Intergage training: 10 PPC Tips To Tighten Your Spend

Pay-Per-Click advertising is a great and often cost effective way of driving qualified traffic to your Web site and turning these visitors into sales. Keira Long, Pay-Per-Click Specialist at Web marketing company Intergage, gives her top ten tips for spending the least, yet getting the most out of your Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click campaign.

Build a comprehensive negative keyword list...

By cutting down on untargeted traffic and search terms that you do not want to be found under, you will increase your Click-Through-Rate, raise your quality score and consequently your average cost per click will be lowered.

AdScheduling is a useful tool within your account...

It can be used to select the precise times of day that you wish your adverts to be shown. Run a report at account level by hour and find out at what time of day you are receiving your best click through rates. Then activate AdScheduling and spend your budget only at these times.

Experiment with phrase match rather than broad match...

This will give you a greater insight into the keywords which are actually bringing you quality traffic and you can then raise your bids or daily budget on these terms only. Remember ­ phrase match requires you to put quotes on either side of your keyword so Web design in phrase match would become "Web design."
 

If you haven't already done so, apply conversion tracking to your campaign...

This will allow you to see which keywords are actually driving e-mail leads, sales or whatever your conversion action may be. Once you know what these terms are, you can put more money into them and build granular adgroups with highly relevant copy.

Apply geo-targeting to your campaigns if you are interested in targeting only a specific region or country...

This will mean that only the most relevant audience will see your adverts and you won't lose budget to the wrong demographic. You can choose to target regions, towns, countries and even groups of countries such as the Middle East.

Spend some time researching your competitors' adverts and when they are appearing...

Do they all seem to drop off at a certain time of day when their budget has been utilised? If so, put more of your own budget into this time of day to make the most of the lack of competition.

Use the AdWords preview tool to search for your own adverts without triggering unnecessary impressions...

Find this tool at www.adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

Split-test your adverts...

After around 60 clicks, work out which advert copy has been the most successful (by conversion is usually the best metric to go by) and re-write the losing advert. This allows you to refine your marketing messages repeatedly to create the most compelling text possible. Remember ­ you may think that you have written an irresistible advert but let the stats do the decision-making for you.

Make as many granular groups of adverts as possible..

Even if they contain only one or two keywords. Even having the singular and plural version of a term in a separate advert group can have a dramatic effect on Click-Through-Rate.

And finally,­ carry out regular keyword research...

You don't want to miss out on long tail keywords which are cheap and highly convertible. Those low traffic, high intent keywords are the key to success! Find them before your competitors do!