Business leaders across all industries know that ROI, or return on investment, is the lifeblood of any operation seeking to generate revenue and perform cost-effectively. In the often-complicated world of digital marketing, ROI (as well as, ROAS – return on ad spend) is an essential gauge of marketing success.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s well understood that two essential elements of digital marketing, SEO<\/a> and PPC<\/a>, dominate online advertising, but they yield ROI in slightly different ways. SEO involves making tweaks and adjustments to create optimal conditions for ongoing payoff. It\u2019s a digital form of environment-creation and refinement.<\/p>\n On the other hand, PPC (pay per click) is more immediate; after investing in paid ads, marketers can expect to see results fairly rapidly.<\/p>\n PPC ROI is judged on speed and consistency; but that doesn\u2019t mean ROI necessarily follows PPC in a quid pro quo <\/em>fashion. Paying by the click means you don\u2019t spend your budget on mere impressions, but real return on investment only comes with optimised, well-engineered PPC campaigns.<\/p>\n In this article, we\u2019ve pulled together the expertise and experience of a leading PPC department<\/a> to provide you with 3 tips to squeeze extra revenue out of your strategy.<\/p>\n One oversight many PPC marketers make is to draw keywords from too-shallow a pool, often owing to over-dependence on Google Keyword Planner<\/a>. Whilst this isn\u2019t necessarily a mistake, it isn\u2019t optimal.<\/em><\/p>\n It means campaigns won\u2019t be equipped to generate as many clicks as they might have and, perhaps more worryingly, ads may appear when they\u2019re tangentially relevant but not particularly useful. Some users might click on the occasional ad out of curiosity, but this is highly unlikely to result in a conversion.<\/p>\n The first step here is to ensure Google isn\u2019t pushing ads into overly-competitive or unachievable keyword environments. If you don\u2019t offer services in the UK, for instance, you should prevent ads from appearing when people search \u2018keyword + UK.\u2019 Utilise the negative keyword functionality to combat this pitfall.<\/p>\n Pay per click ads are an excellent way to get people in the door, so to speak – but after that, it\u2019s over to the vendor. Good PPC will bring leads to a site, and from there, it\u2019s the seller\u2019s responsibility to ensure that they have a positive experience.<\/p>\n This is what\u2019s known as UX (user experience). Businesses must provide a polished, enjoyable, inherently-valuable journey from start to finish. No longer a nice-to-have, a top-quality UX has become an essential offering and represents a competitive advantage – demonstrably, 96% of buyers report that the purchasing experience is a difference-maker in their choices regarding brand loyalty (Microsoft<\/a>).<\/p>\n Once PPC ads are optimised with an effective keyword strategy and compelling ad copy, look beyond user searches and work on delivering a positive UX. For the most part, that means improving landing pages so that they\u2019re of the highest possible standard. It\u2019s vital for marketing messages to match; aim to ensure that when users arrive on the landing page, they can easily find what they were initially searching for.<\/p>\n A large part of why so many PPC campaigns don\u2019t deliver peak ROI is that, after marketers spend time and energy setting them up, they take a hands-off approach; leaving the campaign running in the background without any supervision, expecting it to deliver optimal results. Whilst this is technically possible, it\u2019s extremely unlikely.<\/p>\n Moreover, even a fully-optimised PPC campaign won\u2019t last forever. Market forces happen. Purchasing habits change. Trends vary. Sooner or later, the relevance of PPC ads will expire, and that\u2019s something marketers should proactively anticipate and respond to.<\/p>\n Rather than be discouraged by this, look at it as an ongoing marketing challenge; it\u2019s like tending a garden, in that it\u2019s not something you \u2018complete.\u2019 You take steps to facilitate the best results, harvest the fruits, and refine the process, with a view to cultivating more success in the future.<\/p>\n In other words, optimal PPC takes work. Analyse results on a monthly basis, as a minimum, to see what is and what isn\u2019t representing positive ROI – from there, you\u2019ll have a good idea of which weeds need pulling.<\/p>\n PPC & ROI: the Reality<\/p>\n Hopefully, you\u2019ll come away from this article with an improved understanding of how to extract optimal ROI from your PPC strategy. In brief, the secret lies in this three-pronged formula: be strategic with keywords. Deliver an excellent UX. Perform regular analyses and updates. Train these habits, and you\u2019ll soon see your PPC strategy yielding ROI at the top end of your projections and expectations.<\/p>\n Of course, in reality, this is easier said than done. Business leaders are invariably faced with multitudinous other tasks, and there is a significant amount of technical knowledge involved in PPC. But it is possible to expedite the ROI-boosting process by investing in professional and results-backed PPC services. Doing so can supercharge your PPC strategy and take your online marketing to new levels.<\/p>\n\n
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