5 Ways to Boost Your PPC Performance

PPC is an essential part of any effective marketing strategy today. If SEO is the engine, PPC is the turbo booster that puts your brand in front of the right customer at the right time so you can generate leads and results faster.

But PPC isn’t a “set it and forget it” tool. You still have to put in the work—that means proper planning and constant monitoring.

Here are 5 ways to make sure you get the most for your PPC dollars.

1. Use A/B testing for your ad creatives and landing pages

A/B testing simply means comparing two versions of a landing page, ad, or other marketing asset and seeing which one performs better. In an A/B test there’s a single varying element. Two different headlines, for example, or an orange “buy now” button versus a green one. Everything else is the same.

A/B testing helps you determine which words, phrases, images, testimonials, and other elements work best.

It’s really nothing new. Marketing pros have been doing some variation of A/B testing since guys rolled into work in three-piece suits and drank martinis at lunch.

The difference today is that technology makes it much easier to collect and analyze the data.

Once you prepare your two variations, you present each version to half of your site visitors. The test will tell you how well your message did with audiences based on different metrics like time- on-page or conversion rate.

Determining which version of a single variable motivates more clicks will improve your click-through rate, boost your Quality Scores, and reduce cost-per-clicks. This means you’ll have more money to spend on advertising.

2. Build out negative keywords/phrases

Marketing pros pay a lot of attention to building out keyword lists. Fewer devote as much time or energy into uncovering negative keywords.

Negative keywords help prevent your ad from showing up for audiences who aren’t looking for what you’re offering.

Say you have a mobile dog grooming business that serves the Greater Los Angeles area. You want your ads to show up when people in that area search for things like “hire mobile dog groomer Los Angeles” and “mobile dog groomer.”

You don’t want them to show up when people search “how to start a mobile dog grooming business” or “mobile dog groomer salary.”

You can tell Google Ads which negative keywords you don’t want your ads to show up for—add them at the campaign level (i.e., “don’t ever show my ads for these keywords”) or at the group level (i.e., “don’t show my ads for these negative keywords in this group”).

Bottom line: Understanding negative keywords and adding them to your Google Ads account can help you maximize efficiency of your PPC spend.

3. Get granular with demographic and location targeting

Google collects demographic information on its users based on their settings and search activity. You can use this information—age, gender, income, parental status, etc.—to target relevant audiences (and even those you think aren’t relevant but might be).

You can also target people by location, even if you’re not a brick-and-mortar store. For example, if your target is healthcare workers, you can create specific campaigns for healthcare hotspots, like Houston and Boston.

Considering that CPCs can cost as much as $50 per click, you can’t afford not to home in on demographics and location targeting.

4. Take advantage of callout extensions

Google Ads is always adding new extensions. A recent addition is the callout extension. It’s like sitelinks, but without the links. You can use callouts to highlight unique selling points and product benefits (e.g., free shipping, price-match guarantee, etc.).

Why use callout extensions? In addition to promoting unique selling points, using extensions can help your ads appear in higher position and take up more real estate in the search results. You can use callout extensions at the account, campaign, or ad group level. And you can create customized callouts optimized for mobile. You can choose the specific time and date parameters for your callouts to display with ads, and you can use callouts with other ad elements, like sitelinks.

Since Google tells you how many clicks you generated when callouts displayed on your ads, you’ll know how well they’re performing.

Here are some tips for using callouts.

• Highlight the services you offer. Things like free shipping and returns, 24/7 customer service, or price matching—anything you offer that makes people feel more confident about buying from you.
• Create multiple callout extensions for each campaign. You want at least four, and the more the better.
• Use “emotional” keywords. Words and phrases like free, trust, and peace of mind trigger our need for financial and personal security. Don’t be shy about using them.

5. Don’t over-optimize your Google Ads account

Resist the urge to constantly tinker with your campaign. You should check your Google Ads account frequently to make sure nothing’s going off the rails. But don’t compulsively make changes—especially without having enough information.

For example, if a keyword is underperforming, do some investigation before deleting or pausing it. Does it match up with the ad copy and landing page? Have you checked the search terms report? Regularly check it and manage your keywords based on search terms data.

Keep in mind that small amounts of data don’t necessarily represent the big picture. If you’re seeing a flood of negative or positive results, wait until you have a statistically significant amount of data before making changes.

PPC management takes patience and a healthy dose of curiosity. Ask the right questions and understand what’s really happening before you tweak your campaign.

Get Help from the Pros

PPC can help you create a more successful search strategy, but it takes time, patience, and expertise. You can’t “set it and forget it.”

The pros at National Positions can help. Our PPC marketing analysts offer a lean, data-centric approach toward paid search advertising. We focus on the data that truly matters and monitor your campaign with laser-like precision. It’s why we’ve been so successful building targeted campaigns that optimize profitability for our clients.

We have the expertise and industry-leading tools to help you create a profitable paid search campaign. Call us today at (877) 866-6699 for help with PPC, SEO, and much more.