Increase CTRs with These PPC Campaign Strategies

Optimizing Google Adwords and other PPC campaigns naturally consume time and effort because of all the data gathering and testing you need to do. However, there are techniques that are known to improve any campaign’s performance quickly. Running different ad variations is the most popular technique to optimize PPC campaigns. Some of your ad versions will gather more clicks than others do; it’s just a matter of discarding low-performing ads.

Still, there are other ways to fine-tune your pay-per-click efforts. Peter Kent, author of the book ‘Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies’ identifies several techniques for improving your Quality Score on Google Adwords and creating effective, highly targeted campaigns. Here are some simple strategies to help you improve PPC ad performance and increase click through rates:

1. Apply negative match keywords. Using negative match keywords on your campaign can weed out inappropriate clicks and only allow quality leads to your site. Google Adwords does this for you automatically. You just need to indicate your negative keywords and the system will do all the work for you.

2. Change your CPCs for major keywords. Modifying the CPCs of your major keywords may boost your campaign’s overall performance. Just click on ‘Tools’ under the Campaign Management tab to modify your campaign. You have complete control of your ads here and this makes it easier to optimize your efforts.

3. Edit and resubmit rejected ads. Google reviews every ad before running them on their network. Ads that do not pass the review are stored in your Campaign Management tab allowing you to edit and resubmit them at anytime. Don’t be discouraged if your ad was rejected. Tweak some words and resubmit it again.

4. Run ads at different times of the day. ‘Dayparting’ is the technique of defining what time of day your ads should be run, and you can coordinate this for a better reach. For example, if you are promoting restaurant coupons, it may be a good idea to run the ads a few hours before lunch or dinner hours when people are thinking about where to go or what to eat.

5. Understand your target market. You need to understand your audience first before you can reel them in with your ads. Find out why they would be interested in your product. You might also want to look at existing promotions they are already responding and buying. See how these promotions talk to your market and how your market talks in discussion forums and blogs.

Fine-tuning an Adwords campaign takes time because we mostly use a trial and error approach. However, the above guidelines have already been proven to improve PPC campaigns faster. Apply them now on your campaigns and see results faster.