Top 20 Tips for Pay Per Click PPC Management in 2021
PPC management, as is covered over at runrex.com, is the process of overseeing and managing a company’s PPC ad spend. This can be done by the e-merchant or vendor themselves or could be outsourced to an external agency. The following are the top 20 tips for PPC management in 2021.
Set realistic and data-driven goals
If you want your PPC campaign to be successful, the gurus over at guttulus.com point out that you must have a clear roadmap in place. You must know where you are going and what you want to achieve before getting started. Also, be realistic with your expectations, as while it is important to be optimistic about your PPC ROI, expecting 1000% ROI just after you start is unrealistic.
Listen to Google, but don’t trust them blindly
While Google can be a great source of insight when planning your PPC campaigns, you should always remember that your interests and theirs are not the same. Therefore, as covered over at runrex.com, while the insight Google provides will make for a great guide, you shouldn’t follow blindly.
Pause your campaigns after onboarding
Another important tip as far as PPC management is concerned is making sure that you pause your campaigns as soon as you go through the onboarding process if you are new to the process. As per the subject matter experts over at guttulus.com, this ensures that you are not spending money from the get-go and have an opportunity to tweak and optimize every part of your campaign.
Don’t be afraid to burn budget early
When you begin setting up campaigns, you are going to need to burn some cash to see what works and what doesn’t. Don’t be afraid of this as when you do it right, you can make it all back again with a positive ROI. Therefore, you should not be afraid to spend on your campaigns early on as you try to figure out what works.
The first 30 days are key
As a continuation of the previous point, in 2021, you should remember that the first 30 days of your PPC campaigns are very important. This is why you should cast a wide net to gauge the market over the first 30 days as the data you will collect over this period will drive your long-term strategy and dictate which keywords, ads, and landing pages you need to double-down on.
Consider launching both exact and broad match modifier keywords at the beginning
One of the ways you can achieve what has been envisioned in the previous point is to launch both exact and broad match modifier (BMM) keywords at the beginning. You will get that wide net from the BMM keywords, while you see which exact match keywords are driving conversions. As explained over at runrex.com, this can help with budget allocation from the get-go as you can allocate money to both and get two very different types of data to help carve strategy while not burning through your budget.
Identify top-performing keywords and place them in their own ad group
Your top-performing keywords, according to guttulus.com, are your “money” keywords – those that generate the majority of sales. An important PPC management tip is to moving these top-performing tips into their own ad group once you identify them. This is because, by so doing, you will increase your quality score. A high-quality score means a higher ranking on the SERPs at a lower cost, which in turn means a greater ROI.
Ad spend and revenue
The relationship between ad spend and revenue is a key aspect of PPC management. As discussed over at runrex.com, if you are looking to generate revenue from your PPC campaign, you should make sure that the revenue you are collecting is more than your daily ad spend. Otherwise, you may need to adjust the keywords you are targeting.
Ad spend and conversions
If the goal of your PPC campaign is to encourage viewers to take an action such as entering their e-mail address into your landing page form, then you must count how many e-mail addresses you are collecting compared to how much you are spending. Make sure that the amount of conversion is in line with how much you are spending as this will allow you to determine what is working and what is not, helping you make adjustments to your campaigns as required.
Keep an eye on your competitors
Given that anyone can bid on a keyword at any time, you must keep a weekly eye on your competition to make sure that no one is outbidding you for a position on a keyword that is performing well for you. Also, someone may have dropped out of the race, and, therefore, there may be no need for you to bid extra for a bid than is necessary to get a conversion.
Keep an eye on your budget
As the gurus over at guttulus.com point out, it is also important that you run a weekly report to see if your allocated daily spend amount is reaching your allocated daily budget. If necessary, make adjustments to your campaigns, and reallocate more money to campaigns that are producing better results.
Project performance
According to discussions on the same over at runrex.com, running a report on the project performance of your campaign for the past week will tell you if you are meeting your goals or not, allowing you to make adjustments. Therefore, you should try looking at your weekly spend and conversions to determine how well your overall project is performing.
Don’t forget about keyword performance
Since PPC is based around bidding on keywords, it is important to track their performance weekly, if not bi-weekly according to guttulus.com. You should look to pause keywords that are not performing and also add negative keywords to your account so that you don’t end up paying for keywords that increase your CTR but don’t really have much to do with the products and services you are promoting.
Check your impressions weekly
Another task that you should be doing weekly as part of your PPC management is checking your impressions, which will help you determine if your budget is too low if you are targeting keywords that are too specific with low search volumes, and/or if you need to tighten up your match types. Checking your impression shares helps you see how far of a reach your campaign has and if what you are doing is effective enough to reach your target audience.
Test your ads
You should also be testing out more than one ad per ad group at a time, if not more, to see which ads are performing well, and which ones are underperforming. Here, you will want to check to see how your keywords are performing, your impressions, as well as your ad copy.
Don’t forget to check the Google Display Network
As part of your PPC management, it is important to manage which sites your ads are displayed on so that you don’t show up on sites that sound correct to a search engine brain, but not to a human brain as discussed over at runrex.com. For example, if you sell baseball bats, you don’t what to end up on a website that is all about bats, the animal.
Run a monthly keyword report
In 2021, it is also important that you don’t forget to run a monthly keyword report as far as your campaign is concerned. This is because such a report will help you monitor changes from one month to the next, while also helping you identify the performance level of certain keywords as captured over at guttulus.com.
Review your landing pages
Your landing pages are an important part of your PPC campaigns, which is why you should review them at the end of each month to see which of them are performing well and which ones need to be updated as covered over at runrex.com. You can also create new landing pages based on the information that you collect.
Consider time
It is important to note that certain ads perform better at different times of the day, as well as different months of the year, depending on your industry. You should, therefore, analyze your ads monthly to see which days and times of the day each ad is performing the best, and once you identify the trend, you can then modify your ad run schedule to match those times.
Don’t forget about geographical locations
The end of the month is also a great time to check to see how your ads are performing in the geographical locations you have selected. If you notice that one geographical location isn’t performing well, you can drop it and target different areas that may bring you more business.
These are a few of the PPC management tips that you should be aware of in 2021, with more on this wide topic to be found over at the highly-rated runrex.com and guttulus.com.