If you are planning to start a new business or preparing for a growth phase. Then PPC marketing can be a nuclear weapon for you as organic SEO campaigns will take several months to gain propulsion. Once the ads start running, a well-crafted PPC campaign will bring you more traffic, leads, and customers almost instantly. But PPC campaigns are complex and require a careful and strategic approach. According to 34% of marketers, paid search is one of the most effective marketing strategies but it is also one of the most difficult strategies to implement effectively.
However, you do not have to worry as in this article; we will discuss the top 6 tips to craft an effective PPC strategy. So, what are you waiting for? Scroll down and just continue to read the article.
Do Your Research
Conducting your research is the first step towards crafting an effective PPC strategy. And this research does not involve keyword research only.
You should invest more and concentrate on researching your prospective customers and find out what appeals to them because many ad platforms nowadays are restricting the precision of keyword targeting.
There are some questions that you must always consider before beginning any advertising campaigns-
Who are your target customers?
What are the products or services they buy currently from your business domain?
What expectations your target customers are having for the product or service that you offer?
And What are the issues related to the product or service you offer?
And What are the other brands that your target customers would consider in your business domain?
Finding answers to all the above-mentioned questions will help you to make better and effective targeting decisions. And define more creative and effective ads and landing pages.
Having discussed the questions that you must always consider before beginning any advertising campaign, now it’s time to identify the source from which you will collect the data. Your first step should be to approach marketing leaders. If this is not enough, at the basic end, you can use Google Forms or Survey Monkey and at the advanced end-run focus groups and conduct in-depth interviews.
Successful conduction of the research will provide you with a map of different potential target groups that you must focus upon.
Select Your Target Audience
After identifying the potential customers, it’s time to figure out that whether you will go for the total market or just one precise customer group.
It will be more expensive if you target more people as every customer group will have their respective behaviors.
Narrowing down your customers will provide you the following benefits:
- Resourcing– Every business does not possess enough resources to reach every customer. So, narrowing them down will save you from unnecessary expenses.
- Value asymmetries– According to Forbes, many organizations have found that 80% of their customers are responsible for 20% of their profits. So, it will be very helpful for you if you can identify that 1 in 5 customers that results in 2/3 of profits.
- Positioning and Messaging– If you try and target all the customer groups then you will just end up having no net effective results because it is very difficult to position all the customers due to their different respective behaviors.
- Positioning against customers– If you narrow down your audience then automatically you will also narrow down your competitors as more customer groups will lead to more competitors.
Review Messaging
The foundation of your messaging lies in your brand position but in paid search. The ads are highly focused on promotions and offer rather than brand positioning. If your ads portray your brand position then it can have a huge positive impact on the CTR and conversion rates.
‘Benefits ladder’ is one of the useful concepts of positioning that should always be paid attention to. While forming a marketing strategy.
Set Your Objectives
You can identify your objectives using the marketing funnel. The marketing funnel consists of several stages but for simplicity. We will consider the 3-stage model starting with objectives, through to conversion. Marketing funnels should be customized to fit the journey of your customers.
So, what’s the reason behind your PCC campaign? Is it to increase sales or grow brand awareness? Well, advertising can help you with all these theoretically. You should occasionally create campaigns as a part of a full-funnel media strategy. With that said, your deployed tactics should vary at each stage of the funnel and the KPIs at each stage should be aligned.
Select the Appropriate Ad Platform and Creative
It is very essential to identify which platform will work best at each funnel stage as each platform does different things.
For example, if your campaign is mainly focused on spreading awareness then paid search is not the right choice at this stage. Your potential customers are not actively searching for a product and may not be aware of your product. At this stage, you should go for a platform that will generate demand and maximize the reach of your product to all your potential customers.
As the job of these ads is not to drive immediate sales. They must contain brand-led messages that are mainly based on the emotional benefits of a product rather than price or demo-sign-up form.
On the other hand, if your objective is to generate sales, then your platform must be different. Your ads should contain messages that will particularly focus on promoting sales and increasing conversion rates.
Always identify your objectives and then plan the tools and the messages that perfectly accomplish your objectives.
Deliver an Integrated Campaign
Rather than spending on a single channel, you will get better results if you combine tactics. And channels i.e. paid search and connected TV within the same expense. Multiple agencies have their respective objectives and platform decisions to consider. And this splits the advertising responsibility among them making the delivery of a coherent message difficult.
As a part of an orchestrated campaign, all parties should work together to make the advertising campaign effective and successful.
Conclusion
These are the top 6 tips for crafting an effective PCC strategy. Always remember that your campaign should be backed by appropriate data coming from proper channels. Always identify your target audience and be clear with your objectives before taking any platform decisions.
