PPC ads are one of the most effective ways to pull in new customers.
With the average cost of a click-through in Google’s AdWords at $1 – $2, PPC ads are a relatively low-cost way to connect with more potential customers.
If you’re thinking about setting up a PPC campaign, keep reading for a quick look at how to set up an effective paid search strategy.
Step 1: Define your paid search strategy goals
Before you do a thing with your paid search campaign you must define your goals. Whether you’re just testing an idea or are launching a product, you need to know where you want to go if you want to get there.
Clearly define what you’re looking for in terms of revenue or engagement before you proceed.
Step 2: Understand your ideal customer
Once you know what you want to achieve, it’s time to define who you want to talk to with your PPC ads.
If you’re an established business, you should have a pretty good idea of who your customer base is. If you don’t have a firm grasp of this, take some time to research your current or prospective customer and define some key demographic traits like age, location, gender, and more.
Step 3: Target your audience
Now that you know who you’re trying to reach, it’s time to target that audience in your advertising platform.
For Google AdWords campaigns, the key is to target based on intent. For Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social media ads you can get very specific with targeting — drilling down by demographics, location, and other specifics.
Step 4: Create a killer landing page
Anytime you run a PPC campaign, you should always direct visitors to a dedicated landing page. Sending visitors to your homepage or a generic product page is usually a bad move for conversions.
Set up a landing page that guides visitors from the ad to your product or service.
Step 5: Create your ads
With your landing page in place and your audience selected and targeted, it’s time to set up your ads.
While it’s always best to have a copywriter develop the written content for your ads, Google AdWords allows you to upload several variations of your ads and serve the best performing ads to viewers. Social media ads on platforms like Facebook can be tested in much the same way.
PPC ads can even be run on Amazon. Consider working with an Amazon PPC Management Agency to really fine-tune your advertising on this platform.
Step 6: Analyse and optimise
Once your ads are running, monitor their performance through the dashboard in Google AdWords or the platform of your choice.
Click through rates, conversion rates, and cost per click are all important metrics to measure and optimize in your next campaign.
Step 7: Rinse and repeat
When your campaign is complete be sure to document its performance and what you think went right — or wrong.
Apply what you learned to your next campaign and see how you can improve performance.
Your turn
Setting up a paid search strategy doesn’t have to be difficult.
Just, make sure you do your research and get everything set up properly. Carefully analyze your results and apply what you’ve learned to your next campaign. If you want to win at marketing, you can’t be afraid to test everything and see what works.
