Pay Per Click can be an incredibly profitable platform. Just the basic concept of only paying when somebody clicks your ad and visits your site, makes it one of the most cost effective methods of advertising.

However, PPCs purpose is far greater than just driving traffic. One of the key reasons it’s used is to drive conversions (whether they be sales, sign ups, downloads, etc) and make a return.

This is easier said than done – there’s no quick setup on a PPC Campaign, and just because you believe you’re targeting the right keywords or demographics, doesn’t mean you’re going to make all those sales and return on spend.

In order to get the most out of PPC and to make it as profitable as possible, the following rules should be followed:

Target Audience Research

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Online keyword research is key to finding out which terms to target, how much they cost per click on average, how many average searches they receive on a monthly basis & how competitive the terms are. This will give you an idea of the budgets you need, the amount of traffic you’re likely to receive and which positions you’ll appear in.

Match Types & Negatives

Once you know the keywords you want to target, it’s important to make full use of all Keyword Match Types available. This means ensuring that one or two word keywords won’t be too broad, bringing in high numbers of irrelevant traffic, and that long tail keywords won’t be too targeted, bringing in no traffic at all. Along with this, it’s vital that there are negative keywords within the account, to help filter out even more irrelevant traffic.

Ad Text and Landing Pages

As your online ‘shop window’, ad text has to be relevant to the user and reflective of the area of your site which is being targeted. This will compel users to click onto your ad and visit your website. The page which they land onto is of equal importance – if it’s irrelevant, and doesn’t match the ad or the terms they searched, they will instantly leave the website, which will cause huge bounce rates on site alongside losing a potential customer.

Optimise, Optimise, Optimise

PPC Campaigns can’t run themselves. They need constant attention and nurturing in order to get the most out of it. Regularly checking each keyword and ad performance allows you increase your profits by focusing on areas which are bringing in a return, and removing those which aren’t. Google AdWords has a range of reporting features that allows you to go in depth and granular with your campaigns, giving you full insights into the performance of your campaign in order to make it as profitable as possible.

These basic four rules allow advertisers to get on their way to cost effective online marketing. It’s understandable that many companies do not have the time or the resources to put onto running a PPC campaign full time, which is why it’s recommended to turn to a digital agency to manage and optimize campaigns with a wealth of knowledge, tools and experience.

 

By Fouad Halawi, Search Marketing Account Manager at Collider.

PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
For more information on upcoming events, visit the website.

comments powered by Disqus