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PPC Optimization Tactics that May be Fooling You

If you know the basics of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, then you know that last-click keywords are what trigger conversions, and since you’re paying for each click, you want to make sure the keywords you select are ones that are more likely to produce conversions. PPC optimization is crucial to the success of your campaign, but some optimization strategies can produce unanticipated results. Since your ad’s clicks are really what drive your campaign, you may be thinking that optimizing to clicks is the best strategy, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

Avoid Optimizing to Clicks

For each last-click keyword, there are a number of keywords that assisted in obtaining the click or conversion; however if you’re optimizing to clicks, you may be overlooking or pausing these highly valuable assisted keywords. Since many PPC programs only track last-click conversions, assisted keywords that are actually quite valuable to your campaign may appear as under-performing. Don’t be quick to weed out under-performing keywords, as they may be contributing to valuable conversions. Optimizing to clicks may reduce the performance of your campaign and can cause a drastic decrease in conversions, making this one of the least-effective PPC optimization tactics for many businesses.

Effective PPC Optimization Tactics to Consider

Keywords

You should be continuously tracking your keywords, click-through rate (CTR) and quality score throughout your PPC campaign. This will help to determine the keywords that are assisting and leading to conversions through phone calls or web events. With PPC optimization for keywords, a good rule of thumb is to remove keywords that have a CTR of below 1%. Bidding on your competitor’s keywords will also allow your ad to be seen by more prospective customers, possibly increasing your website traffic. Be sure you have multiple ads and landing pages for different keywords, as this will help determine which keywords are more effective in earning clicks and will make your PPC optimization strategies more effective.

Ad Extensions

Creating ads that stand out from the rest doesn’t end at unique and motivation text. Ad extensions are a great way to make your ad stand out without putting additional time into creating brand new ad copy. Ad extensions are valuable to PPC optimization because they allow you to display additional information that is crucial to lead and conversion tracking while increasing your click-through rate. Site links, location, call extensions, review links, social media links and promotional extensions are all valuable to driving traffic to your landing pages or website.

PPC Optimization and Campaign Management by Strategic Marketing

Strategic Marketing offers PPC advertising services that produce results for our clients. Our PPC platform, SmartClick, tracks all forms of leads and conversions back to the keywords that generated them. Phone calls, emails, form submissions, online order placements and other web events are continuously monitored so that your campaign is optimized only toward the keywords that generate qualified leads and conversions.

Since PPC optimization should be vigorously monitored, SmartClick saves you time by automatically optimizing your campaign based on the data that our platform collects, ensuring your budget is being allocated to the right places. For more information on our PPC optimization and campaign services, visit our website or call us today to speak with one of our marketing experts!