Google PPC is important. When utilized correctly it can give your business the boost to get to the next level. Below I explain all the problems you should look at if you have an underperforming PPC campaign.

Tip #1: Use Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are the keywords you don’t want to be found with. For example, if you are in the insurance industry and specifically only offer business insurance. You don’t want to be found for keywords such as automotive insurance agency, mortgage insurance, insure my house, and so on. 

Once you have had a campaign running for a week you can begin to fill in your negative keyword list with these keywords to improve the performance of your campaign.

…and by golly, it will improve your campaign.

This will lead to more qualified traffic to your landing page which equals more visitors turning into leads. 

Negative Keywords -> More Qualified Leads -> Business Grows = Happy Client

Tip #2: Too Many Broad Keywords

Broad keywords can destroy the performance of your campaign. Broad keywords are keywords that open your campaign up to terms above and beyond what you want to be found with. They increase the amount of traffic you get to your landing page, but at a high cost and a low qualification rate. 

Instead of broad keywords, you want to use phrase match keywords and exact match. Use Google’s free Keyword Planner tool inside the Google Adwords dashboard to find keywords that best fit your goals and budget.

Tip #3: Increase the Quality Score

Arguably one of the biggest factors to a successful PPC campaign. The quality score can help you reduce the CPC, find more qualified leads, and show your ads in higher positions more often at a lower cost. You are able to outbid someone that has a higher bid than you. This should be your main focus if the quality score is low.  Find your quality score in Google Adwords. 

Tip #4: Research Competitors

There are many tools online that help you see what a competitor is ranking for and what keywords they are being found with. This can help you understand if you can outbid them or run a similar campaign a little better. This helps you strategically plan how you can get the highest return possible while understanding how to outsmart your competitor.

Tip #5: Use Ad Extensions

“Ad extensions provide additional information to let people take action directly from the search results.” They can offer a unique appeal to your ad. It also gives the visitor options to where he wants to direct his attention too.

There are many ad extensions that you can use to increase your clicks and leads generated through PPC advertisements. A few that are well known and useful are the location extensions, call extensions and the site link extensions.

Tip #6: Find Keywords that Suit Your Budget

Keywords can range from $1 to $40 a click. If your product doesn’t suit you being able to spend a high amount per click you need to find ways around that can help you see a positive return on investment. 

The way I see it… When people in your industry are running Google PPC successfully, that is a clear indicator that you can do it too. It begins with filling a list of the right keywords for your budget.

Tip #7: Improve Your Landing Page

Landing pages are the make or break of a great PPC campaign. Start off by understanding if your current landing page is the best a landing page could be for the people your targeting. 

If it is… Great! Go check the quality score and make sure that is high also. 

If it is not directly targeted for your campaign, there is a high chance you are leaving money on the table.

A few things that go into every great landing page:

• 1 Simple call to action (CTA)
• Easy to call/email/fill out a form. Easy way to get in contact.
• A video (not always necessary, but always helps)
• 1 Single directory. No way to re-direct visitors attention with a menu, footer, or clickable logo on the header
• Enough information. Have everything you need on 1 page. (Who you are, what you do, how you help, Why your the best, and all this said in a way that screams, “our business benefits you”)

Understanding this, you should be off to the races and in no time see an increase in what your goal is.

Tip #8: Search Term, Keywords, and Ad Copy Need to be Similar

Keywords and Ad copy are directly related to the quality score. When your keywords don’t match with your landing page your quality score decreases. Also when the keywords people are searching for don’t match up with your Ad copy your quality score will decrease. You will have a higher CPC normally with unqualified traffic coming to your website when keywords searched doesn’t match with your landing page and Ad copy. 

Check now to make sure your ad copy, landing page copy, and the terms people are searching for are all closely related.

Tip #9: Test Different Bidding Strategies

Bidding strategies are very important to a great Google PPC Campaign. There are 4 different bidding strategies. Below I will share the benefits of all of them to help you better understand which one your campaign should be running.

1. Manual CPC: Simply put in a bid limit for a large number of keywords that you don’t want to go over. Put the maximum bid you want to spend per click and let it go. You will only spend as much per click as you want. 
2. Automatic CPC: Automatic bidding leaves your bids in Google’s hands. This option is especially useful when Google changes its algorithm, but if you understand their algorithm and you are familiar with Adwords I would not recommend using this strategy.
3. Enhanced CPC: This bidding option focuses on conversions. Integrated with Google analytics and tracking codes this can be most effective after your campaign has had many conversions. 
4. CPA Bidding: You must have a minimum of 15 conversions to be able to use this. The conversion history allows Google Adwords to predict future conversions. 

Tip #10: Location Boosting

Once I heard a story about a PPC Campaign that was doing great and could be doing a lot better. A company was running a PPC campaign. It was profitable, but they were curious if it could be any more profitable. They brought in an expert from outside their business relations and immediately the PPC expert realized that the campaign had the potential to increase their leads with the amount they were already spending. They did this by eliminating the poor performing areas in their campaign so that the ads could focus on the areas which were the highest performers. Location is huge because of the many factors that differentiate each area. 

All areas are not created equal.

Tip #11: Create an Ad Schedule

If you’re a business with salesmen. The times your campaigns should be active are at the times when your salesmen are in the office ready to talk on the phone. If you have a campaign running 24/7 you could be spending lots of money and be missing many leads and spending unnecessary money.

This doesn’t only apply to businesses that have salesmen.

Small businesses and independent contractors need to specify which times are best for you to talk on the phone. If you have a meeting at a specific time of the day you should not be running a campaign at that time. You need to turn it off between those times so you don’t lose a perfectly good lead because you responded 2 hours later.

Tip #12: Use Device Targeting

Device targeting means targeting devices that will bring you the highest ROI. If your running a PPC campaign right now and see that mobile has 4x the amount of conversions than desktop. You should consider increasing the budget targeting mobile so that the campaign can focus on targeting users that convert more often. 

IMPORTANT TIP: What is working, spend more money on that until you cap it out and an increase in budget no longer gives you a higher ROI.

Tip #13: Everything is Set up Correctly

One of the first campaigns I ran there was a big problem. My ad wasn’t showing. I had a decent budget ($30 a day) and was so confused why my ad wasn’t showing. I had all the right keywords, I researched competitors, cost per click for all my keywords, and added them correctly. The problem was that my bid strategy was targeting an audience when I didn’t have one. I had to switch my bidding strategy to maximum clicks at a higher bid since it was my first campaign.

Now that is one of the many problems that you could come across in running your PPC campaign. 

I would advise taking a step back and looking at the foundation of the campaign being run. Then, go through the entire campaign and make sure everything is set up to do what you want it to do. Something easily could be tweaked and the campaign can start performing better. 

Tip #14: Go Back to the Drawing Board

Review your numbers again. You can download our Google Ads calculator to understand how your business can run a PPC advertisement more successfully. 

• Agency v.s In-House Team v.s Freelancer

CONCLUSION

Google’s advertising platform allows you to only pay when someone clicks your ad. It has the potential to be profitable otherwise no one would be using it. There are many factors that are included when understanding why your campaign is underperforming. The key to creating a campaign that consistently brings you a positive ROI is making sure the campaign is tightly run while also making sure it is running properly with the right settings configured.

If you have any questions or want to talk with Kyle Waters directly feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and tell me what brought you! 

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Max Conversion is a PPC agency located in St. Louis MO. Want to talk with a Max Conversion specialist and understand if your PPC campaign is optimized to bring a positive ROI? Contact a Max-Conversion Expert to get great advice for an affordable rate.