Pay-per-click is a great way to get your website onto the first page of Google right now, while you wait for search engine optimization and other marketing efforts to bring you more exposure.
If you are looking for ways to improve your campaign to ensure that you are making the most of your PPC, here are thirteen tricks that will spice up even the spiciest campaign.
1. Start scheduling your ads.
This is a tool that far too few people actually use.
If you’re tracking your clicks and conversions, you should be able to see the times of day when people might be clicking, but they’re not converting.
You can stop spending money on clicks during times of day when people don’t convert by scheduling your ads only to show when your audience is actually going to become customers or clients.
2. Track your performance by the keyword.
Don’t just track which ads are working and which ones aren’t.
Track which keywords are working and which ones aren’t.
This will help you root out keywords that aren’t actually bringing you traffic that converts.
3. Make sure you are split testing.
When most webmasters decide to make a change, they just make the change and then hope that the results start pouring in.
If you’re not split testing, you won’t have a good way of knowing what’s really working and what is underperforming.
It might take longer, but it will definitely help you pinpoint what areas of your website or ad need improvement and which are just fine.
4. Start using Bing Ads.
Bing might still be a bit of a joke in the search engine world (it’s just not Google), but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t using.
In fact, with Bing Rewards, more and more people are starting to use Bing instead of Google.
If you’re not connecting with those people, you’re missing out on a large portion of your potential clicks.
5. Offer different ads to different geographic locations.
While you might be targeting people in just one city or portion of a state, you can still geo-target your ads to neighborhood or city names for better results.
6. Create better landing pages.
If your landing page isn’t directly relevant to the ad that the user clicked on, they’re likely to just click away and find another website.
If you want to keep those clickers on your page, you need to create better landing pages that have more targeted content.
For example, if you are a dentist and your PPC ads are for free consultations or cleanings for new patients, the page that the user is presented with when they click on your link should be a page about how to claim that free consultation or cleaning—not just your homepage.
7. Include a better value proposition.
The three things that ever add needs are a value proposition, a call to action, and keywords.
That might seem like far too much to cram into one single PPC ad, but these are the most important factors.
The one that most often suffers in this combination is the value proposition—but users want to know immediately why they should click on your link instead of your competitors.
Tell them why!
8. Stop paying for generalized keywords.
It’s alright to invest some money in a wide variety of keywords when you are just starting out with your campaign.
Once you have some data about which keywords perform well and which perform just alright, it’s time to stop paying for those keywords that are underperforming and focus on the keywords that actually bring you lots of clicks and conversions.
9. Realign your ads with your long-term goals.
If your goal is to gain a hundred more patients, clients, or customers in a month, your ads need to feed into that goal by being as streamlined and valuable as possible.
If your goal is to alert users to a new sale or promotion, have your ads reflect that goal.
10. Use ad extensions.
Your ad will not always be shown with its extensions, but once it reaches one of those top three spots, it can be the best way to improve your click through rate.
These are additional links at the bottom of your advert that connect to your social media pages, apps, customer reviews, etc.
These help to build legitimacy when a user is looking at your advert and can be a great way to entice someone to click.
11. Spend more money on PPC.
If you’re only investing a few dollars a day in this type of marketing, you’re probably not going to see the results that you want.
The best way to make sure that you get the results you want is to invest a little more money.
You can do this by cutting out keywords that are underperforming or simply by allocating more budget towards this marketing campaign.
12. Use PPC and SEO in tandem.
PPC and organic search should be working hand in hand.
They should utilize many of the same keywords and messages.
This can help you dominate the first page search results.
Users who see both an ad and an organic listing for your business are much more likely to click.
13. Track it all.
A stunning number of PPC campaigns roll on without being tracked.
How will you know what’s working and what isn’t working if you aren’t keeping detailed notes about performance?
There are lots of tools that will track for you, but if you really want to make sure your data is being recorded, track it yourself and use it to boost your campaign’s efficacy.
