If you’ve outsourced your PPC strategy then you should be certain that the company you hired is practicing all the latest tactics to maximize your return on investment (ROI). If you haven’t questioned your PPC company in a while, then now is a great time to start asking questions about how the company is contributing to your bottom line.
When it comes to the use of Google’s AdWords to drive traffic to your site, there are several tricks that your company should be using. Here are a few of them.
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Shopping Campaigns
This trick only applies if you’re selling products. However, if you are running an e-commerce site that sells products, then your company should be using Shopping Campaigns.
Formerly known as Product Listing Ads (PLAs), Shopping Campaigns will display an image of your product to a shopper who is searching for that product and, presumably, ready to buy. This is a great way to get exposure at the low end of the sales funnel.
You company just needs to create a data feed with your product information and a high quality image that leaves a good impression on potential customers. Then, when people search for relevant keywords, they’ll see your product.
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Use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool to Find Popular Related Keyword Searches
Google not only gives you the opportunity to market your products or services online, it also provides you with tools that you can use to optimize your digital marketing campaign for maximum performance. One of those tools is the Keyword Planner.
You can access the Keyword Planner from your AdWords account. It’s under the “Tools” option in the top menu. Once there, you can click on the option to “Search for new keywords, using a phrase, website, or category.” That will bring you to a powerful tool that will help you get the most out of AdWords.
One of the best ways to use the Keyword Planner is to find search terms related to the terms that you’re already using. For example, if your website is selling blue jeans, you might have a search campaign for the phrase “blue jeans.” If you plug the phrase “blue jeans” into the keyword planner, you’ll see a tab towards the middle of the screen labeled “Keyword ideas.” Click on that and you’ll see suggestions related to “blue jeans.”
As of this writing, the phrase “light blue jeans” gets 1,900 hits per month but only costs 96 cents per click. That compares favorably with the far more generic “blue jeans” that costs $2.29 per click. So, if your company sells light blue jeans, you should create an ad campaign based on that phrase.
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Use YouTube Ads
Google isn’t just a search engine and advertising network. It’s an online behemoth that owns countless properties. One of those properties is YouTube.
Fortunately for you, that means you can run ads on YouTube videos and generate conversions from people who are checking out some of the latest viral content.
Google also gives you some flexibility with how you advertise on YouTube. You can opt for a cost-per-view (CPV) model or a cost-per-click (CPC) model. You can also create your own ads using either Adwords for Video or the Ad Gallery.
Of course, this option requires an expense that’s higher than a typical text-based ad campaign. You’ll have to create a video and upload it to YouTube. However, the state of video technology today makes it economical and easy to produce something that’s an attention-getter in a competitive environment. Talk to your PPC company about this option today if you haven’t already done so.
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Use the Conversion Optimizer or Enhanced Bidding
You want to stretch your advertising dollars as far as you can take them. To that end, you should let Google do much of the heavy lifting for you by using its features to maximize your ROI.
If you have a strong conversion history, you can enable the “Conversion Optimizer.” This is a radio button that you click in the “Bidding option” section that tells Google to effectively go get as many conversions as possible without going over budget. It also has a history of improving conversions on the Search Partner Network (SPN).
However, if you’re not getting enough conversions with your existing campaign, then you’ll have to opt for Plan B, Enhanced CPC bidding. That’s an automated means to adjust your bid up and down for each auction to increase your conversions. This might end up charging you more than your maximum CPC amount, but it’s a good way to get a read on the investment necessary to drive traffic to your site.
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Use AdWords Campaign Experiments
Most digital marketers are quite familiar with the concept of split testing (sometimes called “A/B testing”) and the acronym ABT (“Always Be Testing”). Fortunately, Google AdWords lets you do some testing with Campaign Experiments.
With Campaign Experiments, you get to test a change to just a portion of your ad’s auctions. Then, you can see how that change affected your conversion rate. If it gave you an improvement, then you’ll obviously want to scale that change out to all of your auctions and see if the improved conversion continues.
For example, if you’re running a company that sells blue jeans and advertises with the keyword “blue jeans,” you might try an experiment with the phrase “light blue jeans” and see what kind of conversion rate you get. To do that, you simply set up your experiment with the new keyword and tell AdWords what percentage of your auctions should test that experiment. Later on, you check the results. It’s that simple.yea
However, the experiment is random. Google’s engine decides on-the-fly whether or not your experiment should be applied during any given auction. This means that the results are not always 100% reliable. Still, they’re a good starting point for strategy changes.
Google will provide you with a helpful table that will show you how your experiment performed versus your “normal” campaign. That will give you a quick executive summary of the effectiveness of your experiment, and you make changes accordingly.
