Optimising Your Adwords PPC Performance

Any PPC campaign, regardless of the ad network used, requires ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and optimisation. With some campaigns, a little change really can go a long way, increasing CTR, improving on-site conversions, and generally increasing your advertising ROI. Evaluating and optimising your ad groups and campaigns is essential, which is why many companies rely on a professional PPC advertising manager to manage their campaigns.

Determining Your Budget And Requirements

With an Adwords campaign you will need to decide on your budgetary allowance, as well as the maximum bid price you can afford per click. If your website is well established then you should be able to initially base these figures on existing performance and your average profit per customer. Conversion rates and profit rates for PPC visitors will vary compared to search engine visitors, so you should use these figures conservatively to prevent any major mishaps.

You should have an idea of your daily, weekly, and monthly advertising budget and what portion of this you intend to use on PPC advertising. This will help to set your budgetary targets for each of your advertising campaigns. You should also have a clear target of conversion rates and average sale prices, even if your website and business is brand new. Use these projected figures, if you have no other data to use.

Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is one of the very first steps you will take in a PPC campaign. Using targeted keywords may not generate the same levels of traffic as general keywords, but it is preferred. Targeted keywords generate ad campaigns that are displayed on targeted search result pages. This offers an improve CTR (Click Through Rate) and should provide you with visitors that are more likely to convert when they land on your pages.

Negative keywords can be used to further enhance your results. Adding a negative keyword to an ad means that when that keyword is included in the search, your advertisement will not be displayed. If the keywords you intend to use are ambiguous, adding negative keywords can help to differentiate between desirable and non-desirable searches. Also, certain words and phrases have been proven to be ineffective, and can again be ignored using your negative keyword list.

Bid Price

Your maximum bid price is the highest amount you will have to pay when somebody clicks your advertisement. It will also be used in an auction style bidding process to determine where your ad is placed. The higher the bid price, the more clicks you will usually receive, but it isn't always desirable to reach the most prominent positions.

Placing high on some keywords can cost a lot of money, and this may make a particular ad unprofitable. It has also been shown that while a top placed ad will usually attract a higher CTR, it may also generate fewer value clicks and more bounces. Look for price gaps and consider your daily budget as well as your average profit per customer, in order to determine your maximum bid price.

Quality Score And CTR

Your CTR is not the most important statistic to consider. A high CTR does not necessarily mean greater conversions or more profit, and may mean that your ad copy is too general. With that said, however, your CTR is used to determine your quality score. This score is used initially when determining whether your ad will be displayed at all, and also how much of the bid price you have to pay.

The Adwords system displays your quality score and your CTR. You should attempt to balance these to receive a high quality score without serving ads that are too general and produce low conversion rates.

Ad Copy

The content for your ad plays a huge part in CTR and on-site conversions. Relevant targeted copy, including a relevant display URL, will generate the best results. By creating intrigue it is possible to garner your website with more traffic and improve your CTR but it may come at the cost of an increase in bounces.

The keywords used by a surfer appear in bold, and so they will be more prominent. It is possible to dynamically add keywords to your ad copy to ensure that your ad is visible. Catchy headlines, and pre-qualified text can also help to improve your CTR and on-site conversions.

Improving PPC For Your Site

PPC advertising provides a means to drive traffic to your website while ensuring that you remain on budget and are only driving targeted visitors. By choosing the right keywords, setting the proper maximum bid price, and retaining a high quality score it is possible to optimise an Adwords campaign to get the greatest possible results. CTR is not the most important statistic to consider, with ROI usually being the most important, but it does play a part in determining your quality score and therefore the overall effectiveness of an ad group.