Paid Advertising on Search Engines: Tips on how to create and manage a successful pay-per-click marketing campaign

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1 Paid Advertising on Search Engines: Tips on how to create and manage a successful pay-per-click marketing campaign

2 What are the Benefits of Pay-per-click Advertising? The goal of any website is to attract as many visitors as possible. Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC) is a great way to quickly increase your exposure on the web. It is mainly used at the start of an advertising or marketing campaign for an immediate increase in website traffic. Ad placements target your audience directly PPC uses targeted placements in search engine results and specific websites that are carefully chosen. Many of the PPC ad networks let you decide on the keywords and ad placements your marketing team has identified at the beginning of a marketing push. These decisions are key in hitting your target audience. Everything can be optimized Google Adwords and other PPC ad platforms offer marketing tests. You'll be able to tweak and test many attributes copy, geographic area, time of day, calls to action and many more so that your PPC marketing efforts are fine-tuned and maximizing your return on investment. Top Priorities when Planning a PPC Effort Choose appropriate keywords and ad placements for your target audience. Select the proper geographical area of focus. Properly allocate your budget to maximize return on investment. Analyze ad performance at certain hours on specific days. Sift through data analytics for the attributes that have the most impact. Make informed decisions based on multiple data sets.

3 How to Structure Your PPC Marketing Campaign Every marketing campaign is only as good as its plans and structure. Simply throwing money at an advertising effort is just a waste of time and money. Here we'll highlight a few guidelines to help you stay organized and use your time strategically and efficiently. 1. Take a good look at the structure of your website. How exactly is your website structured? What sort of service or product pages are vital for your upcoming campaign? These pages will inform nearly everything about your marketing efforts. Make sure that your ad copy and language match the information already available on your website. Identify the core products/services of your marketing campaign and consider updating your web copy with any applicable changes from the campaign. You may also consider an entire revamp of the products and services you are targeting. A graphical update will make the landing pages look current and attractive. This is a great opportunity to separate any products/services into their own page to make ad analytics easier to keep track of in the near future. 2. Pick the geographic locations you'd like to target. Since most PPC ad platforms will allow you to tailor your ads to a specific geographic location, now is the time to begin grouping parts of your campaign for a region or city. This separation will make it easier to evaluate the performance of ads in certain areas. Don't forget to customize your campaign to each region! Market trends and demand will differ in each geographic location, and you can also integrate location-specific pricing, specials, and contests. Do the research now, and you'll see it pay off as your campaign matures. 3. Make your campaign "responsive". Your current website should already have a responsive web design that accounts for users that access your site from desktops or mobile devices. Keep in mind that not everyone that finds your targeted ads will be at home on their desktop. Your click through rates will suffer greatly if your ads and landing pages are not optimized for the user's device of choice.

4 Effective Ad Copy 4. Create ad groups that include groupings of keywords. When you're writing your ad copy, you'll want to grab a search engine user's attention. You want it to stand out, but the last thing you want is an overly complicated or unnecessarily long ad. Grouping keywords into ad groups lets your target extremely specific groups of users. You're copy will be much more effective, and you'll see higher click through and conversion rates. 5. Include keywords for the ad group within the ad copy. Keywords from a search query will show up in your ad, but they will be bolded and stand out from the rest of the text. You'll want to have these keywords throughout the ad copy, but it is very important to include the keywords in the headline. It's the first thing a user will see, and it gives them a firm idea of what to expect from the rest of the ad copy. 6. Include prices and discounts. Always include your current prices and discounts. Any special offers or discounts that may apply should also be included. PPC is not about brand recognition or a broad idea of web presence. You want to give the reader a sense of urgency and time-sensitive opportunity. It's fine to include any dates or expirations, but make sure your advertising team stays on top of these dates. The last thing you want is a past date that makes the ad look old and neglected. 7. Use calls to action. There's no reason to keep users guessing. Explicitly state how they should act once they've read through your ad copy. Calls to action also help you analyze click throughs as you'll have a much better idea of what that user wants out of their visit to your website.

5 Optimization and Monitoring 8. Monitor each segment of your overall marketing campaign. Once you've got your targeted ads out on different platforms, it's time to take a step back and see how your PPC campaign is performing. Review each segment for its effectiveness based on previously mentioned criteria geographic area, multiple devices, etc. and find areas that need improving. Consider all of your options, and be sure to weigh the return on investment of increasing your budget in certain segments. 9. Root out any keywords that are underperforming. Make a complete list of every search term and keyword that is leading to clicks. Also take a look at any keywords which generate clicks but rarely lead to conversions. Is the ad copy appropriately worded so that users are given the correct impression? Are any of the keywords simply not relevant to the users the ad is reaching? There's no reason to stay attached to keywords that are providing a low return on investment. Eliminate them so you can funnel your marketing dollars towards the segments and keywords that are performing well. 10. Tweak and adjust time of day and day of week. PPC ad platforms give you plenty of room for optimization, and the time at which your ad appears for targeted users is yours to control. Collect data that gives you an idea of conversions at specific times. Of course, you'll want to double your efforts at times with a high conversion rate, but you also have the option of day parting your ad spend to avoid wasting ad dollars on off-peak times.

6 Contact Us Looking to start a new pay-per-click marketing campaign? Have further questions on how best to get your ads targeted at the right users? Talk to SiteWired Web Solutions to find the right solution for you! Visit for further information on web design and development, online marketing, and website optimization.