Marketing ROI

4 Killer PPC Marketing Tips for Better ROI

For many small business owners, conquering and mastering PPC is extremely difficult. Not just because of the stringent rules and requirements, but also because of the learning curve. Unfortunately, recent Google Adwords updates and Bing/Yahoo updates haven’t made it any easier. If anything, it does seem like PPC advertising is getting increasingly difficult. While it’s true that PPC marketing can sometimes feel like an uphill battle considering the way Google frequently bans advertisers or raises their CPCs overnight, there are things you can do to further improve your success rate with PPC advertising.

Marketing ROI

Organise Everything

The essence of every PPC campaign lies in the keywords. Since these keywords and keyphrases are frequently entered into the search engines by the searchers, it makes sense to bid on these keywords. However, unlike the early 2000s when all people had to do was generate a keyword list and start bidding on the keywords, things have changed.

Nowadays, you need to group and organise everything. Otherwise you’re looking at the real possibility of having your account disabled or worse still, banned. Now, most PPC engines are focused on tightly-grouped keywords. All ad campaigns must have keywords, landing pages and ad copy that are strictly related to them.

For instance, if you own a flower shop in Richmond Hill and cater to that market, your keywords should be something like flower shop in Richmond Hill, florist in Richmond Hill. Your landing page should cater to people specifically looking for florists in Richmond Hill and your ad copy should do the same.

Specificity is what the PPC platforms want. So, arrange your keywords into separate groups which similar or related keywords in each group. The new Google Keyword Tool helps make this easier. But you need to do your homework.

Track and Test Everything

Do you know why some people fail at PPC and others are successfully raking in 5-6 figure profits every month? It’s because the latter test everything. They test the ad copy, keyword groups, landing pages, display network, advertising platform, demography, age, sex, cross-device platforms, location specific keywords and negative keywords.

Other things you need to test include ad placement on your landing page, landing page design, text and banner placement, incentives for lists and lots more. Use applications like Crazy Egg to track clicks and see where people spend the most time on your websites.

You don’t have to have a big budget to do all these. You can start small. Consistently tweaking and testing all these components can dramatically increase your ROI and you’re your website convert a lot more.

Location, Location, Location

As in real estate, success in PPC advertising is largely tied to your location. Let me explain. Unless you’re selling flowers in Vancouver and Manitoba at the same time, bidding on both locations isn’t going to do you any good. If anything, they’ll hurt your rankings and you’ll lose money.

Sure, Google, Facebook, Bing and other PPC platforms want your money, but they are more even more interested in delivering only the best and most targeted ads to their audience.

So, use the geo-location feature when setting up your ads. That way, your ads are relevant to the audience resulting in higher conversion rates, more revenue, lower CPCs and higher positions on the listings.

Offer Competitive Pricing and Bargains

Similar ads may have almost the same incentives. Up the ante. Offer them a little something extra. For instance, if your competition is offering just free shipping, you could offer them free shipping plus delivery within 72 hours. This is more likely to attract more visitors and buyers.

What do you think? Do you have any additions or suggestions? Are you having any problems with your PPC campaigns? Do you think there are better ways to get more results from your campaigns? Hit the comment button and let’s know.

5 thoughts on “4 Killer PPC Marketing Tips for Better ROI”

  1. Great article.

    I have always been concerned about geo-targeting. As a florist, I have people all over the country, and to a lesser extent the world, wanting to send flowers within my delivery area. I have some campaigns designed for local, but others are targeted nationally and in the UK (we have a lot of ex-pats from that part of the world in Rockingham). Do you think the ROI on targeting a broader audience would be negligible due to the high PPC cost?

    1. The real key here is segmentation. You can target:

      • People in a specific area
      • People searching about a specific area
      • People everywhere

      By default Google will geo-target for both people in and searching about the specified area.
      AdWords Geo Targeting Image courtesy of WordStream(Image via WordStream)

      I like to segment my campaigns accoridngly:

      1. A campaign geo-targeted to only people located within the client’s area, using broader terms like “florist” and “flowers”
      2. A campaign without geo-targeting, using local-specific terms like “Kurri Kurri florist” and “newcastle flower delivery”
      3. A campaign geo-targeting people in and searching for the location with moderately specific terms

      Most people who fail at AdWords do so because they don’t segment enough at every level. With proper categorization you can do quite well.

  2. These are all solid points you’ve made in relation to PPC for better ROI, Oscar! And the most important aspect I feel you’ve mentioned is how individuals should always test everything, and develop an experiential learning through simple trial and error. Most of the third-party applications can be found for free, or require a small fee to utilize that can definitely augment a realistic approach on where the targeted audience is clicking on a website. It just takes time, commitment, and proper research, and a lot of perseverance as well.

    And with competition growing fierce, and corporations continuing to hammer down their opponents through reputable SEO businesses, it really takes time to gain better competency on what to do. Especially when doing things on a fly, and being able to adjust accordingly of moments where Google or other PPC mediums may have a red flag on your particular website and service. It’s always about being able to keep an update on the social, technical, and financial sections as well.

    Organization is definitely another attribute that people also continue to fail as well because they didn’t mentally prepare themselves for it. And I think being mentally prepared and thinking big allows one to go through the mannerisms, and connecting things together to make the breakthroughs with PPC. When a person can consistently make convincing formats, landing pages, content, and so much more all at once, that is when they’ll be able to have their opponents weak on their knees.

    These are all core fundamentals that I felt you touched very well, Oscar! Thanks for the informative post as always!

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