7 Definitive Dos and Don’ts of Google AdWords Pay Per Click

7 Definitive Dos and Don’ts of Google AdWords Pay Per Click


by Matt Loughlin
Director / Head of Paid Media

28 June 2016

Using Google AdWords or Bing Advertising can be one of the most efficient and most effective ways to drive highly targeted traffic to your websites and/or landing pages in a relatively quicker time frame than other digital marketing campaigns.

However, there is a cost involved as there is with other paid advertising campaigns. But the costs are far smaller compared to other advertising channels and you’ll be delivering highly targeted results that will reflect well on your bottom line and bring in a return on investment.

With all this in mind, what exactly are the dos and don’ts of PPC to ensure that we spend our budget as effectively as possible.

DO:

  1. DO research relevant keywords thoroughly. By doing this you will gain the results that you want from your PPC campaign. There are several tools you can use to do this, including Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.
  2. DO silo your keywords by match type. By siloing your campaigns by match type, and negative matching out the other match type from the campaign, you will be able to gain a better return/CPC but it also allows you to segment performance.
  3. DO make sure your ads are well crafted to attract the right audience. Since the ad copy is ‘customer facing’ this is what will drive them to click, so make sure it’s snappy and attractive. We want them to click through to our service or products after all.
  4. DO ensure you are directing clicks through to the right landing page. The users clicking onto your ads want to be greeted by information on a product or service that they need, and if your landing page doesn’t give that data – they’ll be ‘outta’ there quicker than The Road Runner in Looney Tunes.
  5. DO make good use of conversion tracking. Let’s face it, you have an amazing PPC campaign structure, so why put in all that work if you don’t even know if you’re receiving a good ROI? By setting up conversion tracking we are able to see what revenue has been generated by your spend. It also it gives you an idea which of your ads, keywords and traffic sources are generating the best results.
  6. DO make sure you do testing, testing, 123… Your PPC campaign should make good use of testing your ad copy and testing the ad extensions. By performing testing on your account you’ll find the best way to drive up your CTR and conversions and lower your CPCs.
  7. DO understand the technical jargon. This is important regardless of whether you’re running your PPC account in-house, or whether you have a fantastic agency, such as Receptional. Understanding the ‘technical jargon’ will not only make you feel more confident and ‘clued-up’ but will also enable you to communicate effectively when discussing next steps for the account. Plus, we all love talking in abbreviations right?!

DON’T:

  1. DON’T use generic keywords. All too often when we undertake a PPC Healthcheck I see generic keywords being used, which unfortunately use up most of the budget, and produce precisely zero conversions. This is a waste of your budget when you could be using really targeted keywords which will have a lower CPC, produce more traffic for your wonga and pull in those conversions.
  2. DON’T send all the traffic to your homepage. Lower your bounce rate by sending your clicks through to a web page on which customers actually expect to find the information they’re searching for.
  3. DON’T set up your campaign and then leave it be. It’s very easy to get a great campaign structure up and running only to leave it for a month or two and then think ‘why is my CPC rising month on month?’
  4. DON’T under-estimate the power of your landing page. Are you sending users through to a landing page which isn’t quite finished, or needs a tweak here and there? Don’t do it. If you fully optimise this page you’ll see those conversions rise.
  5. DON’T focus on too much keyword popularity. Just because a keyword is popular it doesn’t mean that it will enhance your account and bring in the converting clicks so don’t be tempted to use those keywords.
  6. DON’T under-estimate the power of negative keywords. They may not appear as directly being associated with what you are trying to promote, if you haven’t excluded these keywords they may generate ad impressions that have poor chances for click-throughs. This in turn will affect your Quality Score and affect your overall costs.
  7. DON’T under-estimate the power of your sales page. Producing a bespoke  sales page and sending it highly-targeted traffic from a unique ad can only mean one thing – conversions: the ad may already give detailed information about a product or service. You may even throw in discounts or special promotions that you may be conducting in relation to that product or service. With such ads it would be more appropriate to send people directly to the sales page as you know that the people who will click on such ads are interested in that particular product or service. This targeting of customers provides you with greater chances of making sales.

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