Pay per click seems a great alternative to organic search marketing.
For starters, get your campaign right, and your ad will appear at the top of the page.
You like that idea because search marketing is a long game to play. Plus, you never know what your competitors are up to. One minute you can be riding high on page one, then, at the flip of a switch (or algorithmic tweak), you disappear from sight.
The problem is Pay Per Click (PPC), isn’t as straightforward as you think. It also needs constant attention if you want to maintain ROI.
Research is the key behind every successful campaign. Understanding what makes a powerful PPC advert is half the battle. You have to:
- Research your audience
- Discover which keywords to target
- Focus your advert message
- Devise a strong call to action
That’s just for starters because if you take your eye off the ball and don’t regularly review the performance of your adverts, you could start to see problems.
The number of impressions or clicks is reducing
If you spot a reduction in your impressions and clicks, take a look at:
- Your daily budget – have you reached it? If so, you can either increase it or reduce your Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for some of your keywords to see how they perform at a lower position
- Negative keywords – these are words that can help you reach the most interested customers by ruling out potentially related searches. For example, an Optician selling glasses could use negative keywords such as ‘wine’ to stop people searching for ‘wine glasses’ being shown their ad. But, if you use too many, your ads may not be reaching many people
Low-quality score
Your quality score is a measurement of how relevant your advertisements, keywords and landing pages are to the person seeing your ad.
If your score is low, or it’s declining it could be due to:
- Your ads not getting enough clicks, so refresh them and consider using negative keywords to limit unrelated searches
- Your landing pages may not be relevant enough to your ads and keywords; it’s always best to have a landing page for each ad group
- Your keywords not being relevant
Average position
Your average position statistic describes how your ad typically ranks against other ads, determining which order ads appear on a page.
If your keyword bids are too low, this will result in a weak position. Another factor is if your quality score is low because if Google thinks your ads (keywords and landing pages) are not relevant, it will cost you more to keep a higher position.
CTR dropping (click through rate)
If your click-through rate is dropping, it’s time to review your ad’s wording. Give it a refresh and make sure it’s highly relevant to your keywords. This would also be a good time to rethink your call to action to make sure you choose something that’s commanding and effective.
Running a PPC campaign is not a one-off deal – you have to continually monitor your results and refine your ads if you want them to perform for you.
For help with your pay per click ads or general copywriting, call Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting on +44(0) 1449 779605.