How Compete More Effectively with PPC

Competitors are likely to invest more money in the digital marketing landscape this year as search volume decreases and global uncertainty increases. So, as we rapidly shift towards a more digital-led environment, I thought I’d take a more detailed look at how to reduce wasted ad spend and compete on a global stage with PPC.

Implement Google AI and Automated Bidding #

A key benefit of automated bid strategies is that artificial intelligence targets the user profile most likely to convert and, when appropriate, bids higher to gain that conversion.

As an example, say your average Cost Per Click (CPC) is £1 and your ads are showing for a general audience that searches on your keywords. It’s a general audience so each user profile is in different stages of the sales cycle. Some are in the early stages and researching products, some are in the latter stages and are ready to buy. Because your campaigns are targeting user profiles in all stages, a high percentage is not ready to make a conversion.  Let’s say for this example it takes 25 clicks to provide a conversion. The total cost per conversion is therefore £25.

Now, let’s say we use an automated bid strategy where the AI is trained to recognise user profiles who are in the latter stage of the sales cycle. Those user profiles have already done their research and are ready to buy. These user profiles are also searching from a location and device type that the AI recognises as most likely to convert (perhaps you sell luxury products that are most likely to convert from affluent postcodes via an iPad). For this user profile, the AI will bid higher to ensure your ad shows above your competition’s. It may display your ad at a CPC of £2 in this instance even though it is double the cost of our £1 CPC limit. The AI is now presenting your ads only to user profiles who are in the latter stage of the cycle and with a high probability of conversion. 

With a higher likelihood of a conversion, it takes fewer clicks to gain a conversion. If it now takes only 10 clicks to gain a conversion from this highly targeted audience, the total cost per conversion is £20. This is lower than our previous cost per conversion (£25) when we had capped CPC at a lower value.

This is the power of artificial intelligence and automated bid strategies. The overall CPC can go up but the increase in conversion rate due to the user profile targeting of AI provides a much more cost effective way to gain conversions and reduce wasted ad spend

Target Your Audience with PPC Remarketing & Audience Segmentation #

Remarketing remains one of the most important ways in which to re-target your customer base. 

PPC remarketing allows your ads to show to consumers who have already engaged with your brand. This very powerful form of customer acquisition used by the very best advertisers across the industry.

In addition, Optimised Audience Targeting can leverage Google’s machine learning to identify new audiences who are likely to engage with your business goals.

Take advantage of audience segmentation to make sure you are targeting the right audience at the right time with the right message:

Demographic targeting #

This type of audience targeting goes further than simply targeting people based on their age, gender or parental status information. Instead, Demographic Targeting provides more detailed targeting options based on life and career stages. 

Affinity segment targeting #

Affinity segment targeting aims to reach people who have similar interests, hobbies, and behaviours. These are absolutely vital for boosting brand awareness.

In-market segment targeting #

In-market segments are people who are prepared to purchase specific products or services. People are put into these categories based on their shopping behaviours, making them primed for high-intent, hyper-targeted campaigns.

Life event targeting #

Life Event Targeting targets users who are going through a major life transition, such as a graduation, marriage, house move, learning to drive or divorce.

Prioritise Conversions Over Clicks  #

There’s no doubt that clicks and impressions are massively important, especially when it comes to brand awareness. However, brand visibility should not be your main goal. 

It’s important to concentrate on four key insights that will ultimately help you understand how to reduce wasted ad spend and compete more effectively with PPC. These key metrics include the type of conversion, conversion rate, cost per conversion and return on ad spend. 

By focusing on these four measurements, you will undoubtedly track success a lot differently and it will revolutionise how you put together any paid advertising campaigns in the future. 

Optimise Your Landing Pages #

If your landing pages aren’t performing to the highest level, you’re probably wasting a huge amount of ad spend. So, it’s very important to ensure your landing pages are optimised because, in doing so, it will improve their effectiveness and therefore, boost your conversions. 

When it comes to boosting the effectiveness of your landing pages with PPC, it’s massively important to have a detailed understanding of how users interact with your brand. This may manifest itself as improving your call to actions, improving your inbound and outbound links, or making sure your pages are more mobile friendly. 

By making these subtle changes, you can completely overhaul your landing pages, increase their effectiveness and reduce wasted ad spend. 

Report on Every Level of Performance #

The best way to make sure you’re reaching your optimum level of performance is to accurately track everything you do, be it how visitors interact with your landing pages, or what device they interact with your ads on, and even how they don’t interact with your brand whatsoever.

Making just small changes to the way you track performance can have a significant impact on how you measure the performance of your ads.

Furthermore, using a tracking device such as Google Tag Manager for the majority of your tracking needs will also help increase effectiveness and reduce wasted ad spend through expert PPC Management.

PPC Geeks: The Most Effective PPC Agency in the UK #

We pride ourselves on what we achieve for our clients on a daily basis, be that incredible results or knowing how not to waste ad spend and be more effective. So, if you want to work with one of the top PPC agencies in the country, then PPC Geeks is the place to be to make sure you are prepared for every outcome.