PPC marketing is hugely effective – when it’s done right. When you can’t get a PPC campaign off the ground or you are struggling to make your usual strategy pay off, it can be very disheartening. Here’s what you need to do to get your PPC campaign back on track.
Troubleshoot The Issue
The first thing that you need to do when a PPC campaign isn’t panning out as you had hoped is to work out exactly what has gone wrong. Once you have identified the issue, you can diagnose the root cause and not only fix the issue but also put in place a plan to prevent the same issue from affecting your next campaign.
Settings
Setting your PPC ad account up is simple and doesn’t take much time to do. However, if you don’t do it properly, then you will pay the price for it later as it will hinder the performance of all of your campaigns.
One of the most common mistakes that campaigns make is setting the wrong type for their PPC campaigns. It is important to choose a campaign type that closely aligned with your predefined marketing goals. The campaign type that you choose will have an impact on exactly where your ads appear, as well as the type of ads that you are able to create.
Another important setting to check is your location setting. A common mistake among first-time PPC campaigners is setting a location radius that is far too wide in the hopes of capturing an unrealistic number of people. While a wider radius might get your ads in front of more people, you will ultimately end up wasting ad spend and spreading yourself too thin.
On the other hand, the businesses that are willing to take their time and get very specific with their location settings are able to reap the benefits. If you have any marketing data that provide you with some precise GPS coordinates or zip code that you can use, you should consider doing so.
Another important setting to look at is your ad rotation settings. These settings will determine how often your ads will be shown. Google’s default settings are to optimize your ad rotation to maximize clicks, but these are not going to be the best settings for every campaign to use. These settings will give priority to ads that are expected to generate more clicks. You should experiment with different settings to see which one works best for you, many PPC marketers have had luck with the rotate indefinitely setting.
Ad Extensions
Add extensions will provide additional information about your business alongside your ad. Taking advantage of this ad format often improves the visibility of your PPC advertising and ultimately leads to an uptick in the number of clicks and the overall click-through rate.
For example, sitelink extensions are additional links that can be added to a search ad, or there are call-out extensions that will provide additional detail to a viewer and can be used to give context to an ad.
There are a number of ad extensions available today. It is worth doing some research and seeing which type is the best fit for the content you are marketing.
Timing
Lots of people severely underestimate how important timing is to the success of PPC advertising. If your ads aren’t being shown at the right time of day, then they are never going to get in front of the people that you really want to see them.
Ad scheduling, sometimes known as day-parting, enables you to have your ads shown at specific times and kept back at the others. So, if you wanted, you could elect to only have your ads shown during the hours that your business is open and able to respond to any queries.
No Feedback
If you aren’t generating reports from your PPC campaigns and getting yourself valuable feedback on how successful they have been, you are never going to be able to learn the lessons that you need in order to improve future campaigns. Every PPC campaign should be subject to a thorough audit once it has resolved, so you can dissect exactly what went right and what went wrong. This will tell you what you need to build upon next time.
Try Different Keywords
Sometimes all you need to do to get a campaign back on track is to rethink the keywords that you are targeting. In most cases, where a PPC campaign is floundering for no obvious reason, PPC marketers find that they have chosen keywords that are too far-reaching. Going relatively broad with your keywords will enable you to target a wide audience. But if you overdo this and go too far, then you are ultimately going to end up being drowned out by much larger competitors.
Try Refining Your Copy
Another vital component of any marketing campaign is the copy that you use. Copy that is not up to par is always going to struggle to make much of an impact. In order to be as effective as possible at generating click through, your copy needs to have three core components. It needs to make it clear what the USP of your business is, the benefits of choosing your business, and a call to action encouraging them to click through.
Don’t Be Afraid To Pull The Plug
If a campaign just isn’t working and you are struggling to diagnose why, don’t be afraid to pull the plug on the entire thing. Keeping a campaign alive when there is no realistic hope of turning it around will mean sinking more money into a doomed project. If your campaign goes into a tailspin that you cannot recover from then your costs are quickly going to spiral out of control and go far beyond what is reasonable for whatever meager returns you are able to generate.
When a PPC strategy isn’t working and your campaign is floating adrift, it is vital that you diagnose and correct the problem as quickly as possible. Make sure that you run through all of the steps above, but don’t be afraid to shut it down if there is no hope.