Improve Your PPC In Just 25 Minutes This Week

Think it takes hours to make significant strides in your PPC campaign’s performance? Think again. You can make impactful changes in as little as 25 minutes.

While every account needs a good spring cleaning now and again, below are some quick tips to impact performance day to day.

• Increased Click-Through Rates

Interested in increasing the traffic from your paid search efforts? Who isn’t? First, take a look at ad copy performance for a 30- to 60-day period. Remove ad copy driving low click-through rates and rotate in test versions. Try testing a stronger call to action within the new version.

Next, cut out insignificant impressions. When you log into your AdWords account, set your date range for 30 to 60 days. Begin by sorting keywords from highest impressions to lowest.

Viewing your account at a keyword level, locate the terms falling below your benchmark CTR—2.14% for those in the auto industry. If they aren’t converting and there isn’t room to increase their position on the SERP, remove them.

Low click-through-rate terms suggest that you may be reaching a less qualified audience. The resulting impact will be fewer impressions with traffic remaining relatively flat, driving up overall CTR.

• Cut Wasteful Spend

Find pockets of additional spend to play with by cutting the budget where it’s not resulting in a positive performance. Start with the same 30- to 60-day date range and sort terms by highest spending to lowest spending. Pause any keywords driving high spend with little conversions or return on investment. This is especially helpful for advertisers with limited budgets. Instead, allocate that investment toward higher performing keywords.

Next, review search query reports. This is especially important if you run broad match keywords. Select a 30-day date range and sort the queries in order from highest to lowest cost. Are terms coming through that aren’t related to your product? Make them a negative.

Look for trends. Are similar search queries coming through and can you create one negative to prevent anything similar from coming through?

Again, this is important particularly for those running broad match terms, which can often lead to ads showing for lots of unrelated terms.

• Review Your Ad Scheduling Strategy

Does it make sense for you to target your audience at 4 in the morning? Maybe, but maybe not. This is where ad scheduling comes in handy. To see which times of day perform best for your brand, go to the Dimensions tab in AdWords and view time hour of day and day of week.

Are there hours of the day that you’re seeing a decent amount of ad spend but little to no ROI? Are there days that you’re advertising when your business is closed and customers can’t reach out with questions? Exclude them. Save your ad spend for the days and hours that perform the best for your brand.

Check out this article on Search Engine Watch for more details on how to start your ad scheduling strategy.

• Monitor Your Geo Targeting

Geo targeting is important for multiple reasons. Just as you want to ensure that your ideal audience is seeing your ads, you also want to ensure that you’re not spending precious ad dollars on those outside your Geo range. If you’re a car dealer in Philadelphia, PA, for example, you probably don’t want to target searchers 300 miles away in Pittsburgh, PA.

To help narrow your Geo range, go to the Dimensions tab in your account and select Geographic under View. What regions are contributing to the higher conversion rates and where are you spending ad dollars that aren’t converting? From here, you can target and exclude locations based on this performance and make sure that you’re reaching your best performing audience.

 

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—Robin Tarleton is a Paid Search Specialist at Stream Companies, a full-service Philadelphia-area advertising agency.