Any successful PPC campaign starts with a well-formed strategy. Depending on your goals, you’ll benefit from a specific PPC method or a combination of more than one. So, the first thing you’ll need to think about is what you are hoping to achieve, which could be anything from:
- Brand awareness
- Leads
- Increased traffic
- Sales
- Repeat sales
Understanding your audience
Having a grasp of your target audience in terms of their interests, demographics and online behaviour – will help you to create a solid PPC strategy and a high-performing digital campaign.
We suggest thinking about which stage of the decision-making funnel they fall into, for example; awareness, interest etc. Once you understand your prospective customers, you can begin to make better-informed decisions with the right PPC tools to reach out to customers.
Setting initial goals can take a lot more consideration than you might think. So, we’ve broken down the common PPC objectives along with some tips on how you can accomplish them.
Brand Awareness
As a digital agency, we see brand awareness as a common goal for our PPC clients. PPC is ideal if you’re aiming to quickly increase the visibility of your service or product.
Display ads – PPC display ads can be an effective way of improving your brand awareness overall. If your PPC targeting is using relevant keywords, placements, topics and messaging – then this approach will offer you a wider reach.
Social media – It’s no surprise that social media is another popular channel for brand awareness-raising. All of the major social platforms offer advanced targeting options based on user’s demographics and interests. This will allow you to serve your ads to customers who are likely to have an interest in your service or product.
Keywords – Similarly, search campaigns with more general keywords can be useful for branding. For example, if the business sells football merchandise, potentially bidding on “football kit” could raise awareness. The possible downside of this is that we do often see higher CPC (cost-per-click), and sometimes clicks can be irrelevant. To carry out this approach in the right way, you’ll benefit from understanding smart keyword match types and negative keywords.
Leads
Sales don’t happen instantly, but PPC ads with a strong call-to-action (CTA) can really help to encourage users to interact with your business. You can generate more leads through PPC by encouraging people to fill out an online form or get in touch directly with you. Once this happens, not only will you be able to follow-up on these users, but you’ll have the right information stored for your PPC customer match campaigns.
A call-to-action for this purpose could be any of the following:
- Get a free consultation.
- Sign up for a free trial.
- Request a callback.
- Join our mailing list.
- Request free demo.
We’ve shared our top tips on how to create a CTA that will reach out to your ideal customers and make you stand out against competitors. You can read more here.
Sales
If a customer is ready to purchase your product or use your service, then you should be targeting them with a specific campaign. You can recognise a customer who is interested in a purchase through their search query. They tend to use words which indicate higher intent; which could be any of the following:
- Delivery or shipping information
- Special discounts
- Vouchers
- Product information, i.e. sizing
- Price information
To address these users, you can create separate campaigns which highlight offers and things like warranties, returns, and any other information a user might want to know if they intend to purchase. This process is about ensuring your potential customers are informed enough to know that your business will benefit them. Your ad copy and ad extensions are a chance to include this information. You can see more on how to use them here.
Remarketing
If a user is showing interest in your site, but their visit doesn’t end in a conversion – you can target them with a remarketing PPC ad. We use this PPC service a lot for our clients because it means we can reconnect with audience lists who have previously shown an interest. By using a tracking code on your site visitor’s browser – you can understand their online browsing behaviour and who to target with your ads.
By setting up a ‘purchasers’ list, you can exclude people from being targeted with a specific campaign once they have completed their purchase. You can also use this list for repeat sales.
What are repeat sales?
PPC ads can also cover things like upgrades, similar products and cross-sells or up-sells. This is a type of remarketing that is targeting people who have previously bought from your business or used your service. If you’re developing a repeat sales approach – we suggest thinking about the following questions:
- What is going to encourage a repeat sale? – What would prompt a past customer to re-purchase from you? For example, free shipping, discount or any unique features or offers.
- How long does the product last? – If you’re selling a product that will need to be replaced or renewed, then you could benefit from retargeting your past customers.
- Do you have a new model coming out? – Similarly, if you have a new or improved version of your product or service, you should consider retargeting past customers who are likely to be interested again.
- Is there an opportunity to cross-sell? – Do you have any complementary products your customer might be interested in purchasing? Or, do you offer another service that might benefit another?
- Does the consumer buy multiples? – If your customer purchases more than one product – they are likely to be a returning customer rather than a one-time buyer – meaning they’re worth serving your remarketing ads to.
PPC remarketing is a great way of re-engaging previous customers with specific messaging designed to motivate them to purchase from you or use your services again.
Get in touch
Your PPC strategy should align with your business goals designed to reach and lead consumers down the sales funnel towards a purchase. Reviewing your results and making changes throughout your campaign is essential. If you have any questions for our London & UK based team, feel free to contact us.