Paid search is likely the most profitable channel for reaching your business goals. You stay in control of your budget and get results right away, as long as you use the right way to boost your performance!
Working on your campaigns over time lets you get the most out of your ad spend. So how do you take things to the next level? Our specialists share 9 of their tips!
1. Set clear goals and KPIs
Before diving into strategy and building your setup, make sure to spell out every part of the campaign in a brief, even if the project is being handled in-house. Taking the time to properly define your goals, budget, and the products or services you want to highlight really pays off.
Your goals should be clear and measurable, since you’ll need to turn them into concrete actions and, from there, set your KPIs. Performance indicators truly matter when it comes to measuring your ROI, or return on investment.
2. Choose your keywords carefully
The words you choose play a central role in a well-run paid search campaign. It matters a lot to use the keywords most likely to bring in qualified traffic. Showing up at the top of the results isn’t enough on its own, you also need to convince your audience that you have what they’re looking for!
Make use of keyword research tools to find the most popular terms, such as Keyword Planner (Google Ads’ free tool), Keyword Tool, Kw Finder, or SEM Rush. Study your audience across different criteria, such as age, gender, location, or socio-economic background, to sharpen your personas and pick out, from the best-performing keywords, the ones most likely to reach your target audience.
Once your campaign is live and you’re fine-tuning it, don’t hesitate to pause keywords that bring in few results in favor of your top performers, or to add new ones if you spot other openings.
3. Split your campaigns into groups
When setting up your campaign, and following on from the previous point, split your chosen keywords into different ad groups to get more precise results. For example, you could build ad groups by theme, keyword cost, or search volume.
This lets you craft ads that closely match what users are actually searching for, using their exact search terms, and set different CPAs (cost per action) for each ad group.
4. Work on your keyword quality score
The quality score of your ads is the score Google gives them. It has a direct effect on your ad ranking. A good score, or at least a higher one than your competitors, will let you lower your bidding costs to reach the same positions, or even a better spot.
Google mainly looks at three things to judge the quality of your ads:
- How well your ads match what users are searching for, in other words, whether your keywords line up with users’ search intent,
- The click-through rate on your ads,
- The landing page your ads lead to.
In other words, your landing page needs to deliver on the search that brought users there. Getting people to click on your ad is already a great outcome, but you shouldn’t forget to carry your marketing strategy all the way through. It’s the landing page that turns your prospects into leads.
For the user’s journey to work, your landing page needs to follow through on the promise made by the call-to-action that got them there. If Google decides the page content doesn’t match your ads, you’ll be at a disadvantage. How can you make sure that doesn’t happen? No need to worry! Here are 7 tips for building a landing page that works and giving yourself the best shot at reaching your goals!
Keep an eye on your quality score, since it can shift over time, and you can keep adjusting it by reworking your ads or your landing page.
5. Use negative keywords
Don’t hesitate to rule out keywords that don’t fit your campaign. This is a free option, and it makes sure you don’t show up for keywords that hold no interest for your audience, or that could even hurt your company’s image, all while keeping your campaign costs in check.
6. Polish your ads
Your ads need to be appealing and convincing enough to get people to click. Once your ads are live, the platform takes care of fine-tuning your campaign based on the results it sees, favoring the combinations that work best. Make sure to give it as many assets as possible to get the best performance.
Also, even while your campaign is running, don’t hesitate to push the AI further. Add more keywords to widen the possibilities and, who knows, break into a new market.
7. Add ad extensions
Even though they’re not a must and plenty of managers overlook them, ad extensions are actually a real asset. They boost your visibility in search results simply by taking up more space.
There are several types of extensions, and here are the ones used most often:
- Call extension, which shows your business phone number right in the ad with a clickable link to make it easy for people to reach you.
- Location extension, which shows your store address based on the details in your Google My Business listing.
- Sitelinks, direct links to the most relevant pages on your site based on your ads.
- Callout extensions, short selling points that appear after the second description, like “Free service” or “Fast delivery.”
- Price extensions for e-commerce, used to highlight specific products and their prices, with a link straight to the product page to speed up the sale.
- Promotion extension, to show discounts.
- Image extension, which lets users spot your products or services at a glance, which boosts the click-through rate quite a bit.
Ad extensions are a free feature in Google Ads. There’s no guarantee the platform will use them, but it costs you nothing to provide them, and it gives you the best shot at reaching your business goals.
8. Pick the right bidding strategies
As you know, Google Ads runs on an ad auction model. Make sure to adjust your bidding strategies as the campaign goes on to get the most out of your ROI and get results.
Once your ads have brought in traffic on your chosen keywords and started generating conversions, switch your bidding strategy from cost per click (CPC) to cost per action (CPA) so you can target the people who convert, based on the data you’ve gathered. If your budget allows, you can go straight for this conversion-based strategy.
The next step is fine-tuning your cost per conversion with a target CPA strategy, where you tell the platform the highest amount you’re willing to spend to get a conversion, based on the data you’ve collected.
This last bidding option makes it easier to keep track of your returns and adapt to seasonal shifts. It helps keep your cost per conversion steady and lets you put your money where it counts most for your business.
Also check out the tip from Florian, our social advertising specialist, on getting the most out of bidding strategies on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
9. Gather and read your data
Set up tracking for your campaign right from launch to make sure you’re following the actions that matter for your goals. This means putting in place KPIs that can measure the final conversion as well as micro-conversions, like signing up for your newsletter. This will help you better spot qualified users if conversions are running low.
From there, use what you learn from this data to gauge how your campaigns are doing and figure out what changes are worth making to get the best returns. You’ll want to rely on tools like Google Analytics or Data Studio to gather data and, above all, make sense of the results.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to our media experts to give your paid search campaigns a boost and get real results, thanks to their command of forward-thinking practices!
