6 top tips for paid search success

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May 10, 2019 / by
6 top tips for paid search success

With the first signs of Spring finally starting to break through, it’s the perfect time to analyse your paid search campaigns and figure out what’s working, what’s not working and what quirks you can leverage to improve your ROI.

Here, we’ve collected together a number of often overlooked tips that will work across paid search strategies in all industries for B2B and B2C businesses looking to get the very best out of their paid search activity.

Examine New Features

With Google Ads constantly adding new features to their platform, it’s vital that all paid search marketers keep abreast of these developments and utilise the new features, otherwise, they will end up being leapfrogged by the marketers paying closer attention.

New features added to Google Ads in recent months include the ability to showcase products with a discount, increase bid adjustments on ads with call extensions and outstream video campaigns, with is a trend many marketers are calling the “future of digital advertising.”

Google doesn’t have the monopoly on new features either. The Audience Network in Bing Ads, for example is an AI-powered behemoth that analyses data from across Microsoft’s property portfolio – which includes Outlook and Skye.

Explore Other Platforms

It might be a great investment, with businesses making an average of $2 for every $1 they spend, but there are other PPC marketing channels besides Google Ads that many marketers simply ignore because they are getting such good results with Google (and in some cases Bing).

However, SnapChat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are just a few of the platforms that also offer paid advertising, with SnapChat particularly popular with younger demographics and LinkedIn a perfect platform for targeting professional consumers.

Revamp Your Reports

A campaign can only be perceived as successful if your metrics are working for you. If you’ve been using the same report since day one and your results don’t appear to be popping, consider replacing the data in your reports. Ask yourself if the data is still useable and actionable and if the answer is anything other than an emphatic “yes,” consider replacing that data and study new potential metrics.

Speaking of reports, consider running a search terms report to help you discover new keywords opportunities and refine existing searches. This will tell you exactly what your customers are searching for, helping you to better understand them, highlight bad keywords with low conversion rates, optimise keyword bids and expand your PPC campaign.

Maximise Mobile

“Mobile-first” is a phrase that has been floating around for years now and whilst it was once prescient, it’s now very much our reality. With mobile a more powerful channel than ever before, it’s crucial that marketers are customising their mobile ad experience as if they ignore mobile, they risk missing a major portion of their target market.

Thankfully, it’s easy to assess the volume of traffic drawn from mobile devices in both Google and Bing Ads and this data can be used to help you decide whether to adjust bids based on device.

Clean Copy

Some pay per click advertisers are content to use the same ad copy for months, but it’s important to update it regularly to remain relevant to what your customers are searching for. Keep everything focused, with an engaging headline and call to action framing clean, no-nonsense and to-the-point copy. Also, consider using ad rotation to test different versions of your ad copy and keep it from growing stale.

More Refined Ad Scheduling

When your ads are being shown is arguably just as important as the content within them and where they lead. If you’re not experiencing the kind of results from your PPC marketing that you might expect, it might simply be because you’re not scheduling your ads during the most opportune hours.

Begin by scheduling within the operating hours of the business so you can review the results in real-time. Then, when you’ve gathered enough data to make an informed decision, lower or disable the bids during the lower response periods and increase them during the high response periods.

Final Tips

  • Be flexible with your bid strategies and don’t be afraid to try new strategies if current ones are not working.
  • Refine your keyword campaigns by layering in audience targeting.
  • Make sure you’ve created ad extensions across your campaigns to increase visibility and increase your CTR.
  • Prepare for voice search. It might not be standard yet, but it’s coming.
  • Review your budget and focus on the campaigns with positive ROI, shifting budget from lesser performing channels if necessary.
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