Having Issues Generating PPC Leads? Review These Great Ideas

Every aspect of your business is important, and you want to see a return on every dollar you spend—whether you’re a small, mom & pop business or a giant multinational. This includes your online advertising. While it can be disheartening when you don’t see the results you’re after, keep your head up! We’ve got some tips and tricks that’ll help you generate more online advertising leads.  

Review Your Keywords, Regularly

One common issue with advertisers is that they are either not choosing the correct keywords to use in their ad sets, or they are not using the correct keyword match types to generate the most traction with a daily advertising budget. At Strathcom, we believe in a concise ad structure where campaigns are broken into ad-sets with clearly defined keywords and keyword match types.

The issue with using a broad-match keyword in the auto industry is that you will be competing against manufacturers, as well as any search that contains that keyword. This often leads to wasting valuable ad dollars.

The solution? Get granular with your advertising focus; exact match keywords and broad modified keywords ensure you’re targeting the search query that is valuable to your business. Also, we can’t stress enough that you check your work, and always incorporate a negative keyword for every keyword you include in an ad group. Separate your ad groups by negative keywords, and routinely audit your accounts to add more negative keywords that will continue to improve campaign performance.

Update Your Ad Copy. Constantly.

One of the best ways to improve ad click-through-rate is to rewrite ad copy for under-performing ads. The goal is to gain a larger audience clicking through to your website to convert. There are four components that should be present in all search ads (within the headline or ad description):

•       the features
•       the benefits
•       a call-to-action (CTA)
•       and the keywords, incorporated

The feature represents your product or service, and the benefit represents what customers can achieve with the product or service. At Strathcom Media we produce multiple ads per campaign, so we are able to test CTAs and ad copy in our ad campaigns.

Improve Your Landing Page

One of the most important aspects of online marketing is the landing page experience. A great landing page can encourage a user to convert on site. Conversely, an irrelevant landing page can make for a poor online experience, which is unlikely to generate a conversion.

An ideal solution is to have a dedicated landing page that is designed with one goal in mind: to convert the user. It’s always a good idea to review the landing page copy, and to update when necessary to improve lead generation results.

For those in the automotive industry, you want to have a landing page with a clear path for users to convert—such as filling out a form (but not one that is not buried in the landing page).

If you’re not utilizing content marketing, and creating a landing page isn’t possible, then sending users directly to vehicle inventory would be your next best bet—since viewing inventory and converting is where you want the user to end up.

Kill The Campaign (this is the end)

There are several reasons to pause a campaign for a short (or extended) period over an advertising month. Examples of reasons to stop a PPC campaign include:

Poor ROI

• If the campaign is spending a large portion of the budget and not converting, then the best course of action is to transfer the budget to a campaign that generates leads for the client. Unless of course the focus of the campaign is awareness, such as with a display advertising campaign, which does not typically generate leads. But of course, this is why having a clear and concise strategy is important.

Lack of Budget

• There are several factors that play into a lack of budget, such as higher bid costs for keywords, and utilizing keywords that are frequently searched. One thing to note, regarding the latter, is if you are in a market with a large population your ads will probably see more traction earlier in the day. This results in your daily budget being spent earlier in the day, and a desire to end the campaign.

With this in mind, advertisers must review the time of day that they, historically, generate conversions in campaigns. From there they can discuss with the client if it makes sense to advertise 24 hours a day. If it makes more sense to run ads early in the morning, since that is when they are producing leads, then there should be mutual understanding that the budget will be better utilized earlier in the day. Again, highlighting the importance of having a trustworthy relationship with both your advertiser, and your campaign strategy. Killing the campaign can seem, at first, like the most prudent decision. But oftentimes a bit of detective work can find ways in which your campaign can be salvaged.

The End (for real this time)

The goal with PPC advertising is to balance ad costs over the course of the monthly advertising cycle, to generate consistent leads. At Strathcom Media we optimize our client’s ad campaigns, ads, and keywords —daily— to generate success. Successful teams are successful because they practise how they play, and they do the little things well. Little things like blocking the IP address of the client, to ensure that the ad clicks come from the target audience.

If you didn’t notice a pattern running through all of this, it’s to stay vigilant! Never stop testing, never stop reviewing, and never stop optimizing. To be successful in digital advertising, you have to constantly test each individual account, as each individual account should be approached uniquely. Advertising target markets vary, as do the client’s advertising goals. As online advertising continue to develop, which it most certainly will, it’s the responsibility of advertisers to continue to develop as well.