One of the services we offer here at ITzetta is pay-per-click advertising (also known as PPC). This can be a great way to drive traffic to your site. PPC ads are the ones you see on sites like Facebook and Google and in the content of other sites. Pay-per-click means you choose the amount you are willing to pay for each user that clicks on your ad. Whoever is willing to pay the most for a targeted keyword gets the most exposure, making it an auction-style system. Here are a few tips to ensure your PPC campaigns help you and don’t just drain your bank account.
USE SPECIFIC KEYWORDS
It is important to recognize the difference between specific keyword matches and broad matches. With specific keyword matches, your ad will only show up when the specific keyword you set is present. With broad matches, your ad will appear next to similar phrases to or variations of your keyword. Here’s an example. You may use “show ideas” as a broad match, but that could be displayed next to a search for “baby shower gift ideas”.
If you have loads of money, broad matches may give you more exposure by appearing to people with irrelevant as well as irrelevant interests. However, it is a much better idea to use specific keyword matches. These may be displayed to a smaller pool of viewers, but you have a higher chance that those viewers will be interested in what you are offering.
SEPARATE SEARCH AND CONTENT ADS
There are two kinds of pay-per-click ads: those that appear in search results and those that are displayed among the content of a site. The search results and the websites that are triggered by your keywords to place your ad can be quite different. It is important not to set the same keywords, ad content, and payment amount for both of these. You might do this to start out, but look at the results to see where your searches are coming from and where you lose money. Then you can start tailoring your ads to better benefit you.
USE NEGATIVE KEYWORDS
Negative keywords allow you to specify which words you do not want to trigger your ad. For example, if you used “show ideas”, specifying “baby”, “shower”, and “gift” as negative keywords could keep your ad from showing up to searches for those terms and websites containing those keywords. This will cut down on irrelevant ad placement.
TARGET YOUR AD CAMPAIGNS
Targeting your ads to a specific group of people based on factors you’re aware of can increase the usefulness of your ads. If you’re going to advertise in different companies, set up an individual campaign for each country. If you are a local business, you can use micro-geographic targeting to advertise to only certain zip codes. If you find that your ads are most effective during a certain time of day, you can set your ads to run only during those times.
TEST YOUR AD COPY
Your ad copy should be thoughtfully written, but even that isn’t enough. Write a few different versions of your ad, adjust the setting so a random version is displayed, and see which one gets you the most traffic with the most returns (forms filled out, products purchased, most time spent on site, etc). Then you can eliminate the versions that aren’t as effective and try for even more effective ads.
TRACK YOUR RESULTS
You can tie your PPC campaign to a Google Analytics account to see which ads bring visitors to your site and which ads create sales. This information gives you the knowledge to be able to fine-tune your ads. Then you can adjust your keyword bids and trash in-effective ads and keywords to maximize your ROI.
I hope this article allows you to use your PPC investment to its greatest capacity. We would love to be the company that gets your PPC ad campaign off the ground. We offer SEO marketing as well as PPC campaigns and can analyze and modify any marketing we do for you to increase your ROI. Check out our services page to learn more.