Basic PPC Campaign Optimisation
Regardless of your budget, everyone wants to lower their PPC costs and make their campaigns more effective. Here are four simple steps to make happen:
Keyphrase management
Keyphrases should be targeted in “quotes”, [brackets] and unquoted. This can help minimise cost per click (CPC) bids as it increases a keyphrases Quality Score. New keyphrases and variations of current keyphrases should be added on a daily basis to ensure as many actual search terms are bid on as possible. This results in lower CPC bids.
Optimising Adverts
All adverts should be subject to constant optimisation. We recommend that each ad group should have two different ads competing against each other. Once you’ve analysed which of the ads is performing more effectively, try and determine why and optimise the other ads using the same techniques. To ensure all adverts are displayed for an equal amount of time make sure you have selected ‘Rotate: Show ads more evenly’ in the Ad delivery section of the advanced campaign settings. This ensures you’re in charge of improving optimisation and not the Google Adwords program
Day-part Targeting
Day-part targeting is the process of setting times to increase/decrease keyphrases bids dependent on the time of day. An example of this would be a pizza delivery business vastly reducing its CPC bids or removing its ads from the network when it’s closed or at a time where people don’t tend to consume pizza, and increasing its bid between 6PM-9PM when people are most likely to search for a pizza delivery company.
Ad Position Management
Having your advert appear at the top position is not always the best strategy. Adverts in position number three often attract a similar click through rate as position one, yet will cost less. If your budget is restricted and you often find that you are spending your entire budget before the end of the day on a regular basis, reduce your cost per click bids and this should mean you can get more clicks for your budget, increasing your exposure!
Negative keyphrases
Negative keyphrases can be used to prevent ads from showing for undesired search terms that may be broadly related to a targeted keyphrase but unlikely to lead to conversion. This reduces wasted spend and will improves click through rate (CTR), which is known to reduce CPC bids as it increases an ad groups Quality Score.
All of these factors and many more are implemented by our PPC specialists when managing client campaigns to make sure they get the best return on their PPC investment. To find out more about our PPC offering please check out our PPC page or submit a enquiry form and a member of our team will be in touch.
