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Critical Marketing Moves: 7 of the Best PPC Advertising Strategies

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an effective strategy for boosting your brand and attracting new leads. Without a sound strategy, however, PPC advertising could bleed your budget dry.

The average cost-per-click (CPC) for Google Ads is $2.00. However, it can range between $0.20 and $30+ depending on your industry and keywords. As a result, many small businesses spend between $500 to $3,000 a month.

Using the best PPC advertising trends, you can improve your campaigns and generate more business. By optimizing your campaigns, you can improve your ROI and get ahead of the competition. Ready to get started?

Keep reading to discover seven PPC tips for a stronger advertising strategy!

1. Give Each Campaign a Goal

The first step to a successful PPC campaign is to plan everything out before you start advertising. Without a plan, you might start blowing your budget before you can bring in new leads. 

Platforms like Google Ads allow you to set different goals for each of your campaigns. These goals can include:

  • Increasing website traffic
  • Boosting brand awareness
  • Gaining more phone calls
  • Driving conversions

Determine which goal makes the most sense for your business. Your PPC campaign goals should align with your company’s overall marketing goals. 

For example, let’s say your marketing goal for the year is to increase website traffic. You can match the same goal for your campaigns, along with improving your clickthrough rate (CTR). A higher CTR means more people are clicking on your ads and visiting your site. 

Once you determine your goals, it becomes easier to determine your keywords, ad language, and which metrics to track.

You should also consider your PPC goals in alignment with your search engine optimization (SEO) goals. For example, let’s say you want to appear more often for a specific keyword. You can use PPC ads to gain more site traffic.

The additional traffic will benefit your SEO since Google’s algorithm looks at traffic when determining page rankings.

Your Budget

As you define these goals, consider your monthly budget as well. After all, you don’t want to overspend! Try to determine your breakeven point.

When do your PPC campaigns start producing a positive ROI?

How much do you need to spend before getting that many conversions? Determining this breakeven point can ensure PPC helps, rather than hinders your business.

2. Keep on Researching

Many businesses start their campaigns without any research to back their decisions.

However, PPC and SEO both rely on audience research, including which keywords your target audience searches for.

First, determine who your customers are. Try breaking them down based on:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Marital status
  • Household income
  • Interests
  • Buying habits

This information will help you break large audience groups into smaller buyer personas. Then, you can create ad language that better resonates with your customers.

What problems do your customers face, and how can you provide a solution? The best PPC advertising campaigns consider search intent before creating ads.

Then, use Google’s Keyword Planner, Trends, or SEMRush to develop a list of keywords.

As your campaigns run, keeping researching your customers. You might find some keywords are more popular than others depending on seasonality.

3. Stay Organized

Shoving all of your keywords into one campaign can hurt your clickthrough rate. A low CTR can impact your Quality Score, which will cause your ads to appear lower on search pages.

Instead, keep your campaigns and ad groups organized. 

Split your keywords into organized buckets. For example, you might want to create one campaign for “women’s shoes.” Then, you can create an ad group for “women’s high heel shoes” and another for “women’s tennis shoes.”

Organizing your campaigns will improve your CTR, which can help you gain more website traffic and conversions.

4. Maintain Your Negatives

Make sure to review your Search Queries regularly. This list will show you what people search for before clicking your ads.

However, you might find the original query has nothing to do with your business. For example, let’s say you own a coffeehouse. Someone might search “coffee machine” and find your ad because you’re using “coffee” as a keyword.

In this case, you can turn “machine” into a negative keyword so you no longer appear for these searches.

As a result, you can limit wasted ad spend and improve your campaigns.

5. Keep Testing Ad Copy

Google Ads now allows you to write additional headlines and descriptions. Then, Google will switch these various text lines out to determine which best appeal to your customers.

Use this opportunity to your advantage! Write numerous versions of your ad copy. Then, check the data to see which copy gains the most clicks. 

For the best PPC advertising ads:

  • Include your keyword in the headline and description
  • Use a call-to-action verb such as “Buy Now”
  • Lead with your value or benefits
  • Use compelling language

Work with a company that offers PPC services to further improve your ads.

6. Give Your Landing Pages Love

39% of website visitors will stop engaging if the page takes too long to load.

38% will stop engaging if the content is too long. Meanwhile, another 38% will leave if the content and layout are unattractive.

Your landing pages play a big part in the success of your campaigns. After clicking on your ads, people will visit the landing page. They should see your target keyword on this page.

Your ad language should also reflect the landing page language. Otherwise, you could confuse people.

Try using minimalistic design to improve user experience. Make sure your page is easy to navigate and read. Don’t forget your lead generator, such as a form, to attract leads. 

7. Watch for Trends

PPC advertising strategies and trends change every year. For example, more companies are using remarketing to attract previous website visitors back a second time.

Blockchain and artificial intelligence are impacting PPC (and SEO) this year as well.

Make sure to keep up with these trends. That way, you can get a step ahead of the competition!

Punch up Your PPC With 7 of the Best PPC Advertising Strategies

Improve your PPC campaigns and give your business a boost!

With the best PPC advertising strategies at your disposal, you can expand your online reach in 2020 and beyond.

Explore our Search Marketing posts for more tips and tricks for your business!