Mishandling your digital marketing is a great way to waste money.
Digital marketing is fast becoming the most important advertising stream. But many businesses still undervalue it or make mistakes in the execution.
If you’re using Google PPC, you want every advantage over your competitors. That’s why we’ve put together 10 tips for the successful PPC marketer.
Smart Keywords
Keywords are still a major player in effective online advertising.
To make the most of Google PPC, your keywords need to be tailored to your target audience. This ensures maximum traffic to your site while minimizing clicks from uninterested customers.
Plan your keywords based on trends and previous ad campaigns. You might not be able to zero in your ideal keywords until after a few campaigns. But if you can learn something every time, you’ll be able to laser-focus on the important ones.
Your keywords might have a lot of overlap with similar terms. Consider whether to use match types to filter out irrelevant clicks. This might result in fewer impressions, but it’s no loss if those impressions would’ve been wasted. Focus on the clicks that matter.
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords can be just as important as positives.
Negative keywords are vital to disambiguate your service from similar options or even brands with similar names. One of the quickest ways to find your negative keywords is to search your keywords.
You’ll probably receive a lot of results that aren’t relevant to your service. These should form the basis for your negative keywords. Use these to cut down on wasted clicks and maximize your ROI.
Landing page
Having a strong landing page is vital to making the most of Google PPC.
If your ads are landing visitors but you aren’t receiving anything for it, you’re just wasting money. Your landing page needs to be eye-catching, simple, and easy to use.
Your landing page should be 100% relevant to your keywords. It also needs to be tightly targeted at your audience. You don’t want your landing page to attract the general public. Focus your efforts!
Think about your landing page layout. Your call to action should be prominent. Your headline should be immediately visible and relevant. Any images you use should be appropriate for your targeted customers.
Also consider using testimonials and reviews on your landing page. This acts as a trust signifier to your visitors and gives you credibility.
But don’t obscure your call to action. This is the aspect of your ad campaign that will give you ROI. Give it a prominent place on the page and be specific.
Attractive CTAs
If you know what kind of calls to action your competitors are using, you can beat them.
Offer more attractive CTAs. This could be deeper discounts. Or perhaps a voucher code for subscribing. Use eye-catching figures, like “20% off”. These are easily parsed and trigger the discount-seeking part of the brain. Free trials are also a great way to hook customers.
Make your call to action simple. If you’re asking for subscribers, only gather the bare minimum information you need. Generally, they should need to make as few clicks as possible to access your service.
Timed Ads
Time your ads for your market to catch the most visitors.
In general, the English-speaking internet is busier in American waking hours. But you’ll want to narrow this down to your target audience where possible.
If you trade B2B, then 9-5 hours in your country are likely to be the most appropriate. For regular consumers, you’ll need to think about their habits.
Is your target audience unemployed? In that case, daytime hours could be best. But if they’re working professionals, you’ll want your ads to run on the evening or weekends.
Use previous campaigns to work out when people are visiting your site. This will give you a good idea of when to schedule them.
Targeted Locations
Another way to seek our your primary audience is to target by location.
If you’re a physical business that relies on foot traffic, you’re wasting money advertising worldwide. You’re more likely to get results targeting your city and other feeder areas.
Likewise, if you’re a national business like a hauling company, you’ll want to limit your ads to inside the country. This prevents wasted ad revenue. It also makes you more relevant to visitors in your country and may prevent wasted inquiry time.
Targeted Devices
Google is now smart enough to know what devices visitors are using.
Perhaps your service favors a particular device, such as a mobile app. You’re wasting revenue by advertising to desktop PC users. Targeting your ads for devices gives you precision.
This also reduces traffic from frustrated users who won’t remain on your page. If your target devices aren’t clear, your page could slide down the rankings due to poor visitor retention.
Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are a way of tagging more information onto your ad.
This can maximize Google PPC by giving you more opportunity to engage visitors. It provides them with additional information and makes your ad more helpful.
Ads with extensions often receive higher priority as they’re seen to have more value. You need every advantage over your competition you can get, so extensions could be a difference maker.
Using Feedback
Making use of feedback is the most important part of any marketing campaign.
You should take on feedback in two ways. Firstly, check what’s working while your campaign is running. You can often make small alterations on the fly to bring in more traffic. Traffic data could tell you which keywords to target, for instance.
Secondly, there’s the after-action report. Once the campaign is over, take on all the feedback and use it to shape your next ad campaign.
Google PPC Made Simple
By following these simple tips, you can get the most out of your Google PPC. Be sure to bookmark this article and use it as a resource when running your campaign. It’s easy to forget a small detail, so treat this like a checklist.
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