The PPC tips that will boost your marketing efficiency
2017 is shaping up to be a huge year for social and mobile advertising, and judging by marketing insights, brands will be increasingly able to connect with their customers and tell their story through the advertising features that are being released through paid digital channels.
With new online advertising trends comes new opportunities in the world of PPC to make your campaigns more effective. Here are some of our expert tips for getting your PPC to the top in the upcoming months:
Mobile-ise your PPC
The increasing use of mobile for online searches means added impressions from mobile searches, which in turn is a sure sign it’s high time to ensure your PPC campaigns are optimised for mobile. Some tactics to consider include:
- Set up a ‘click-to-call’ option on your ads to allow mobile users to contact you by phone directly, simply by clicking on your number (as the name of the option aptly suggests).
- Make sure your landing pages are optimised for mobile devices – both in terms of smartphones and tablets. Having a landing page that loads fast and is responsive is the best way to make certain you’re not losing out on mobile conversions.
Target your remarketing
Remarketing is another great tool to use to ensure your ads are successful and can be especially powerful when combined with mobile advertising. For the first time, you are able to remarket to device-specific searches.
For instance, you can show a remarketing ad on someone’s Android device after they’ve clicked your AdWords on their desktop and show them a mobile-specific call to action, such as Download the App.
Add a personal touch
We’re seeing a change in focus to creating personalised PPC advert experiences for the customers you’re targeting – more and more advertisers are turning their attention to creating ads specifically for set groups that they tailor based on gender, age and behavioural traits.
Polish your ad copy
This is a pretty obvious suggestion but the better your ads are written, the more conversions you’ll get. This, in turn, means increased CTR and consecutively a better Quality Score – arguably the most important metric to focus on if you are looking to run a cost-effective Google AdWords campaign.
Ad(d) extensions
Another reflection of the increase in the number of searches conducted on mobile (now 60% of all online searches) is the growing popularity of ad extensions. Ad extensions allow users to make contact with your business or find relevant information with one click – it is a great tool to minimise the amount of effort required of your customers, especially if it’s combined with psychological signals of lower commitment communicated through the ad copy e.g. ‘want to find out more, send me a text’ rather than committing to a call or a purchase.
Here are some suggestions to help you to make the most of your PPC ad extensions:
- Local businesses can include a map indicating the location of their business
- Product information is great to include in an extension – especially in terms of price, sales, ratings, etc.
- Big commercial or seasonal holiday deals, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Boxing Day, are also a key thing to include as an extension to boost sales
- Point to important internal pages on your site directly from the search results using ‘sitelinks’ extensions
- You can also use extensions as a review section to display customer feedback directly on the results page
Online retailers – Set up your Google shopping
For all businesses who sell goods online, setting up Google Shopping is essential. Google Shopping ads are set to become even more popular in 2017, with experts speculating that its capability will also increase over time to include more images and perhaps even video.
However, it should be noted that the main priority of businesses should stretch beyond investing in the most recent Google Shopping tools to focus on streamlining your ad’s user experience from the search results page to checkout. This includes allowing the user to save items to their shopping cart to return to at a later time and minimal-effort checkout process i.e. one-click payment.
Treat your PPC accounts like work in progress
In addition to setting up your AdWords campaigns well, it is also good practice to log into your account at least once a week – continuously spending time working on your AdWords is the most efficient way to make sure you are able to stay on top of your campaigns and identify any issues before they affect your budget.
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If you follow the tips we’ve shared with you here, you are very likely to see huge improvements in your PPC efficiency, with customer targeting precision, effective use of budget and an easy-to-manage marketing strategy. You can also get in touch with the Spindogs team if you need more advice on how to achieve your PPC advertising objectives.