Adopting PPC marketing in your digital marketing mix can prove to be a smart move for the success of your business. Studies suggest that around 80% of Digital ad revenue in the US is generated by Google which clearly states the importance of sponsored Google ads for businesses. The prominent reach of Google ads backed by their simplicity makes them a lucrative option for businesses.

Whether you are a veteran in the field or newbie, you would want to invest as little as possible on PPC marketing. Hence, it is important to plan your PPC marketing campaign correctly. Remember, it is the margin between what you invest and what you generate that decides the success or failure of your advertising.  If you wish to invest less but still generate more leads and sales, then here are some tips that can help you out in creating a beneficial PPC marketing campaign for your business.

KNOW YOUR GOAL

Acting without planning will lead you nowhere. The same goes for PPC marketing as well. Before you create an ad, you must know what purpose it needs to fulfill. Without a clear goal in your mind, you cannot determine the success or failure of your ad as there would be no way to measure it. Hence, it is necessary to have a roadmap of the advertising campaign with clearly set goals.

From driving-in traffic to your website, to generating leads or sales, you can determine the output of your PPC campaign and plan accordingly. It will not only provide you clarity on preferred actions but also make it easy for you to understand where they will lead to.

IDENTIFY THE STRONG AND WEAK KEYWORDS

Keywords play an important role in any marketing mix. In PPC marketing too, they determine the success of your advertising campaign. If you wish to save money on PPC marketing, then you must optimize your ad campaign by identifying the high performing keywords and the ones that are comparatively weak and do not give the desired results.

High performing keywords are the ones that bring in more traffic, influence CTR (click-through rate) and increase conversions. You must identify these keywords and focus on them as they bring you business. However, an important tip here would be that you must not stick with those keywords only. Make changes to them and try new combinations to know what would be optimal for you.

Other than high performing keywords, you should also look for keywords in your ad campaign that are not performing and are wasting your money. These keywords hamper the overall impact of your advertisement and bring it down. Hence you must remove them. Low performing keywords can be identified as those which:

• Do not occur by any means in a search query
• Do not influence clicks
• Do not lead to conversions

If your keywords come in any one of the above-mentioned categories then it means that they are not adding any value to your content instead are degrading it. Hence, you must get rid of such keywords.

MAKE USE OF NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

If you do not want to spend your money on irrelevant clicks, then you must know the source of those clicks. It is here that negative keywords become important as they can save you a lot of money that otherwise may go waste due to clicks that do not add value to your business. These keywords help in preventing your ad in appearing in an irrelevant search query, thus reducing the chances of such unnecessary clicks. By identifying the Negative keywords you can optimize your ad and traffic coming to your website.

Let’s understand what negative keywords are. For example, if you have a business selling car accessories, then you can create Google ads using keywords like Car accessories. However, it is also possible that your ad also appears in searches related to car repair, old accessories, etc. As you do not deal with car repair or other things, then getting clicks for search queries will not prove to be beneficial for you. You will get visitors that are seeking for some other service than those provided by you. Getting clicks from such customers will cost you a decent amount without any reciprocation. Hence, you need to prevent them which can be done by adding negative keywords to your ad campaign.

ADJUST THE GEOLOCATION SETTINGS

Making certain adjustments to your ad’s Geolocation settings can further help you optimize your PPC marketing campaign. If your business does not have a global reach, then you need not show ads in those regions where you do not sell. Work on the geolocation settings of your ads to showcase them only in regions that mark your territory. It is especially important if you are selling through a brick and mortar store and have a limited reach.

CONCEPTUALIZE COMPELLING ADS FOR PPC MARKETING

Your PPC marketing campaign will not work in case your ads are not compelling enough to lead conversions. The ads are the first thing that every visitor is going to see, hence you should ensure that they make a good impression on visitors and attract them. Besides, they should be engaging and relevant so that they can prompt visitors to take some action. A well-curated ad copy that directly puts across your product or service can help improve the CTR (click-through-rate) ensuring the success of your PPC campaign.

MAKE USE OF EXTENSIONS

Another way to improve the quality score of your PPC Marketing campaign and its CTR is by using extensions. These extensions provide additional information about your business making it easier for the customers to know more about you. There are numerous types of extensions that you can add to your ad to increase the click-through-rate (CTR). Some of them are call extensions, locations extensions, app extensions, etc.

CHECK THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PPC CAMPAIGNS BY A/B TESTING

To remain in the marketing game, you must test and upgrade your techniques, and the same goes for PPC marketing campaigns as well. A/B Testing can help you in understanding the overall success of your ad campaign and the loopholes therein, which can be corrected. For A/B testing there are four major areas in which you should check your ad campaign and these are:

• Headline
• Body
• Keywords
• Links

You must regularly conduct A/B testing of your PPC marketing campaigns to check their effectiveness.

PPC marketing requires your time and investment. You must put in efforts in the right direction to make them count. If you wish to create an effective PPC marketing campaign that generates leads without costing you heavily, then you must employ the tips mentioned above. It will help you optimize your PPC ads and give great returns.