This blog is the second in our series of blog posts, in which we will be covering Google Pay per Click (PPC) Advertising. Our last blog mentioned about the changes in PPC Ad locations and how they might affect not only the cost, but also the readability of Ads.

In this post we will be covering Top Tips for the campaign itself and how you can make sure you get the best from your budget – by explaining the top tips we use at Clockwork when setting up PPC campaigns.

Before we begin, at Clockwork we offer this service to all our clients as our Digital Marketing Team are fully conversant with intelligently setting up PPC Campaigns.  Therefore, all we need to know is what budget we have at our disposal; how long the campaign should last and, more importantly, what’s the purpose of the campaign – promotions, new services etc.  All the keyword research and Ad writing and monitoring is covered by Clockwork          .

To give you a quick oversight, this is what you will see when you are setting up a PPC Campaign:

• Campaign Name: This is advisable to allow you to distinguish between campaigns (if you are running multiple campaigns, or running campaigns for different clients)
   
• Ad Groups: If you are planning several different Ads and are pulling from the same budget, this is where you can add several different campaigns, Ads and keywords.
   
• Settings: How much is the budget, what area are you targeting (you can target cities and towns, an area or a country, depending on your market reach etc.),
   
• Are Ads only to be live during certain times of each day or only active on specific days?
   
• The Keywords: Which keywords are you targeting, and which keywords are you not?
   
• The Ads themselves:  Once created, this is where they are stored for editing, and you can view how effective they are.

Having looked briefly into what PPC Settings looks like, we can now onto the important stuff: i.e.  The Top Tips for setting up and maintaining PPC Campaigns:

• Initial Keyword Research: Carry out exhaustive keyword research, so when you start your campaign you have a broad range of keywords in which your Ads will appear.  Over time you can refine this by honing in on the more successful keywords for the remainder of the campaign.
   
• Creating the Ads:  Make sure you create multiple Ads (no more than 10), which include some of the keywords, as well as the message e.g. Devon Hotels or Hotels in Devon as these are terms customers will use to search.  As with keywords, you can pause or edit unsuccessful Ads over time so the ‘cream will rise’ and the best Ads will be displayed more.
   
• Pay attention to Quality Score: If you have a keyword or phrase that has a ‘poor’ quality rating, consider removing this keyword so it doesn’t drag down the overall Quality Score of the Ad Group, the Quality Score has direct influence on the whole Ad Group’s minimal CPC.
   
• Get negative:  Use negative keywords, so you don’t appear for search terms that are not relevant to your product or service. This will keep your costs down, and also filter out the traffic that is not relevant to your site. (This feature is found in the Keywords Section)
   
• Show your location:  If your service is specific e.g. a hotel in Exeter, in your Ad mention where you are, or the county.  This way, users looking for hotels in the South West, but not Exeter will not click on your Ad because it doesn’t interest them.  This is much better than wasting some of your budget on uninterested parties, only to have them leave again.
   
• Geo-Targeting:  If you know that 85% of your business comes from within a 50mile radius or from 3 particular cities in the UK, you can set up your campaign to target specific areas or cities at the click of a button.  Why waste money on clicks falling on people outside your catchment area? By using geo-targeting, you can save money and also achieve a higher conversion rate.
   
• Carry on Keywords: If a user searches for Special Offers, make sure the page they click onto has Special Offers on it. This will stop the customer losing focus on what they were looking for when they clicked onto your site.
   
• Select the right Landing Page: Send Special Offers to the Offers Page, Restaurants in Exeter to the Restaurant Page on your website. This might seem like common sense (which it is), but the number of businesses setting Ads up which simply direct to their homepage, is quite high. The Ad will show the URL of the website to which you are being sent, but when you click you should be taken to the correct page.
   
• Analyse and act: If you notice you are getting all your traffic from 2 Ads, turn off the others.  If you notice you are getting the best CTR when your ad is positioned 3rd in a list, you can set this as a preferred setting.  By regularly checking the PPC Campaign you can see trends, and adapt to meet these to optimise your budget.
   
• Use Google Analytics: Google Analytics provides more in-depth analysis than Ad Words, so make good use of this free tool to make sure you are getting the best value for your money.

These are the top tips that the Digital Marketing Team use when setting up and monitoring a PPC Campaign for a client. If you would like to know more please get in touch.

The next and final blog in this series will focus on the different types of PPC Strategies, which you can use.

Written by Niall McCusker