PPC: is it just a waste of money?
Many beginners to PPC and Adwords get to the conclusion that PPC is a waste of money and they stop using it because they are spending money without a return. Before getting into the PPC tips part and since this article is mainly for newbies to PPC, I thought it’s better to state that PPC is not a waste of money; on the contrary is a fast way to get customers and make sales online which tends to converts better than any other tool (with the exception of SEO).
So, if you are using PPC but not making any money, don’t give up but try to get educated on how to optimize your campaigns for a better ROI. The following ppc tips will certainly guide you in the right direction.
#1 – Take a moment to think about your account structure
Many beginners to AdWords tend to create one campaign and one ad group and throw everything in there. That’s not a good practice and while it’s not easy to explain everything in this post, your AdWords account should mimic your website’s structure.
This means that if you have 4 product categories then in your account you can have 1 campaign with 4 ad groups (one for each product). Furthermore if you target more than one countries and languages i.e. English and Spanish, you need to have 2 campaigns one for each language.
If you are like most people that have everything in one ad group then either hire a professional to setup the campaigns in a more efficient way or take a look again at the guidelines provided by the AdWords team.
#2 – The home page of your website doesn’t have to be your landing page for all ads
When creating an AdWords ad you are asked to provide the URL people will visit once they click on the ad. Most people enter the home page of their websites but this is not necessarily correct. In fact it is more appropriate to redirect users to a page that has more information about the products/services advertised in the ads.
For example if you are selling engagement rings then you should redirect users to the engagement rings page of your website that has the different types of rings you sell and not the home page that has a list of all the products you are selling.
#3 – Don’t forget about mobile ads
I mentioned in my ecommerce tips article that as a seller you should not forget about mobile even if you are not expecting to make any sales directly from mobile devices. The same is true for advertisers.
You should have ads targeted to mobile devices, with a reduction in the bid compared to desktop even if you are not expecting to make sales from mobile. The reason is simple, it is statistically proven that a lot of people start their search for products and services on their mobile and then continue to desktops.
#4 – Use Ad Extensions to increase your CTR
Ad extensions make your ads more clickable by adding more items in the ad copy like direct links to your site’s product pages or contact us page or adding an extra line highlighting your best advantages and many more.
Ad Extensions are easy to setup and can make a big difference in your CTR. Visit the ad extensions page for more details on how to implement them.
#5 – Grow your campaign if it’s profitable
That’s a very basic tip but you should only grow your campaigns if they are profitable. PPC in general is an easy way to spend a lot of money without realizing it so it is important to track the performance of your campaign and add more funds and budget only if you are making profit.
If you are not making any profits then your first action is to optimize your campaign and make it profitable and then spend more money.
#6 – Enable Conversion tracking with values
This is related to the above and what is important is to have conversion tracking in your campaign not only for the purposes of tracking the number of conversions but also the conversion value. This is sometimes a bit tricky to setup but it will certainly help you identify if a campaign is profitable or not.
If you have difficulties setting up conversion tracking with conversion value, you can always hire someone from odesk to for a very low cost to do it for you.
#7 Have numbers in your ads
By numbers I don’t mean any random numbers but offers, prices and discounts. Ads that highlight special offers by giving exact number ie. ‘45% off retail prices’ or ‘hosting packages from $9.99’ perform better than ads without any references to numbers.
What else is missing from the list of PPC tips for beginners to AdWords?
what is the easiest way to optimize a campaign?
Dave Hi
There are many ways to optimize a new PPC campaign but in general you should try and improve your CTR, average position and quality score. Try to test new keywords, new ad text until you find which one performs better. Review your campaign for negative keywords and make sure that you also take advantage of sitelinks, callouts and other features that make your ads more appealing. Don’t try to make too many changes too fast but be patient in between changes.
Hope this helps a bit
Alex
Hi Alex, I just started with PPC management and all the above tips are very helpful for me. Thanks for the post.
Max
Hi Max,
Thanks for your comment and apologies for the later reply but did not see your comment earlier.
PPC is easy to get started but difficult (it may need time) to master and it’s a very good way to promote your product and services on Google.
Thanks again
Alex
Thanks for your post, Alex. It still seems like a recurring problem, getting clients who bunch all their keywords into one ad group… I don’t understand who originally touted this approach to AdWords campaign set-up but I guess even I was guilty of it back in the day when I first started using AdWords. 😉
Maybe you could talk about the psychology of ad pricing and how that can impact CTR and conversion rates?
Thanks Alex for sharing such suggestions on adwords PPC campaign. The mostly I would like to value this days on mobile traffic. I appreciate you for sharing about mobile traffic. I would like to get details article on landing page. Hope you will give us a good idea on optimizing landing pages.
Thanks for sharing! I am using SKAG’s (single keyword ad groups). For me this is insurance because I know that I am only bidding on keywords I want to bid on. If you leave it up to Google, you never know what you are going to get. Ya it causes me a little more work but in my opinion the juice is worth the squeeze
Was unaware that PPC will be so much advance and be more effective if sorted properly. The idea of promoting via mobile ads was quite interesting, which never came across. Also, the interesting part I feel that simply adding the numbers in the ads can increase my ad performance
It is a great experience to read your blog. The tips given on how to set up a PPC campaign are very useful for beginners. Thanks for sharing this valuable information. Keep sharing more articles.
Mobile ads are more effective as compare to the desktop ads. The reason behind it is that 70% of traffic comes from mobile/android devices to google search engine.
Awesome!! to add it up. PPC campaigns cost money. So, It is important to draw a proper plan. where necessary, carry out A/B testing. that is 2 ad types for one campaign to ascertain the best ad for a particular campaign.