If you’re reading this article, chances are you are looking to learn about how to set up your PPC campaign and HC Media Group’s expert PPC Management services and how this can transform your business. First things first, let’s dive into how to set up a pay-per-click campaign.
How to Set Up Your PPC Campaign
Setting up a PPC campaign (pay-per-click campaign) can be complicated if you do not know where to begin, or how to successfully implement a campaign. The Google Skill Shop offers some brilliant training on how to set up, monitor, optimise and succeed within a Google Pay-Per-Click campaign.
Before the campaign is set up, you need to ensure that your website is designed to easily accept leads or sales, ensure that the customer journey is fluid and your company goals are correct so that you can determine success. This involves optimising the landing page, to make sure the user journey is seamless as this will affect the click-through rate of your ad.
How to Set Up Your PPC Campaign: Keyword Research
The first thing that you need to do to know how to set up your PPC campaign with Google is to ensure that you have a Google Account, this is as simple as getting a Gmail account live. You can then sign into the Google AdWords website. From here you will conduct thorough keyword research to ensure your ads are specific and targeted to your audience.
The research will include looking into the competition, budget and search volume to make sure the specific terms are appropriate to your campaign. Once you have identified your keywords, you will need to benign to build out the PPC ads based on the research you have found. Remember, the wording of each Google ad is important, a first impression is always important so make sure the ads are tailored to the services/products you are promoting.
The first step you need to make is to ensure that you select the right keyword list, extensive research should be done on the keywords, what your customers are searching for, the products or the services that you are trying to sell, what your competitors are talking about and the different phrases that could be used. Look into the competition behind each word and how easy it will be for you to rank for this term. We advise you to look at the budget so you can see if the competition for this phrase is highly competitive or easy to rank for.
Keyword research is the foundation of any PPC campaign strategy, and is what will help your campaign take off! When implemented correctly, your keyword research is what will help you successfully capture your target audience whilst they’re in the buying process.
As you build this keyword list, make sure you think like a customer. Do not create a list of what you think will be searched most frequently. Take time and research your demographics and personas, what your potential customers are searching for, whether will they be using short keywords, or long tail keywords such as questions, and whether they are looking for geographical services or are they nationwide. This is a great opportunity for you to dig deep and truly understand your potential customers.
As an example, I could have more luck in gaining traffic and converting phrases such as ‘PPC Agency Colchester’ than I would have ‘PPC Agency.’ Though there would be less traffic from this, there would also be less competition, which would mean that I would get a higher conversion rate, and therefore a higher return on investment.
To be successful, you need to ensure that the suggested bid and the competition are something you are willing to take part in, there is no point paying a high cost per click with a high competition level for a T-shirt that you only have a £4 profit margin in, it just doesn’t make financial sense.
How to Set Up Your PPC Campaign: Campaign Structure
You would then need to start setting up the campaign structure; this is to ensure that you have the best quality score you can with your advert. Here, you need to be incredibly organised and structure the campaign to the highest level.
To be structured, you would need to segment the campaign at a high level; these could be based on
– Services
– Products
– Geographical Locations
– Brand Names
– Generic Names
A great way for you to build your ads is to open up an Excel spreadsheet and begin to write the copy for the keywords you have selected. This copy is crucial and will be the make or break of your PPC campaign. Your ad copy must not only reflect the keyword associated with the campaign, but the landing page it is leading to must correlate with the search term. You will find that when you optimise your landing pages, your conversion rate will rise and you will begin to see more results.
Here I would create a list of the campaigns, and then under this the individual Ad Creation, for example;
Campaign Group – Geographical
Keyword Target – PPC Agency Colchester
Headline – Are you looking for a PPC Agency in Colchester?
Description – Award Winning Premier Partner Agency Providing Clear Advice That Gets Results! Dedicated PPC Agency. Global Experience. Multi-Industry Experience. Proven Track Record. Services: Remarketing, Mobile, Display, Shopping, Keyword Search, Video, Social.
You would then place the URL of the landing page that you wish the traffic to be directed to. With this campaign, as the description talks more about the company, the landing page would more than likely be the homepage.
You have 170 visible characters (headline, description, and URL path) to encourage a user to click on your ad. Please find the character limits listed below.
Character Limits
Headline 1: 30
Headline 2: 30
Description: 80
Path 1: 15
Path 2: 15
Once you have structured your campaign the way that has been suggested, you are then ready to ‘create your first campaign’ on the Google AdWords platform.
Here, you will be taken to a page that has several settings which you will need to investigate.
Type – The Google network allows you to select from a run on a variety of different campaign options.
· Search Network with Display Select
· Search Network Only
· Display Network Only
· Shopping
· Video
· Universal App Campaign
The most common setting for someone in a testing phase would be Search Network Only.
Network – Google offers three settings to be chosen from in this view.
· Google Search Network
· Google Search Network including search partners
· Google Display Network
The most common setting for someone in a testing phase would be Search Network Only. Depending on your budget and desired impressions you may want to include search partners. The search partners setting will open your campaign up to more volume but can be less qualified than traffic coming directly from the Google search network.
Devices – The default is set to show to all devices on the network. You will need to understand your business goals and demographics in detail to get this correct. If you are after an older professional person within business hours and trying to sell a business service or product, then it may bring more returns having a desktop only. On the opposite hand, if you are focusing your efforts on selling shoes to young women, maybe you should turn off desktop traffic to save click-budget waste.
Locations/ Languages – This setting will allow you to select the geographic region where you want your ads to show. If you are a local business, you may want to select by city, region or radius targeting. Below the location setting, you can select the most appropriate language for your audience.
Bid Strategy – The bidding strategy is vital, this is the bit that sets the price for each of your adverts that are going out to the public. Make sure you do not put yourself at financial risk by overlooking this section. It is better to test small amounts and see how things work than to go all out. To begin, set this to something realistic for each campaign and then modify based on actual spend levels as you gain learnings.
How to Set Up Your PPC Campaign: Setting up Your Account
When you select the Create New Campaign feature on the AdWords Platform, Google then takes you through four steps to set up your account. Since you have your research done and all your settings are ready, this will be standard.
· Step One: Campaign Creation and Settings (complete)
· Step Two: Ad Group & Keyword Creation (complete)
· Step Three: Create your first Ad (complete)
· Step Four: Finish and Save (complete)
After all this, your ad campaign should be live. Remember, there is a lot of support from Google themselves on how to set up and optimise your PPC campaign and if done correctly it can be incredibly profitable, but, if it is not done correctly then it can prove to be incredibly expensive. If you want to find out more about how to set up your PPC campaign, you can also reach out to HC Media Group’s award-winning PPC Agency in Colchester and we would love to help you with your campaign.