If you’ve been paying attention to the profit Google has been turning over the years, you may have noticed a trend: They keep making more money. A large portion of the total revenue Google earns is from paid ads. Why not follow suit and make more money by incorporating better tactics to improve your pay per click marketing strategy?
Even though they can be much more expensive than organic traffic generation, businesses continue to invest in paid ads for one simple fact: They make money.
Whether you’re already running PPC campaigns, or you’re considering your first go at it, here are 7 tactics to improve your pay per click marketing strategy to increase the revenue you’re generating from each campaign.
Bid on your brand and the name of popular competing brands
If you break down the intent of a brand search, it’s highly transactional. When someone is searching for a specific brand, they already have a product in mind and are in the buying frame of mind. Bidding on popular brands can put your website in front of a large group of searchers with buyer intent.
The larger brands have caught on to this pay per click marketing strategy and will protect the hijacking of their brand by bidding on their brand name. Search for any large corporate brand and you’ll see their Google Ad taking up the first spot in the search result.
Although this tactic is one of many pay per click strategies that are somewhat well known among the larger brands you can still find loads of opportunities where popular SMBs have failed to capitalize on this knowledge.
Bid on popular competing brands to capitalize on an audience with buyer intent. Don’t forget to bid on your brand and protect the name of your company from being used as a way your competition makes money.
Put 80% of your effort into the headline
The 80/20 rules apply here where your headline counts as the most important part of your advertisement. People are going to click on the headline that captures their attention with the most enticing and relevant message. Use headline tips and strategies to ensure your ad receives a high click-through rate to maximize its potential.
Here are a few to get you started:
Use a number in your headline
The use of a number can attract more attention and interest in your content. People like to know what they’re getting and the use of a number manages expectations-which appeals to most people.
Using an odd number can increase your CTR by up to 20%
Spark emotion within your headline
There have been thousands of tests and studies on the effectiveness of ads and the bottom line to remember is that if your ad can evoke emotion it becomes much more powerful.
Here is a list of the top emotions that seem to have a positive effect on the way people respond to ads:
The most successful ads that go viral seem to be those that target humour and are amusing to people. They get shared and spark interest.
Snickers, launched their campaign “You’re not you when you’re hungry” and targeted misspelled words. In just two days they reported over 550k impressions with a CTR of just over 1%. The result was over 5000 people landing on their mini-website in just 48 hours.
The type of emotion you evoke depends on the niche that you’re trying to promote. If you’re advertising for a funeral home, there’s going to be a big difference in your tone than if you were promoting a kid’s event space.
Knowing your audience is a crucial aspect in determining the emotion of your target. Keep in mind that people respond with much more energy when you’ve triggered an emotional response.
Dynamic keyword insertion
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft offer this advanced feature to allow your ads more flexibility by inserting related keywords depending on the search.
For example, if you sell tennis equipment, you may have an advertisement for tennis racquets. You can initialize dynamic keyword insertion by inserting the code:
{KeyWord: Tennis Racquets}
This will then tell the search engine to insert the most appropriate keywords in your ad according to what the user is searching.
If a user searches “kids tennis racquets” or “adult tennis racquets” or “club level tennis racquets” those keywords will be inserted into your ad to make it more relevant to the searcher.
If there are no relatable substitutes, your ad will be displayed with your primary keyword, which in this case would be tennis racquets.
Dynamic insertion contributes to higher click-through rates by creating more relevance to the user’s search.
Use retargeting pixels
Retargeting is one of the best ways to reduce your cost per click because of its success in increasing conversions. This tactic is highly effective in promoting a higher conversion rate because your ad will reappear in front of users that have shown interest by clicking on your ad and landing on your website.
The retail industry, on average, requires 6-8 touchpoints before making a sale. When you have an ad following a user for an additional 8-12 times it gives your brand more exposure and more opportunities to remind the user about your product or service.
How does it work?
You need to install a pixel on your website that you receive from your ad campaign. Whenever a user lands on your site, a cookie is uploaded into their browser. That cookie reactivates the ad within the display network for however many times you choose to set it for in your campaign.
Use a landing page to personalize your campaign
Always use a landing page to personalize your PPC campaign to increase conversions and address a specific need that your ad is promoting.
Many businesses make the mistake of sending a user to their homepage from an ad and leave it to the visitor to find what they need. Rather than take the risk they don’t find what they need, send them directly to the page that has exactly what they need.
Always eliminate clicks and unnecessary obstacles that get in the way of a visitor finding what they want and purchasing it. Navigation to your product should already be done for the user so there’s nothing left to chance.
A landing page gives you a way to warm your visitor up with information about your product and guide them to a purchase decision.
Provide social proof in your copy
We live in a time where reviews count for a huge part of the decision making process for many different industries. People will read the reviews on Yelp before picking a new place to eat dinner. There’s value in having social evidence of the value your business represents.
Include social proof in your copy to promote more clicks to your site. People will be more inclined to trust a company that can show how many clients they’ve already helped solve problems with their product.
Having 5-star reviews with customers raving about how good your food is will bring in more eager customers who want to see what other people are talking about.
Use Google’s Smart Bidding system
You can automate your bidding strategy by using Google’s Smart Bidding system to increase conversions, ROAS and reduce CPA. The system is a combination of AI and machine learning that is effective at predicting trends and tendencies of users to increase the likelihood of making a conversion.
Use Smart bidding to get the best times to bid, the amount to bid and other areas that are automated based on machine learning. Automating the way you run your PPC campaigns with Smart Bidding leads to conversion rate optimization as well as reducing the cost per acquisition over time.
Google suggests running a Smart Bidding strategy for at least 30 conversions or one month to get the full benefits of machine learning applied to your campaign.
Incorporate PPC Strategies to Increase Conversions
There are many pros and cons to using a PPC campaign within your digital marketing strategy, but the bottom line is that they make money. There’s no substitute for getting your brand at the top of the page for important keywords.
If you compare organic traffic generation to pay per click campaigns, organic has more potential with less cost in the long run. However, using a combination of both can make your digital marketing campaign even more profitable.
Incorporate proven tactics to improve your pay per click marketing strategy to increase conversions, lower costs and boost your revenue for every campaign you run.
Want to hear more about how we can help your business generate more revenue? Give us a call and let us give you a breakdown of the opportunities available to your website.
