PPC is one of those fields where despite using the best technology, if you don’t have the right strategy then most of your efforts would go in vain.
PPC campaigns can be tricky and difficult to manage if the initial measures aren’t taken:
- Well themed account structure
- Creating highly relevant ad groups and persuasive ads
- Selecting keywords based on client and customer intent
- Using the Keyword match types to fulfill your requirement
- Using an effective conversion tracking tool
- Use of well optimized landing page
After the initial measures have been taken there may be others that could improve the performance like:
- Deep linking Keywords and ads for better user experience
- Usage of the right Negative terms to ward off the unwanted traffic
- Expanding the keyword profile with the help of various tools/reports
- Segmenting the ad groups by match types
- Using Site links
- A good Bid management system
For large PPC campaigns, there are smaller elements to look out for, which may lower the performance of the campaign which are not very obvious.
The element in question may live in a performing campaign but due to its poor performance may quietly bring down the campaign’s performance.
These elements could be
- Ad groups with no active ads
- Ads being outdated or poorly phrased
- Landing pages that go out of order
- Outdated site links
- Large Ad groups with low CTRs: Break them down to even further to target keyword based ads
- Broad terms creating more traffic and fewer conversions than expected
- Negatives conflicting with the keywords in the ad groups
- Terms with Good positions but gaining a high CPA and lower Conversion%: monitor them closely
And even after these measures are taken the work is never entirely done since the client has something new up on the site. These changes need to be incorporated into the existing structure and needs to be an effective part of the account.
Only after the new aspects are covered should the older campaigns be revisited for any improvements.
At times the client changes the entire website.
So you’ll just have to start a fresh with an entirely new structure to cater to the new website, since the old structure may be too outdated and making the necessary changes could create a bigger mess.
And so you see, it’s a never ending cycle.