Has the cold weather got you down? Don’t worry! Spring has sprung, which means warmer weather is just around the bend. To celebrate the season, we’re carrying on with our spring-cleaning series.
Have you touched base with your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns lately? If not, this is the perfect time to check in and see how you can fine–tune your PPC strategy.
1. Keywords: Put Low-Performing Keywords on Pause
You put your best words out to the universe, but sometimes, they don’t resonate with the public like you thought they would. There are dozens of reasons your keywords may not be converting visitors into customers. If they’re clicking but not buying, you’re spending money on people who aren’t paying you back.
This is where Pay-Per-Click advertising goes wrong. One of the main points of PPC is to be able to control advertising costs by putting your ads in front of the people who are most likely to be interested in them. If you’re paying for this attention without receiving a return on your investment, it’s time to consider putting those keywords on pause. Before you do, make sure to analyze why you aren’t seeing the return you had expected. This can be a big undertaking, but it’s important to know what isn’t working so you don’t fall into this trap in the future. Here are some things to consider:
- Did those keywords work well in the past? If so, what changed?
- Are you sending people to a poorly designed landing page?
- Is the landing page irrelevant to the terms that brought people there in the first place?
Before you click pause, make sure you recognize what’s causing the low performance in the first place. By understanding the deficiencies, you’ll be in a better position to refine your keyword targeting strategy further in future campaigns.
2. Display Placements: Stop Wasting Money on Mobile Apps and Irrelevant Website Placements
Campaigns on the Google Display Network are a fantastic way to proactively generate brand awareness to a targeted audience. With the demographic and interest targeting segments available through the Google Ads platform, there’s plenty of opportunities to get your ads in front of users who are likely to be interested in your business. However, without continued maintenance and evaluation of these campaigns’ placements, your money could be going to waste.
Irrelevant website placement can not only cost you money and lower campaign efficiency, but it can also hurt your company’s reputation. Let’s say you own a local coffee shop and you’re targeting websites with content discussing the keyword “coffee.” It makes sense on paper, but if your ad appears next to an article that talks about how coffee can poorly affect your health, you’re doing yourself and your brand a disservice.
Similar to auditing the website content where your ad is being displayed, make sure you’re also considering the user’s intent when they’re browsing that website. For example, ad placements on mobile apps often tend to generate a large amount of traffic through the Display Network. But, due to the user being distracted or short on time, they’re also one of the lowest converting.
3. Refreshing Ad Copy: Send the Stale Stuff to the Delete Pile
You should always be testing multiple ad variations in your account, but over time some ad copy can become repetitive and ineffective. If your audience sees the same variations too frequently, they’ll start to ignore it completely – which isn’t going to yield positive results when auditing your campaign’s click-through-rate (CTR) and traffic metrics. It’s not always easy to decide when it’s time to put old ads to rest. Here’s a look at a few things you should be thinking about:
- Does your ad blend in with those of your competitors? It’s easy to get caught up using the same phrases as everybody else. However, if your brand is blending in with the crowd, your ads are not doing their job.
- Have people stopped clicking? It’s possible you’ve given your audience ad fatigue. This can happen when the same ad is seen too frequently, causing your audience to lose interest and eventually stop clicking.
- Are your advertisements based on seasonality? Don’t forget to update your ads after major holidays and when the seasons change. There’s nothing more awkward than seeing an ad touting beach season in the middle of winter.
Looking to refresh your PPC strategy but not sure where to begin? Zero Gravity Marketing is here to help! Contact us today to get in touch with one of our PPC gurus.
