Search Engine Marketing can sometimes feel like a waiting game, but taking a proactive approach to campaign management can drive long-term success for your digital advertising.
Here are a few tips for measuring and ensuring success for your PPC campaign.
Define Your KPIs & Set Realistic Benchmarks
It’s difficult to assess the performance of your campaign if you have no standards to compare against your data. Setting key performance indicators that line up with your business goals will help you set a realistic baseline for performance and give context to changes you make. Defining KPIs makes it easier to diagnose any issues that could be causing a campaign to perform below benchmark or give you insight into successful changes.
KPIs should be specific, measurable, and attainable. In PPC campaigns, standard KPIs measure actions taken to gain a lead (such as cost per click, cost per call, or cost per conversion), clickthrough rate (CTR), or keyword performance. For example, if you know how much it usually costs to acquire a new customer, you can use this to determine your target cost per lead. It’s also important to consider seasonal trends when setting KPIs.
Audit Ads & Keywords
Testing and optimization are critical components of a PPC campaign management strategy. Often, business owners fall into the trap of focusing on performance metrics without looking at the whole picture. Even the most expertly configured campaign relies on compelling ad copy and appropriate keywords to drive quality leads.
Keywords are the vehicles for delivering your ads to the right consumer, meaning they do all the heavy lifting to determine when and where your ads will show. Ensure your keywords are driving the right kind of traffic by reviewing the search terms report often. This information can be used to assess what keywords could be added, removed, or negated to help attract the right audience for your campaign. A keyword may look like it’s performing well but could be driving irrelevant traffic to your site.
Ads should provide relevant and up-to-date information. Keywords might work to get your ads in front of the customer, but if the ads are unclear or outdated, you’ll lose out on clicks and conversions.
Track Conversions
Traffic-based metrics can provide broad insight into the most basic aspects of campaign performance, but they don’t paint a full picture on their own. Business owners are sometimes hyper-focused on achieving the most attractive metrics to the detriment of overall performance. A low cost-per-click or a high CTR (Click-Through-rate) doesn’t matter if a campaign isn’t generating any ROI (leads, phone calls, purchases, etc.). That’s why it’s important to make sure your campaign is configured to track leads and conversions. Depending on your business you will need to see what is define as a conversion for you but if we take the example of a roofing company trying to get more residential customers, then they need to track how many calls and form fill are being generated by the PPC campaign.
Follow Up on Leads
A campaign can help generate and capture leads, but it’s up to the business owner to turn them into paying customers. Being prepared to manage leads as quickly as possible can prevent missed opportunities and avoid wasted spend. Leveraging an automated lead management system is an effective way to make sure no customer interaction goes unanswered and can be used to quickly follow up with customers who were not yet ready to buy or who may want to buy from you again. Learn more about successful PPC campaigns on our website, and contact us if you need help with PPC.
