{"id":7215,"date":"2020-03-30T08:34:49","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T15:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/?p=7215"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:48:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T18:48:55","slug":"ppc-management-for-start-ups-10-easy-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/ppc-management-for-start-ups-10-easy-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"PPC Management for Start-ups: 10 Easy Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Search engine marketing, or SEM, can be daunting if you\u2019ve never worked on a campaign before. And even after getting some experience, you might still feel lost and confused. What should you do to optimize Google Search<\/strong>? How can you improve performance for Bing Ads<\/strong>? Luckily, there are a few quick wins that any start-up business can implement with little paid search experience. Here are 10 tips to make your startup PPC campaign successful. <\/p>\n

1. Define the primary goal for your PPC campaign<\/h2>\n

One of the simplest, but most common errors that marketers make when managing a PPC campaign is not having a clear goal before starting. Ask yourself what a successful campaign would look like. Are you interested in sales leads, or visits to a particular page, or just looking to get the brand name out there? <\/p>\n

Most often, problems arise because marketers try to accomplish multiple goals at once instead of prioritizing a single, primary goal<\/strong> for each campaign. Without a singular focus, it\u2019s very difficult to have a clear understanding of what counts as good performance and how to make changes that would improve campaign performance.<\/p>\n

If your account is tracking multiple goal conversions, identify which one is the most essential. If your campaign is for remarketing, identify the most important action that a returning user can make. Or if your campaign is for branding, specify a specific reach and frequency that you would consider successful. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to choose an advertising platform that best accomplishes the campaign goals. This article concentrates mostly on SEM campaigns, which tend to be best for targeting users when they are searching for an answer or solution to something. These types of campaigns aren\u2019t great for overall branding or for targeting a particular audience. For those, we would recommend exploring options for Display ad campaigns and Social Media ad campaigns, respectively.<\/p>\n

2. Integrate with Google Analytics<\/h2>\n

Once a single goal has been established for each campaign, it is essential to make sure that those goals are being accurately tracked. Google Analytics is a popular choice for website analytics because it is free and can be used to create, edit and share goals<\/strong> through integration with paid search platforms. <\/p>\n

Setting goals in Google Analytics<\/a> and connecting them to your PPC campaign account is an important step in optimizing a paid search campaign.
\nOnce Google Ads or Bing Ads has access to goal conversion data, a whole new world of campaign optimization is at your fingertips. Now you can track which ad groups, ads, keywords, audience targeting, and a dozen other campaign elements are successfully generating the most conversions. Without this information, it\u2019s very difficult to know which parts of your campaign are working and what to do to improve its performance.<\/p>\n

In addition, new and more powerful bidding strategies will be available. With goal conversion data from Google Analytics, Google Ads can automate bidding for a campaign by setting it to Maximize for Conversions or Target CPA.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Define the key performance metrics for your campaigns<\/h2>\n

Once goal conversion data is integrated with your PPC campaign, make sure to identify the key performance indicators<\/strong> (KPIs) that can be used to track if it is accomplishing its goal. This can be something as simple as a campaign\u2019s conversion rate, or something more complicated like tracking the number of stages down the sales funnel that users go or how fast they navigate the sales funnel.
\nA common mistake that marketers make is to prioritize tracking so-called \u201cvanity metrics\u201d that tend to be valued by business owners, instead of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that show whether a campaign is accomplishing its goal or not.
\nWhile the click-through-rate (CTR) or the total number of conversions are good metrics to keep an eye on, it is not important to make changes to your PPC campaign if it hinges on the costs per conversion or the overall return on investment (ROI). <\/p>\n

Consider this chart of typical vanity metrics and key performance indicators:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Metrics: Vanity vs. KPI<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
A selection of vanity metrics<\/td>\nKPI<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ad Impressions<\/td>\nROI<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Time spent on the site<\/td>\nOpportunities \/ income<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Email open rate<\/td>\nLead acquisition cost<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pageviews<\/td>\nConversion rate<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Clickthrough rate<\/td>\nLead quality<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bounce rate<\/td>\nNumber of funnel stages per channel<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Budget utilization rate<\/td>\nFunnel Stage Speed<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

4. Use Clear Location Targeting<\/h2>\n

Depending on the nature of your business, the location targeting for your campaign will vary. This means that the default or recommended location settings may not be in line with your PPC campaign goals. <\/p>\n

Take a minute to carefully check your location targeting settings<\/strong>. Does it make sense to include users that show an interest in your target location, even if they are not located in that area? Does it make sense to exclude users that are located in certain countries or cities?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One common mistake that marketers sometimes make is to target an excessively broad location. For local businesses especially, this could result in a lot of wasted ad spending if care isn\u2019t taken to set up proper targeting by radius or metro area. <\/p>\n

After a campaign has had time to run and you are looking for ways to optimize its performance, make sure to use the Geographic Report in Google Ads. You can slice and dice your performance data by country, state, county, city, and more to diagnose successes and failures by location. The Geographic Report<\/strong> allows marketers to add bidding modifiers by location to help further optimize campaigns.<\/p>\n

5. Default Settings Aren\u2019t Always Best<\/h2>\n

Google Ads occasionally indicates that a particular setting is recommended, but that may not be what\u2019s right for your campaign. Make sure to check the following default settings to make sure that they are in line with your campaign goals:<\/p>\n