Pay per click marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness online, to drive traffic to your website, and to optimize your marketing budget. As the name suggests, pay per click marketing is a method of placing your ad on an affiliate site, or search engine such as Google Adwords, and you only pay for the ad if somebody clicks it and visits your website. It is obviously the goal of every business owner to make the most impact for every dollar they spend on marketing, and with pay per click marketing, you only pay for the leads that you actually generate. And the more leads, the more sales you’re able to convert.
However, pay per click advertisement can a waste of your valuable time if you do not execute it well. Even though you’re only paying for clicks you actually get, if visitors come to your site and then immediately leave, you are wasting money. To make your pay per click marketing campaign as effective as possible, we’ve put together a list of tips for getting the most bang for your buck.
- Don’t move a muscle until you’ve set clear goals for your campaign.
Before you even begin your PPC campaign, make sure you understand what you are trying to accomplish through your campaign. Are you wanting to increase brand awareness? Are you trying to gain sales? Are you introducing a new product or service? Understanding the purpose of your pay per click marketing campaign will help you develop the best keywords to accomplish that goal. - Conduct keyword research for PPC.
The first time you dip your toe into the pool of pay per click advertisement, we recommend using a professional PPC agency to help you figure out what you’re doing. If you use a professional marketing agency for managed paper click advertising, your provider will help you gather analytics for the most effective keyword development. If you’re trying to DIY it though, Google offers information such as what search terms were entered in the instances that users clicked your ads, and commonly searched related words. This information is valuable when developing the keywords that are most effective for your campaign. - Review and improve your tactics.
It is important to regularly review how relevant your keywords are and make changes to improve them. If a keyword pops 200 times, but the end user is there only clicking it less than two of those times, you know you can trash those keywords. Even keywords that are effective at one point in time may lose effectiveness over time as trends change; the most effective pay per click marketing campaigns are constantly watched and revised to stay relevant. - Make sure your landing page matches the keyword in your pay per click advertisement.
Many businesses just link their PPC ads words to their homepage. This leads to a high bounce rate, because it gives the user the responsibility for finding the information that drew them to your page to begin with. Make sure that the key words you used to attract clicks matches the landing page they are dropped off at, to keep them engaged in your product or service, and to accomplish your ultimate goal (whether that is making them familiar with your business, informing them of your promotion, or ultimately, making a sale.) - Test several different strategies out to learn about your target audience’s responses.
One great way to identify the most effective keywords is to carry out split testing. Launch two keyword campaigns at the same time, and compare the effectiveness of each. You can use differences in the campaigns’ success rates to identify the keywords and strategies that are most effective. - Use long-tail keywords.
Let’s say that you sell pianos. If your keyword is just “pianos,” you might get clicks from people who are just writing a research paper on pianos, and have no intention of ever buying one. On the other hand, if you make your keyword “best brand-new piano to buy,” you stand a better chance of attracting visits from users who are ready to be converted into customers.
Do you have any other great tips for pay per click marketing? Please contribute them in the comment section below!