The digital marketers often put immense
efforts to create a PPC campaign which is so captivating that people are more
than happy to click it. The reality, however, is something else.
Though the Pay per click campaigns are 21
years old, the marketers are yet to master the paid campaigns on the search engines.
The platform is ever-changing so much so that, what is relevant 6 months ago,
could become an outdated practice today.
Most of the marketers dive into creating
paid campaigns with unclear goals and vague understanding of the metrics.
Regardless of the experience, one cannot ignore the fundamentals on which the
campaign runs. The campaigners who overlook this fact end up making fewer
conversions.
A new campaign manager is likely to make a
few beginner mistakes but this blog is an attempt to list out a few aspects
that any professional marketer should consider before and while executing the
Pay per click campaign.
Before running the campaign
1. Not defining the Goals
What is the point of starting a journey
when you do not know where to go? A marketer should know what they are
expecting from the PPC campaign. Scrutinize the data to determine the campaign
goals.
The campaign goals help the marketers understand
how to steer the PPC campaigns to get the desired results. In order to get
there, the marketer should analyze the brand’s position in the market.
Determining the market position will help the campaigners assess opportunities
threats, strengths. The market analysis also reveals the weaknesses which could
affect the results of the campaign.
By evaluating the brand's market status,
the campaigners can have data-driven, measurable and realistic targets. It is a
waste of money if the campaign goal is not pre-defined.
2. Search, Display, Social PPC campaigns are different
It is important to understand the
difference between the above three campaign. Not realizing the differences
between them could be a costly mistake. The difference is the user's intent.
Search Engine Marketing is trying to reach
the qualified user on the internet through paid search listings.
The target consumers for the search campaigns
could be categorized into
•
Active online searchers of the business related products or services.
•
Appreciates smooth and easy experience.
•
Likely to react to the sales pitch
The Display Ad focuses on targeting
the audiences who are not familiar with the brand but are conducting business
related searches.
The consumers for the display ads are
likely to have the below-mentioned behavior
• “The
intent to shop” pointer swings from medium to low. They could be future
high-intent buyers. They are likely to not react to the ad copies
•
Unlikely to understand the product or service the business is providing.
•
Will appreciate more information about the business.
•
May react to subtle persuasion.
The Paid social advertising targets
the qualified audiences who are looking for the business related products or
services and the existing followers on the social media platforms.
The audiences for the social media
campaigns are likely to have the below-mentioned characteristics
• The audiences are unlikely to make a
purchase immediately.
• Not interested in the detailed
information about the business.
• Will appreciate and subscribe to the
seamless and consistent experience from the ad to the landing page.
It is important to categorize the qualified
online consumers; target them with the relevant advertisement which addresses
their requirements. It is very important to customize the landing page and the
ad copy for the target audience.
3. Not
mixing up the keywords
It is of paramount importance for the
campaign managers to aim and bid for the high performing keywords. The data
analysis will help in understanding the keywords.
The marketers should conduct a thorough
research and understand the search patterns. Tools like Uber suggest, SEM rush
and Keyword planner (for Google search campaigns) will give the marketers an
idea of how people were searching for their business related products or
services.
After the hummingbird update, the long-tail
keywords have become relevant to the SEO and SEM strategy.
It is important for the marketers to pick
the keywords by categorizing the potential consumers as people “who may need the products or services in the
future”, “high-intent shoppers who are
looking for other options” and “people who have already decided.”
The target keywords should have the right
mix of long tail keywords and specific search phrases that target the above-categorized
consumers. The marketers can avoid attracting the unwanted traffic by
identifying and using the negative
keywords.
4. Not checking the conversion funnel
It is always too late to test the website's
conversion funnel if you are doing it after the campaign is active. Most of the
Digital campaigners forget to check the conversion funnel before starting the
campaign.
The high-intent customer who clicks the
campaign expects seamless smooth experience, where he can register with his
contact details or easily conduct the sale transaction and check-out.
Dysfunctional or poor quality landing page
will be a costly mistake. The marketer should test the landing page before
starting the campaign.
5. Creating Ad copies that are easy to ignore
Often, marketers get carried away with the
market research and data analysis that they end up creating an Ad copy which is
best described as average.
The campaign managers should remember that
the competitors are also trying to target the online users with same online
search and buying intent. It is important to understand what the competitors
are doing; not to mimic them, but to do something different.
This is where the campaign managers should
bring in their creative expertise to create the compelling ads that inspire the
targeted audiences to click on the ad and respond to the call for action.
During the campaign
Running the paid campaign for the first
time is an overwhelming experience for the Digital marketers. There are several
metrics to focus and often one or the other if forgotten.
The great advantage of the digital
marketing is it allows optimizing the campaign to perform better when the
campaign is active. A few aspects to consider when the campaign is active are
listed below
1.
Get rid of non-performing
keywords
A quality search marketing campaigner can
assess the performance of keywords as soon as the campaign is active. The
long-tail keywords may take some time to show results but the monitoring
specific keyword performance is important.
Often the campaign managers get carried
away with adding new keywords to test without discarding the non-performing
keywords.
The non-performing keywords attract
unqualified prospects to the landing page. The bounce rate is likely to go high
because the destination where they land is not specifically what they are
looking for.
Cost per click will grow higher with lower
conversion rates. The following process helps to evaluate the keyword
performance.
• The Click through rate should be high which
should also compliment the quality score
which should not be, low. If these two factors are low, then the cost per click
is higher. Meaning, the marketer is spending more money on the non-performing
keyword.
• The Cost per acquisition should be pre-determined
while establishing the goals. The keywords with low click through rates
(usually less than 1%) and with the higher cost per acquisition should be
removed.
It is alright to get rid of the
non-performing keywords. Optimize the campaign with the keywords that are
registering more conversions.
2.
Not using Google Value track parameters
The search engines help the marketers track
every aspect of the campaign. The insights give a detailed picture to help
improve the efficiency of the campaigns. However, the account managers often
lose focus and end up following the wrong metrics.
The campaigners should use the Google value
track parameters to understand the data and optimize the campaign to generate
better results.
The value track parameters measure the
landing page efficiency and gather the information about the sources from where
the ad is getting the clicks.
Marketers can check the campaign relevancy
with the help of the same value track parameters. The value track parameters
are extremely useful for the account managers to understand and track the
campaign’s performance.
3.
Not having a daily budget strategy
Not every investor is same. Sometimes, the
account managers have to manage to run the campaign and generate the desired
results within the limited budget. In such scenarios, the marketers have to get
little creative.
Marketers can schedule the ads by
activating the campaigns only during the peak times. The bids can be lowered or
completely turned off at certain times. Campaign managers should closely
observe the time when the traffic is responding positively to the campaign. Ad
scheduling is one effective way to manage the daily budget of the campaign.
Measuring
the campaign
1. Cost per lead does not determine the
success of the campaign
Cost
per lead is one of the important metrics but focusing only on the lead
generation is a huge mistake. The purpose of the search ad campaigns has
shifted from merely generating clicks to motivating the qualified traffic to
register with the business.
The cost per lead is an indicator but does
not measure the success of the campaign. Many campaigners may have faced the
situation where the cost per lead is more yet the profits registered are low.
The focus of the campaigners should be on
the profits. Thorough data analysis will give you an insight on the basic
bottom line. Observe the keywords which attract low costs per sale and the
search terms that are generating more conversions. The focus of the marketer is
to generate the return on the investment.
2.
Avoiding call tracking
When
the campaign objective is to generate sales leads, the follow-up schedule is
quite important. The campaign managers should understand that the phone calls
are the important source to generate sales.
The Google’s call forwarding feature helps
us track the calls and schedule the appointments with the clients.
Call tracking is not a difficult process to
follow. The forwarding numbers used in the ad copy call extensions and record
the calls to the ad group. Marketers can place a tiny code in a site that
replaces the contact number with the forwarding number. This allows the
marketers to track how many calls the campaigns have generated from the
website.
In conclusions, the above-mentioned aspects are
several pointers that are often overlooked by both the experienced and the new
PPC campaign managers. It is important to register these aspects during several
stages of the PPC ad campaigns to deliver better results and generate the better
return on investments.