6 tips to Improve PPC Campaigns and Reduce Cost Per Click

6 tips to Improve PPC Campaigns and Reduce Cost Per Click

What Is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of gaining the website traffic by purchasing ads on the search engines.

Related SEM Synonyms & Acronyms

‘Search Engine Marketing’ was once used as an umbrella term to include the both SEO – search engine optimization and paid search activities. Over time, the industry has adopted the SEM acronym to refer solely to the paid search.

It generally use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and or ‘Paid Search’ to refer to the paid listings, with longer term of search marketing used to include both the Search Engine optimization (SEO) and Search Engine marketing (SEM). Below are some of the most common terms also used to refer the SEM activities:

Paid search ads

Paid search advertising

Pay per click (PPC)

pay-per-call (PPC) – some ads, mainly those served to the mobile search users, might be charged by the number of clicks that resulted in the direct call from a Smartphone.

Cost per click (CPC) – CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions)

Most search ads are sold on a CPC or PPC basis, but some advertising options might also be sold on the CPM basis.

SEM For Beginners

‘Google AdWords’ is by many measures the most popular paid search platform used by the search marketers, followed by Bing Ads, which also serves as a important portion of ads on the Yahoo.

Beyond that, there are the numbers of ‘2nd tier PPC platforms’ as well as PPC advertising options on major social networks.

In addition to covering the general paid search trends, you can find most recent news about the SEM and helpful tips to get started with the PPC ads on major search marketing platforms below:

Google- AdWords

Bing Ads

Yahoo: Search Ads

Each platform suggests its own getting started the guides and helpful tutorials. Another beginner resource is Googles’ Insider’s Guide To AdWords (PDF). Since guide was last updated in 2008, the Google AdWords user interface has changed, along with the several features, but the guide might still offer the useful introduction.

Pay Per Click Advertising Tips & methods

Paid search advertising help to immediately increase the traffic, visibility and conversions for your website. The paid search advertising information and news in variety of ways:

All pay per click News & Articles comprised the verified product features and announcements from major search advertising platforms covered by our editorial staff, plus expert analysis and real-world advice from our contributor network.

Define Clear Goals for Campaign

This seems clear, but we have run across the numerous business owners who advertise without any clear goals. Just as your business needs the solid plan, you pay per click campaign do too.

Structure Campaigns Properly

For some reason, many people want to make as many ads and add as many as keywords as possible to the single campaign. Don’t do it. The pay per click platforms offer you the great way to manage and monitor the ads, take advantage of it. We like to limit each campaign to about 5 keywords and some of the variations of those terms. This would allow you to better the target your ads and landing page thereby increasing your ad quality score and decreasing your cost per click.

Long Tail Keywords

This is gold mine right in front of you. Long tail keywords generally have the lower cost per click and higher conversion rate. Unless your goal is only the traffic, stick to long tail keywords that are commercial in the nature. Here is an example: ‘buy widgets online’. An educational keyword on the other hand could be ‘what are widgets’? In addition to long tail keywords, you should also use the negative keywords to improve your results. If you sell widgets, use negative keywords to prevent ads from showing to the people looking for ‘free widgets’.

Using Competitor Names

This trick has been working for quite some time now but it is still underutilized. In order to use this properly, you might need to find the competitors offering the exact same products or services as you that have a decent search volume for their brand name. You will then need to craft ads the really get people’s attention. Let us say we were using ‘Franks widget shop’ as our keyword. Our ad may say ‘Franks Widget Shop? Forget about Franks, come save big and give us thanks’. This sends clear message that you are just like Franks, but cheaper. It also uses ‘rhyme as reason bias’ which was made famous in OJ Simpson trial.

Proper Ad Development

You could have the very best landing page possible and great list of keywords but your ad has to get the clicks. Your ad should include target keyword, clear message of what you are offering and an incentive. Remember, the client wants to know how you can help to them specifically, so tell them in the headline.

Creating Dedicated Landing Pages

Your Ad quality score in the Google Adwords is determined by your click through rate, bounce rate, and relevancy of landing page. If you are sending visitors to the generic page such as your homepage, you are missing out on possible conversions. Creating the custom page with clear call to action would lower your cost per click and increase the conversion. Do not overlook this step.

Search Ads Archives: This area provides collection of all stories we have written on topic of paid search. There, you will find additional sub categories for special topics in the paid search marketing including:

Search Marketing (SEO & PPC)

Search Retargeting & Site Remarketing

Display Advertising

Mobile Marketing

Paid Social Advertising