Posted on May 15, 2008
Set and Forget PPC (AKA Burning Your Cash) - 7 Ways to Stop the Burn
BY BEN CASTELLI
Cruise control was a great idea for cars, auto pilot is perfect for planes, but in terms of pay per click advertising there is no such thing as "set and forget". A lot of companies waste their money (and Google makes a lot of money) from pay per click campaigns that are not regularly optimized. Checking up on your PPC campaigns several times a week is essential and tackling some ongoing weekly action items will really stretch that budget dollar and improve ROI. Where do you start? Below is a list of 7 digestible weekly to-dos:
- Simple ad copy split testing by having a control ad and coming up with a new ad to beat the control in terms of conversions. Don't forget to use ad text with limited time special offers, this will really set you apart from the set and forgetters.
- Pause or delete keywords that drive a lot of clicks (cost) but do not convert, or keywords with a ton of impressions but no clicks. This will help improve your cost/conversion, drive more targeted traffic, and increase your quality score.
- Bid price optimization to achieve your target ad positioning - increase the bid price on keywords with a good conversion rate and low cost per conversion and decrease the bid prices on keywords with a very high cost/conversion.
- Add additional negative keywords (For example, if you sell bicycles but do not rent or have reviews/comparisons then it would be a good idea to add "rent", "review" and all variations to your negative keyword list).
- Exclude web sites on the content network (adsense ads matched to a sites content) that are driving clicks but not converting. There can be a lot of worthless sites out there, but trust me, you will find some hidden gems with excellent ROI. (Google and Yahoo offer this feature).
- Refine geo-targeting by adding or excluding certain regions. Use your site analytics and determine where the highest quality traffic is coming from and target that traffic with specific offers and regional ad copy.
- Enable ad scheduling and choose what days of the week and what hours of the day you want your ads to run. For example, a company like Victoria Secrets may find their ROI decrease significantly after 10pm due to a different type of "visitor".
So pick a few items weekly from the above list and make it happen. Leave set and forget for cruise control, auto-pilot and cooking.
It's staggering how much money google must make off of people who "set and forget." All kinds of non-technical people think Google is some kind of public charity, and don't recognize how they make their fortune.