It’s no secret that Google dominates the search engine market.
This is why most digital marketing agencies focus a lot on SEO for Google. Blogs, backlinking, and on-page optimization are all part of a growing industry.
However, you shouldn’t completely ignore pay-per-click ads either. Google takes your PPC campaign into consideration too. You shouldn’t slash your PPC budget and put all your weight behind your organic SEO plans.
Planning your budget is part of a perfect PPC strategy.
But how big of a PPC budget should you have? Read on and find out more.
1. Research Search Volume Trends
One of the most important tips to follow when running PPC ad campaigns is to do your research. Depending on the search volume, Google shows your ads at different rates. What this means is that if there aren’t enough people searching for your associated keywords, Google won’t show your ads.
But at times, you can use the small search volume to your advantage. It’s especially important if you’re a small business. After all, you pay lower prices and have little to no competition.
That means your ads will show for these keywords in a lucrative yet attainable way.
Remember, higher search volumes translate to higher price and competition. That means you need to invest a lot more to beat out the more established companies doing the same PPC advertising campaign.
2. Research the Cost Per Click (CPC) Estimates
When you’re searching for search volumes, you might see estimates for the cost per click. It gives you an idea of the price you pay each time someone clicks your ads. As mentioned before, high search volumes mean higher CPC.
Higher costs for AdWords PPC aren’t always a bad thing. That’s why it’s important to gather as much data as you can. That gives you the ability to decide whether it’s profitable to invest to win clicks from these high-volume searches.
3. Be Specific with Keyword Selections
Put yourself in the mind of your customers-what do they use to search for your business? Some businesses like eCommerce stores can have straightforward keywords. That’s also the case for companies that don’t sell a wide variety of products.
Finding the answer becomes more complicated when your product or service is a solution to a specific problem. That means your keywords become questions stating the problems you fix. For example, if you own a pet supplies store, your customers might search for “what’s the healthiest food for cats?”
But in any case, focus on the ones that show your customers’ intent to buy. It’s better to invest in “buy fanny packs” instead of “fanny packs” since it shows the immediate buying intent.
If you want to scale your operations, you can experiment with it. You can try high-funnel, low-intent keywords once you’re ready to scale your business operations.
4. Target Local Areas Your Business Needs
If you’re a global, online business, this might not be as important. But if you’re one of the 30.2 million small businesses in the United States, you benefit more by targeting specific locations. Target a small area around your business location as a start.
Research your locality to discover a demographic that will make good use of your products and services. Before long, you’ll see more physical visits to your business premises. After all, people will discover you better when you confine your PPC ad campaign within your local area.
Running a global campaign might become more difficult. In this case, you need to target a small geographic region to start. Then you can expand it depending on its success, scaling up your campaign to make it more profitable.
5. Run Ads at Business-Specific Times
It’s easy to use a budgeting calculator to get an estimate for your PPC campaign price. But if you want to get the most out of your investment, you need to limit the time when your ads show up. Do your research and determine the most profitable time periods of the day.
For small businesses, you need to check the best time your customers search for your services. It’s especially important when you want to drive them to your business premises. After all, it’s often not enough to drive them to your website alone.
6. Target Devices Your Customers Use
This tip has more of a specialized function. Regardless, you need to start thinking about your customers’ devices when they do their searches. In most cases, items with a lower value often get researched and bought using mobile devices.
In the opposite side of the spectrum, people use desktops to buy higher-priced products. Having this information can give you the means to control how aggressive your bidding strategy is. It gives you an idea where the kind of traffic comes from based on their location in your sales funnel.
7. Monitor the Position, Ad Spend, and Conversions
Once you’re done with the link budget calculator and your campaign is up and running, all that’s left is maintenance. It’s easy to do since all you need to look out for is the core key performance indicators (KPIs). This helps in determining your campaign’s success and the things you can improve with it.
You can determine which expensive keywords don’t bring conversions or sales. Check whether some of your keywords perform better in either lower or higher positions in the search engine results page (SERP). These indicators determine what to manage and improve your PPC campaign.
Know Your PPC Budget Today!
There are a lot of factors that determine how much you’ll spend on your PPC campaign. It’s important to follow these tips to ensure that your PPC budget fits your requirements. If you do, you get more leads and sales conversions without paying too much.
That way, your PPC campaign succeeds and you get more organic rankings. Before long, you’ll have a stronger customer base that stays with you for a long time.
Do you need help with your PPC campaign? Contact us today and let us help!