PPC Optimization Checklist

We've prepared some Best Practices for you to use:

• Get to know your Quality Score

  Google assigns a Quality Score to both your keywords and PPC advertisements based on their quality and relevancy. It’s used to calculate your cost per click (CPC), which is then multiplied by your maximum bid to determine your ad rank in the ad auction process (Quality Score x Max CPC = Ad Rank). 

  Your Quality Score is affected by a number of parameters: Your click-through rate (CTR), the relevance of each keyword to its ad group, the quality and relevancy of the landing page, your historical Google Ads account performance, and your ad text’s relevancy.

  The higher your quality score, the higher you will rank on Google, and the less you will pay.

  

• Be a step ahead of your competitors

  First, identify your PPC competitors and make a list of their domain names. Second, find out what keywords your competitors are bidding on, as this information can help you come up with new keyword ideas. You can use tools like Semrush or SpyFu. Then, while bidding on specific keywords, figure out who you’re bidding against. Next, analyze a variety of competitor ad text to determine what offers, credibility statements, and CTAs they use. This will help in creating ads that surpass your competition. And last, check if your competitors are driving traffic to a home page, internal website pages, or standalone landing pages. Examine the elements of the destination page in terms of images, videos, downloads, primary conversion elements,  use of forms etc.

  

• Use remarketing to speed up the process

  Many users will need to interact with your brand multiple times before making a decision. This entails including code on your landing page that will place a cookie in the user’s browser. After they leave your website, you can retarget them with your adverts in the hopes of convincing them to return and make a purchase.

  Furthermore, remarketing advertising allows you to send users back to a specific customized landing page (aimed at users who have visited the website but haven’t yet made a purchase).

• Locations and Ad Scheduling

  You’ll have a lot of actionable information about your target audience after a few months of PPC advertising. Keep a close eye on trends and customer behaviors to determine the most effective way to serve ads to them.

  Here are a few things to think about:

  • • Location — You can use geo-targeting to increase your bids in specific areas. You can limit your advertisements to users within a 50-mile radius of your store if you want to promote your startup in the local area.
    • Use day-parting to turn your ads off at less profitable times of the day.
    • Adjust your bids accordingly if your startup receives more search traffic and ad clicks on mobile.

• Utilize Negative Keywords

  This is one of the most effective ways for avoiding ad waste. Negative keywords work as filters in your campaign, ensuring that anyone searching for those terms will not see your ad. By adding negative keywords, you may improve your click traffic, resulting in more qualified users who are more likely to convert.

  

• Define your target audience

  You must define detailed personas for your target audience. Who are you trying to reach? What do they need? What are they interested in? Your potential buyer persona should also include information about his/her preferred search engines, the kind of content they like to consume, their beliefs, connections, and opinions. Only by understanding your ideal customer will you be able to find them and persuade them to buy from you.

  You can target audiences for Display, Search, and Video campaigns based on their interests, intents, and demographic information as determined by Google. You can choose from a variety of categories when adding an audience to a campaign or ad group, such as sports and travel enthusiasts or specific people who have visited your website or app.

• Always be on the lookout for bid adjustments

  Google Ads provides for a great deal of customization. You may change almost everything about your ads, including device targeting, location, and time of day. Your bidding is another aspect worth experimenting with. Don’t just set your keyword bids and forget about them; keep an eye on the competition and seek ways to increase impressions and minimize CPC.

  When the campaign is new and does not yet have a history, it is worthwhile to start with manual bidding and then transition to automatic bidding such as CPA, conversions, and so on once the campaign has accumulated enough conversions. Even if you’re using automated bidding, you should still check your campaign on a daily basis.

  

• Testing

  Google Ads success relies heavily on testing. Try something, put it to a test, analyze the performance, and then try something new. Constant testing allows you to optimize your campaigns for better results, and as you generate better-quality ads, your CTR and conversion rates will grow over time. In PPC campaigns, you should test one or more of the following things: your headline, body text, link, and the keywords the ad displays for.

  The headline is the part that will appear in search results as a link (in blue). This is usually made to reflect whatever service or product is being offered. It should be short (4-5 words) and include the keyword being searched for. 

  In organic search results, the body text is the equivalent of the description meta tag on your page. It should provide potential customers a better understanding of what you’re giving and what they’ll get if they click on your link.

  In addition, your ads should lead to a landing page or a product page rather than your home page. You might also want to link it to a mini-site created exclusively for your PPC campaigns.

• Activate the auto-tagging feature

  Auto-tagging automatically imports Google Ads data into Analytics. Combining Google Ads data with the rich post-click information provided by Analytics allows you to see what happened on your website after people clicked on your ads. When you enable auto-tagging, a parameter called “gclid” is added to the URL of your landing page every time a user clicks on your ad.

  

• Examine the different devices after a certain period of time

  There may be some things that will only work on mobile devices or on desktops. For example some wording or a graphic or a landing page.

   

  If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to contact us.

   

  For more checklists, you can visit our resources page.