Top 8 Ideas to Optimize Your PPC Performance

PPC optimization plays a critical role in improving and sustaining the performance of paid search promotion campaigns with an aim of attaining the goals of the organization. Some people find it quite challenging to determine the starting point. However, there are some aspects of PPC accounts that you can use to make sure that you achieve the desired results. This publication provides some useful information on how to optimize the performance of your PPC but you cannot cover everything in a single post. These suggestions can assist you to get started or gain some new insights.

1. Ad on Mobile Games/App

You need to review GDN Ads on mobile games and apps from the onset as they can be a consistent budget waster. Ads will often appear on mobile games and apps. But the conversion rate of this kind of traffic is very low except for the B2C advertisers of the broad appeal products and services. It’s very hard to divert the attention of a person who is playing a game to click on an ad and convert. However, some users may accidentally click on an ad depending on how it has been placed with respect to the navigations of playing the game.

2. Keywords

Keywords are the major driving force of ads on the search networks. You will waste a lot of ads spend if you decide to use keywords that are inefficient. Therefore, you need to be careful while making a choice of keywords for your content. Cross check to confirm that there is a tight connection between your keywords and what the target audience is searching for. There are several tools that can help you in making the right choice for your keywords. The guiding principle is that you need to limit the keywords to approximately 15 to 20 per ad group. This will assist you in creating customized ads while including your keyword in the ad copy. This will increase your quality score, CTR, and ad rank while reducing CPC.

Recommended reading: SEO Tools: The Complete List

3. Negative Keywords and Search Terms

Due to close variant and broad matching keywords to the real query, some of the unusual searches can end up triggering your ads. This kind of optimization is very important in any kind of PPC account. You can use the keyword tab to find the search terms from any ad group or given campaign. Evaluate the search terms triggering ads for the keyword and match type. You need to identify the overarching themes as well as the specific keywords.

For instance, your employees could be expected to log in from the main website of the company. You may realize that employees are clicking on the ads to reach to the login during their searches. Use that login theme to develop negatives on the possible searches to eliminate the PPC budget that is related to employee searches. You can use the list of new negative keywords to create a shared list that you can apply to similar campaigns as one of the proactive measures.

4. Geo tracking

You can also waste the PPC budget if you decide to serve ads to the wrong geolocation. You can confirm this by looking at the location settings to view the location reports. In case you notice clicks that are outside your geotargeted location, you will be required to adjust your location settings in some of these ways:

i. Narrowing the present geotarget

ii. Use settings, advanced location settings and choose individuals in my targeted location

iii. Exclude locations appropriately

5. Negative Keywords Display on Google Network

Most experts will discourage you from using negative keywords for ads on GDN (Google Display Network). Negative keywords will inform AdWords not to display your ad on any page that contains the specified keywords. This may limit the level of reach because several relevant pages may have some of these keywords. However, negatives are very applicable in the Google Display Network in negative PR, social commentary or topics. It can exclude the serving of some racy topics but not cover all of them. For instance, you may not want to advertise your medical services in a page the is advertising an upcoming funeral parlor. Your ads should not be categorized as controversial content topics.

6. Conversion Actions

It’s good to audit your conversions on a regular basis. During this process, some of the things you need to look for include whether the conversion tracking is working, whether the conversion tag is placed on the right page or whether the Google analytics goal still appears in the right action/page, and whether you are tracking so many conversations. Check whether you have desperate or too many conversation actions. For instance, tracking whitepaper downloads, email signups, and tracking purchases. Each action normally has a different value and this may give the wrong picture on the real ROAS (return on ads spend).

7. Ads Per Ad Group

There is a varying opinion on the number of ads to include in each ad group. Some will advise on the use of two ads including one test ad and one contract ad. Other advice on the use of two or three ads and allow Google to optimize the one that performs best. You will be able to remove and replace those poor performers and repeat the whole process. Google recommends that you create three to four ads per ad group and use separate messages for each of them to find out the best performer.

The goals of your business can assist you to define success. There are two options of picking the winner and the first one is using of 3^rd party testing tool that has details insights for recommending top performers. You could also use your KPI’s such as highest CTR, low cost per conversion, and high conversion rate to judge the winner manually.

8. Budget

Only allocate PPC budgets to those campaigns that are performing well. However, this is not always the case in real life. The rule may not be applicable in instances where awareness/branding or particular display campaigns are not the click Conversations. In addition, the brand name of the company may have high conversion rates but may not require additional funding.

In conclusion, you can always improve your account through consistent and frequent optimizations because individuals won’t stop searching. You can add some of the new optimization ideas from this post to your strategy and see how it everything will work out.