specific & relevant ad copies. Creating specific ad groups allows you to write focused ad copies (actual ad text seen in Google). Ad copies must be relevant to the keyword search (therefore some form of the keyword searched by the end-user should be in the ad at least one time). Paid Search is a game of relevancy, and it is important to understand that.
5. Customized Landing Pages. Building organized ad copy and writing relevant advertisements allows you to create customized landing pages geared to the keywords you are targeting. This will also be much more relevant to the end-user and will lead to more sales/leads and a much higher conversion rate. All in all, your ad copy should be relevant to your keywords, and your landing page content should be relevant to your ad copy to produce the best quality score.
6. Advanced Conversion Tracking. How do you know which keywords are bringing in sales or leads? Having in-depth conversion tracking is essential. Without conversion tracking, you do not know what keywords are driving sales/leads and what keywords you are wasting money on. With conversion tracking you will be able to find your true revenue and Return on Advertising Spend.
These are just some of the techniques one should be aware of when considering creating a paid search campaign. However, these are just the basics; there are many more strategies that will help build successful paid search campaigns.
About the Author: Joe CastroJoe Castro is a Senior Account Executive at Fathom and a departmental priority team lead. He works with many partners, covering everything from home improvement and higher education to e-commerce and technology. He is a Google Adwords Certified Professional.
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1 Comment so farOne Response to “How to Build a Successful Paid Search Campaign”
Another thing I might add to this handy primer on the basics of paid search campaigns is that you should always study what keywords/ad copy/landing pages are bringing you the quality traffic (especially the unexpected kind) and try to use these conversion magnets for your next initiative. You can learn so much as you go if pay close attention to the data.