Optimising PPC campaigns

Optimising PPC campaigns

Once you have set up your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, it’s important to benchmark and continually measure campaign performance. By assessing and adapting your tactics you can ensure that your campaign is optimised – maximising your return on investment.

Some factors to consider include:

Re-analyse your keywords – check the keywords used are delivering the right kind of traffic and adjust your bids if necessary. Check the ‘search terms’ and bounce rate for an indicator of how relevant your keywords are.
Choose the right keyword matching option. A broad match, for instance, will trigger your ad more frequently but could mean your ad is less targeted resulting in a lower click-through rate (CTR). Using phrase match or exact match keywords should improve your CTR. Using negative keywords prevents wasting budget with irrelevant clicks.
Prepare your ads, taking into account that each ad group can link to several ad copy versions, so you can test which ads are working best. Remove the least effective versions and take notes on what works for future campaigns.
Check your keyword quality score. A low quality score indicates that your keywords, ad and landing page aren’t as relevant to each other as they should be. This can have a negative impact on clicks and cost per click.
Check the advice from the major search engines on setting up campaigns and any extra tools they offer to support you in managing your campaigns.
Set up campaign landing pages so the destination URL in your ad takes users directly to the product that they want to buy. Make sure the landing pages are well designed and closely aligned to the advert. This will maximise your conversion rate – ie the percentage of people who actually buy the product. It will also help you reduce cost per click (CPC) because search engines reward the most relevant ads. See choose the right landing page for your PPC campaign.
A/B testing
Controlled A/B testing – also known as ‘split testing’ – involves varying a single element in your PPC adverts or landing pages, and analysing which gets the best response rate.

Variables could include the:

ad headline
ad copy
call to action
landing page design
You should take care to only test one variable at a time, to avoid confusing results. The right web analytics tool is crucial. See measuring your online marketing.

Benchmarking
Once you have analysed which approaches get the best click-through rates and conversions, you can use these measures as a benchmark to analyse the success of future PPC campaigns. You can also compare your campaign’s performance to that of your competitors – helping you to identify areas for future improvement.

Choose the right keywords for your PPC campaign
To create a successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, each ad group needs a unique set of keywords that aligns with the ad copy and landing page. These three elements need to relate closely to each other in order to deliver what the user is looking for. Getting it right will improve your conversion rate and help to lower your cost-per-click.

Choosing keywords
It is important to conduct keyword research for each PPC ad group. Start by looking at your landing page and deciding what the main keywords are. Think about the search terms your customers might use. Try using tools such as Google Trends and Keyword Planner (registration required).

Use a mix of short and long-tail keywords (eg ‘men’s shoes’ and ‘Men’s brown suede shoes’). Include synonyms and variations of words (eg shoe, shoes, footwear).

You should also consider setting keyword matching options:

Broad match: If your keyword is ‘school bags’ and you use broad match, a user who types in either ‘school’ or ‘bags’ in any order, with any other words may see your ad, eg ‘discount bags for school’. It will include searches for misspellings, synonyms, related words and close variations, eg your ad could appear in a search for ‘student rucksack’. This match type will deliver high impressions but it may be less targeted and result in a lower click-through-rate (CTR) and fewer sales. Broad match modifier allows you to specify that particular words within the keyword phrase must be included in the search term.
Phrase match: If you use phrase match, your ad will only show if the search term contains the exact keyword – ‘school bags’. It may be surrounded by other words, eg ‘blue school bags for girls’. This match type is more targeted and should result in a higher CTR and more sales.
Exact match: If you use exact match, your ad will only show if the user searches that exact term and no other words – ‘school bags’. This match type is very targeted but could result in less people seeing your ad.
Using negative keywords can help improve relevancy by preventing your ad showing to people who aren’t looking for what you offer. For example, if you are selling school bags, you don’t want your ad to appear on search for ‘school bag repair’. In this case, you would add ‘repair’ as a negative keyword.