Six Suggestions for a Better PPC Campaign

Every PPC campaign, no matter how successful, is still considered a work in progress.  In his article on Search Engine Watch, Kevin Gibbons offers some tips for search marketers looking for a way to “kick-start” their PPC campaigns.

Know Your Product

You need to be familiar enough with your product that you can sell it with just a few words.  Decide what makes your product unique and compelling, and focus on hammering these selling points home.  This applies to vendors who offer services as well.

“Unique selling points, or USPs, have been a touchstone of marketing for generations,” says Gibbons, “and are as relevant online now as they ever have been in stores.”

Know Your Market

If your product makes an excellent gift for men, market it to the wives who are likely to buy it for their husbands.  “Women hold the buying power in many markets, but particularly in gifts,” Gibbons writes, “so don’t be afraid to target them specifically.”

Be Discriminate

Be discerning when targeting your audience, and don’t be afraid to aim for a sub-section of your potential market.  For example, some folks may shun a product or service that bills itself as “cheap,” while many others will actually seek it out for that very reason.

“The joy of PPC,” according to Gibbons, “is that your ads will generally only appear to people for whom they are relevant, and you should only have to pay if they click, so in many ways your campaign will target itself, given the right range of ad texts to choose from.”

Learn to Tweet

Once you master the art of a short-text platform like Twitter, you’ll find you’re quite adept at conveying vital information within a minimal character count.  This, in turn, will serve you well when you’re trying to fit all of the necessary information into the limited character count of a PPC ad.  Gibbons explains that “[l]earning to appreciate the restrictions imposed by short-form text will help you to understand what can—and can’t—be said in a PPC ad.”

Be Timely

Your ad should do more than simply tell people about your product or service.  It needs to instill a sense of urgency to encourage your potential customers to act immediately.  Competitions, giveaways, or two-for-one discounts are an excellent way to put a time limit on your ad.  However, Gibbons does advise marketers to “be more subtle about it than those flashing ‘you have won a smartphone—claim it in the next 60 seconds’ pop-ups you see on some websites.”

Review, Revise, Reinvest

No matter how successful your PPC campaign may be, there’s always more potential for raising the return on your investment.  In paying for those clicks, you’re receiving a measurable flow of traffic to your website.  By tracking these numbers, you can see which ads and offers are the most successful.

You should always be looking for ways to tweak your PPC campaign to include more of the messages that perform well.  “As your revenues rise, consider whether you have already maxed out your market penetration,” Gibbons advises, “and, if not, reinvest some of those funds into increasing your PPC presence.”