In pay per click management, many times we are told to simply increase our budget if we want to get more results. While increasing your budget will likely bring more clicks, this is not always a feasible option for all companies. If this is the case for your account, there are a few ways that you can boost your results.
1. Ad Extensions
Sitelinks
Sitelinks are one of several types of ad extensions, which are additional features that can be added on to your search ads. Sitelinks add four to six links below your search ad, which appear when your ad is on the top of the search page. You can customize the text and URL for each link.
There are many benefits that your account can derive from using sitelinks. Since they extend the copy of your ad, the search engine will give your ad space on the results page that is sometimes two or three times the space given for a normal search ad. This equates to valuable real estate that you gain without spending anything more, since clicks to sitelinks count the same as clicks on a normal ad. Indeed, research has shown that advertisers have increased their click-through-rates by an average of 20-30% by using sitelinks.
AdWords can also match relevant text ads in your account to sitelinks, and will sometimes show them within an ad’s sitelinks. This provides even more detail and takes up more room on the page.
Additionally, Adwords recently introduced upgraded sitelinks (part of their enhanced campaign updates), which enables advertisers to select different sitelinks for each ad group in a campaign. This allows you to be more focused and specific by tailoring the sitelinks to keywords and ads that appear in that ad group and sending visitors to relevant landing pages.
Other Ad Extensions
There are several other ad extension types available including call, location, social and offers. The use of these should depend on your specific goals. For instance, if you run a local business and want to get more foot traffic in the door, location extensions may work well. If you operate your business mainly through phone orders, call extensions may be a better option.
2. Negative Keywords
Negative keywords indicate to search engines which keywords you do not want your ads to show up for. Without negative keywords, you may be showing your ads on irrelevant search terms. For example, if you are selling software and have “enterprise software” as a keyword, your ad could also show for terms such as “enterprise software consulting,” “software management” or “what is enterprise software.” If people searching for these terms click on your ad, you pay for a wasted click, and with limited budgets it is especially important to get as many quality clicks as possible.
It is essential to check your search query report regularly and add any irrelevant terms that are showing up to your negative keyword list. You can do so right from the search query report page in AdWords.
If you’re managing multiple campaigns, it can be more efficient to utilize a shared negative keyword library which automatically applies keywords to multiple campaigns. In addition, sometimes it may be necessary to add keywords at the ad group level if you need more control.
Additionally, keep in mind that negative keywords can be any of the three match types (broad, phrase or exact). It is a best practice to use either phrase or exact match when selecting negative keywords in order to ensure that you are not excluding traffic that may be related to a broad keyword.
3. Adjust Bidding Settings
Ad Schedule
Sometimes your budget may not give you enough room to bid on keywords all day, every day. In order to maximize your returns for your budget, it is a good idea to set up ad schedules, so that your ads are only running at specific times or days.
This is also useful if your audience will usually only be searching during a specific time period. For example, if most of your prospects are searching for you while at work, it may be a wise strategy to not show your ads on weekends or overnight.
Devices
Different devices create different usage patterns. By segmenting your statistics by device type, you can see how visitors on different types of devices interact with your ads. You may want to increase your bids on devices that perform well or decrease your bids on devices that are not performing well.
Location
Targeting an audience by location can be a good strategy in order to more effectively reach your target audience. If you are a local business, this can be especially useful as you will not show your ads to those who are not located near your business. This is also useful to exclude geographic areas where your company does not currently sell in. If you have no international presence, it would be a good idea to only show ads in the United States.
Pay-per-click marketing can be a useful marketing tactic, but it is important to continually optimize your account in order to achieve the greatest ROI. A few simple additions to your account can boost your results, even if you are not able to increase your budget. Consider the above features and utilize those that are relevant to your campaign’s goals.
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