Have a structured approach to adjust and test things in the light of the numbers
Written by Chris Barling
Wednesday, 20 July 2011 00:00
The overall performance of your PPC campaign will be determined by the number of times your ads are displayed for which keywords and against which competition. Also making an impact is the position on the page the ad appears; the percentage of times that customers click on your ad and your success at converting those clicks to sales. The key to improvement is to try alternatives around each factor, testing one variable at a time.
You should assess the variation in conversion rates for different keywords and seek to understand the reason for this variation – is it due to the level of intent of the keywords, the design of the landing page or the product price and details? You should then focus your search engine marketing on keywords which attract visitors that actually convert to sales. Review high volume keywords more frequently. Let the competition make themselves poor and Google rich. Consider not bidding on the most competitive keywords, as this may well increase your profitability, but beware if this gives competitors economies of scale that you then can’t achieve. PPC advertising can acquire customers, but as your name will be put in front of many browsers who don’t click through, it could also improve your branding. If this is important, take it into account when assessing the cost versus benefit. You might prioritise some more keywords for SEO if PPC is too competitive and expensive. If you are already high, then you can bid lower. Using the information that has been covered up until this point, you need to be highly pro-active in running your campaign. Delete keywords with poor or zero clickthrough to avoid dragging down overall CTRs.