Unfortunately, as many marketers have found, that’s easier said than done. 

In fact, this failure to reconcile these two desires leaves a lot of marketers with the inability to make money because they don’t know how to maximize their Google Ads ROI (return on investment). 

If that sounds like you, read the rest of this article to discover how to spend $1,000 on Google ads and make $7,500+ ROI so you can grow your customer base without spending more on advertising. 

1. Optimize Your Website 

Optimizing your website may seem like a no-brainer. However, with regard to maximizing your Google Ads ROI, this type of advice is worth repeating. 

It’s getting more and more expensive to run ad campaigns. That’s why it’s crucial to optimize EVERY aspect of it, including your website, to ensure that you make the most of your efforts.

Making sure your site offers a great user experience is one of the first steps toward getting a decent Google Ads ROI. After all, what’s the point of working so hard to get targeted traffic if you’re sending them to a bad website experience? 

That would just be a BLATANT waste of money.

According to studies, almost 75% of mobile users state that they will abandon a website if it isn’t mobile-friendly. As an advertiser, these are clicks that you are paying for – even if those people immediately leave your website. The same goes for a website that is:

• Slow;
• Hard to navigate; or 
• Looks like a cluttered mess.

What’s more, in addition to paying for clicks that you had no chance to convert, offering a bad website experience will earn you a low-quality score from the ever-vigilant Google. That’s why your first step is to optimize your website experience. But how exactly do you do that?

By following these tips:

Increase Website Speed

You can test your website’s speed by visiting Google’s Page Speed Test. You will then get recommendations on how you can improve your speed. 

Many of them are easy to apply, and even the smallest tweaks that you make, such as optimizing images or removing unnecessary widgets, will significantly speed up your site.

Make Navigation Easy 

Take a look at your navigational menu and buttons. Do they make it easy for new visitors to find the pages or information they need? Or maybe you’re creating analysis paralysis by offering too many options? 

Either way, view your menu from the eyes of your visitors and optimize it as such. 

Test Pages on Different Devices

This is something many marketers overlook. You need to test your website from a variety of devices. Make sure your text is big enough to read on small mobile screens. 

Check whether or not visitors have to scroll back and forth to see entire images of pages, and so on. You should have a VERY CLEAR picture of what your website looks like to readers on all types of devices. 

Can you imagine just how poor this site’s mobile experience would be if these images and text were not optimized? 

Luckily, Google has a free Mobile-Friendly Test to help you get started.

And remember: 

You need to write your website copy in a language that your audience understands. All the website optimization in the world can’t help you if your copy isn’t clear and compelling. 

2. Focus on Quality Score

Your second step in maximizing your ROI is to understand the Quality Score. 

Each of the 9 tips in this article will help you improve your Quality Score in some way. BUT, understanding what quality core is will help you better apply that information so you can quickly boost your Google Ads ROI.

Quality Score is a metric used by Google to influence ad rank and ad CPC. It’s rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, and 1 being a disaster. Your Quality Score plays a major role in the cost-effectiveness of your PPC advertising. 

A good score means you can get discounts compared to what others are paying for the same click. You also get better ad placement, all of which translate to an improved Google Ads ROI.

On the other hand, if you are providing a low-quality experience, then Google doesn’t want to work with you. In such a case, you’re likely to find yourself paying as much as 400% more than someone who has a respectable quality score.

Remember, the search giant’s main goal is to provide the best and most relevant results in response to users’ searches. 

So, by making YOU pay more for each click, Google is trying to get you to either stop running ads (since they won’t make financial sense as far as you’re concerned) or improve your user experience by fixing whatever is wrong. The latter is what Google is really hoping for.

Below, we take a look at how Google determines the Quality Score. By understanding what the search engines are looking at, you can work towards fixing and optimizing things to improve your score.

How Google Determines Quality Score

• Click-Through Rate: Your ad is considered relevant if a lot of people click on the keywords you requested for the ad.
• Keyword Relevancy: Google also looks at how relevant a keyword is to the ad group.
• Landing Page Performance: Google analytics show how people respond to your landing page from the time they click, up until they leave your site.
• Ad Text Relevancy: If people don’t click on your ad (or if they click and then immediately leave the page because it wasn’t what they thought it was), then the text is not relevant to searchers.

Remember, you can always hire freelancers to help you with the different improvements to get your Quality Score up to par. 

3. Optimize Your Landing Pages

As previously mentioned, your landing page plays a huge role in maximizing your Google ads ROI. Google needs to know that your ads are aligned with what users want. And as such, your landing pages should be aligned to your ads. 

With so many businesses and marketers overlooking the analysis of their landing page performance, this is a good opportunity for YOU to give yourself an edge over the competition. 

Follow the steps below to optimize your landing pages and make your Google Ads more profitable.

Place Your Call to Action (CTA) Below the Fold

This just means that visitors must scroll down a little to see it. 

First, tell your visitors who you are and explain how you can help them. Make it clear what they’re getting, in other words, what’s in it for them? 

Then – and only then, can you add a call to action button to your landing page.

Include One Offer Per Landing Page

Don’t make people think about which options to choose. This just leads to visitors having second thoughts. 

Have only one offer on each landing page and this will improve your conversion rate.

Eliminate the Menu

Remove the navigation menu, or if you can’t eliminate it completely, at least reduce it. 

Ideally, your landing page should stand alone and it should not give people the option of going anywhere else.

Test, Test, Test

Conduct A/B tests on your landing page design and formats to discover what works best with the same ad. You can change different elements, such as:

• Text
• Color
• Image
• CTA, etc. 

If something doesn’t seem to be working, tweak and improve it. Make changes, and compare your results until you have a page that performs well.

For instance, this website that offers study resources found that a landing page with a simple “search” box (for students to find resources) performed better than one with lots of text and images above the fold. 

Don’t forget to use online tools to help you prevent plagiarism.

Plagiarized content is something else Google can’t stand, and if your landing pages are filled with it, that might affect your overall Quality Score. 

4. Align Keywords With the Buyer’s Journey

One way to improve your Google Ads ROI is to match your keywords to the buyer’s journey. Your ad should align with the landing page, and the keywords you choose should align with the ad. 

You can do this by thinking about the customers buying process, which is described below in a nutshell:

Awareness Stage

The awareness stage is at the top of the funnel (TOF). 

It’s the beginning of the buyer’s journey. 

Most marketers build awareness through content marketing and social media – for instance, by finding top-quality blogs that accept guest posts and submitting high-quality content as a way to reach brand new audiences.

But if you choose to generate awareness through Google Ads, it’s important to take the right approach. The goal at this stage is to offer your audience valuable information to educate them AND convert visitors into leads. 

Make sure people are aware of you and the challenge you solve. At this stage, they are in “research mode”.

Someone in the digital marketing niche (for example), might target awareness keywords such as:

• Wix vs. WordPress Review
• Shop for Video Editing Software
• Digital Marketing Guide
• What are the most important content marketing metrics

As you can see, keywords like “review”, “shop for”, “best”, “guide”, “what are” are clearly targeted toward people who are at the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Consideration Stage

During this stage, buyers are in the market, but they may not be feeling any urgency to make a purchase. 

They are considering the information they researched during the awareness stage. However, they might be persuaded to buy now IF presented with the right offer. 

Typically, consideration keywords are paired with an ad offering some sort of discount. For example, a site like this one that sells predictive dialing software might consider the following keywords:

• Predictive dialer discounts
• Predictive dialing software on sale
• Best place to buy CRM with predictive dialer

Also, take a look at this example of an effective consideration stage ad for a lingerie store.

Decision Stage

At this stage, you need to use high intention keywords that make it easy for visitors to buy, schedule, sign up, etc. 

These types of keywords usually convert to instant sales. You can use words and phrases such as:

• Buy Breville coffee maker
• Where to buy Breville coffee maker
• Appliance store near me
• Buy Breville coffee maker in Austin

Keywords like these represent a point at which buyers have done their research and they know EXACTLY what they want.

5. Review Targeted Ad Groups 

Another step you need to take toward maximizing your Google Ads ROI is to re-evaluate your targeted ad groups. 

Look for keywords in those groups with low-quality scores. These may perform better in different ad groups, so consider either moving or removing them. 

If using broad match, as opposed to exact match, take a look at the report to discover the phrases that are actually triggering your ads.

You might consider adding some of these to your keywords to allow you to better track their performance.

6. Prevent Unqualified Clicks

Unqualified clicks can result in a lot of wasted money. For example, say you have a business that sells barcode software for large organizations. There is no use getting clicks from small business owners who wouldn’t be willing to pay what the software is worth. That isn’t your target audience. 

But, even if you put the right keywords, such as “enterprise-level“, the person might still click on your ad, not knowing what that type of software costs. 

For a company that sells premium products or services, one way to help prevent unqualified clicks like these would be to add something like:

“Starting at $3,000” 

This would serve as a way to avoid wasting the searcher’s time – and your money. And remember to never pay too much per click. Although it may seem like the only way to get seen in some of the more competitive industries, it’s generally not worth it to pay outrageous amounts for Google search ads. 

So what should you do instead? 

Rather, DIG DEEPER into your ad keywords. Find the ones that are less competitive and cost less for each click. This may take some time and effort, but it will pay off massively in improved Google Ads ROI.

7. Create a Comprehensive Strategy

Google Ads are great for a lot of reasons: 

• Getting started is easy 
• You can begin generating sales quickly
• Google Ads can help you meet any of your marketing goals
• It’s easy to measure and improve your performance

BUT, without a comprehensive strategy to work with, you will pay a premium for each one of those clicks. 

You need a complete digital marketing strategy to generate awareness for a lot less so that by the time visitors click on your ad, they have already seen your brand somewhere else. They already know who you are AND they trust you. They have an interest, and possibly even an emotional connection to you. For example:

If you have a site that sells VPNs, you might build brand awareness by publishing a series of videos and articles on “how to browse the web safely”. 

This would let your target audience know about you first so that when they do land on your sales page, they already know who you are and the solution you provide for accessing the dark web.

Strategies like those in content marketing and social media can help you achieve this. They can also allow you to effectively nurture leads in the consideration phase. 

Furthermore, you can add email marketing to your marketing strategy. As most marketers know, it’s a highly customized and meaningful way to build stronger relationships with your customers. The responsive website we discussed earlier is also part of it.

Bottom line?

Between the website, email marketing, content marketing, and social media you will have a STRONG marketing strategy that will generate more clicks and get higher conversion rates on your Google ads. 

Conclusion

Making $7,500 from $1,000 comes down to one thing: don’t pay too much to acquire customers.

It’s impossible to get a reasonable Google Ads ROI if your CPC is not what it should be.

This article has shown you some of the simplest and most effective steps you can take right now to dramatically reduce your cost per click and increase your conversion rate at the same time. This means you will generate higher revenues at a much lower cost.

With any Google Ads campaign, it’s important to improve your KPIs where possible. But how do you know if your campaign is performing well or not if you don’t have anything to compare it to?

There are reports that can assess your campaign performance, but if you don’t know the average CTR for your industry, you could be running campaigns that just aren’t hitting the mark like they should.

In this article, we’ll cover what CTR is, how it’s calculated, if there’s such a thing as a ‘good’ CTR, as well as how to improve CTR.

What is CTR? 

CTR stands for click-through rate and measures the percentage of clicks an ad gets based on its total number of impressions. An ‘impression’ can be defined as each time an ad is visible on a page, and therefore when an ad is seen.

It’s commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns.

Why do click-through rates matter?

Some of the benefits of CTR that tie into the success and cost-effectiveness of a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign include: 

• CTRs are linked to Quality Score – the higher your CTR, the better your Quality Score and the cheaper it is to maintain ad position. A high Quality Score is one of the biggest indicators of success in PPC.
• CTR is also a factor in a keyword’s expected CTR, which is part of Ad Rank (ie, what determines your ad’s position on the search results page).
• If you are advertising on relevant queries, achieving a high click-through rate means that you’re driving the highest possible number of people to your offering.

It’s a continuous cycle and click-through rates are a tangible measurement that keeps it turning.

How is click-through rate calculated? The CTR formula 

Click-through rate is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions and then multiplied by 100 to convert the number into a percentage. 

For a PPC ad that drives 1,000 impressions and 75 clicks, for example, the click-through rate is 7.5% based on the following calculation:

(75 ÷ 1000 = 0.075) x 100 = 7.5%

CTR is used as a better metric over clicks because it shows the rate of success. 1,000 clicks is a lot for a campaign with 5,000 impressions but not so good for a campaign with 500,000 impressions.

What is a good CTR? 

To assess what is considered a good CTR, the best place to start is by looking at specific industries and their averages. 

Defining your CTR by industry is important because they can differ significantly.

According to Google Ads industry benchmarks for 2021, the average CTR across all industries is 5.06% for search and 0.5% for display when it comes to Google’s industry benchmarks for 2021. Some of the best performing industries include:

• Travel and tourism (7.83%)
• Vehicles (7.35%)
• Dining and nightlife (6.63%)
• Real estate (6.19%)

This data shows you a benchmark to compare yourself to. Your CTR might not have seemed so high in isolation but if it’s performing higher than the industry average, that’s cause for celebration.

The problem with averages is they’re affected by outliers. If a campaign over/underperforms, the average is pulled up or down, and those anomalies could be due to things like seasonality or unexpected events like the COVID-19 pandemic affecting searches.

A ‘good’ CTR depends on several factors, specific to your business and the ad campaigns themselves. You also want to focus on your industry and check what the average is so that you have a good benchmark to work off of when trying to improve your CTR percentage.

If your account is connected to Adzooma you’ll also see a better CTR, since you can use the Opportunities feature to enhance your results.

From the analysis we found for both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, the click-through rate for the accounts connected to the Adzooma platform was around 6% and 3.7% respectively, which if you’re up on your industry averages, far exceeds the 1.91% and 2.83% you’re expected to see.

So, while you want to aim for a ‘high’ click-through rate, it’s worth bearing in mind that it will vary by industry, and your expected CTR will depend on your ad’s position, among other factors.

Equally, it’s best not to use your industry average as a hard-and-fast rule. It’s one of several guides to assess your performance but ultimately, your own goals should be your priority.

How to improve CTR

Improving your CTR can be done in a number of ways. You can: 

• Improve and optimize your ad copy 
• Make the keywords you are bidding on more specific and targeted
• Reach your target audience by placing your ad campaigns in front of those you want attention from
• Test your ads more, especially A/B testing
• Understand your audience, whether that’s learning their language and jargon, to talking to your customers directly to see what they want

You can also increase click-through rate with Adzooma Opportunities when you sign up to our free PPC marketing tool.

The tool allows you to monitor your ad campaign, check your CTR and impressions, and enhance the success of your campaign through specific performance suggestions. These include things like adding new keywords, optimizing your ad rotation settings, and increasing device bid adjustments.

It’ll also show you how much time and money these direct suggestions will save your campaign, so you can maximize your results.

FAQs

What is CTR on YouTube? 

Simply put, click-through rate for YouTube is the number of clicks, divided by the number of thumbnail impressions, or how many times your video thumbnail is seen on YouTube. Multiply by 100 to get your percentage. For example, if your YouTube thumbnail is seen 1,000 times on YouTube and 100 people then click on it, that’s a click-through rate of 0.1 or 10%.

It’s worth noting that some views don’t count towards impressions, like views on external websites or from end screens, so because of this, your impressions CTR more likely represents a portion of your channel’s total views.

CTR on YouTube will vary depending on the type of content you produce, your audience, and where on YouTube the impression was shown. It’s said that half of all channels have an impressions CTR of between 2% – 10%, with a ‘good’ CTR being 5% and above.

That being said, this is just an average, and other factors need to be taken into consideration – including your subscriber base, your niche, number of views, and how old the video content is.

Why is my CTR so low? 

If you’re asking yourself why your CTR is so low, a number of different factors could be affecting it. These include:

• Ad copy that is of poor quality, or doesn’t reflect the offering
• Lack of targeted keywords
• Ads that are irrelevant to the target audience
• Targeting the wrong target audience to begin with, or not speaking their language
• Uninspiring creatives
• Poor Quality Score (based on the quality of your keywords, copy and landing pages, as well as CTR)
• Not testing your ads frequently enough
• Not using ad extensions

Essentially, it means users aren’t finding your ad relevant, while a good CTR, shows that your ad is proving relevant and useful.

If you’re struggling with a low CTR, try our Opportunities tool when you create a free account with Adzooma. It highlights ways you can instantly optimize and improve your ad campaign, which in turn will bolster your CTR.

When is a low CTR ok?

It’s not always the case that a ‘good’ or ‘high’ CTR should be your main KPI or objective.

In fact, sometimes, it’s actually ok to have a low CTR. If, for example, you’re bidding on an ambiguous keyword, for which there could be multiple meanings and purposes, it might be harder to get a higher CTR.

That said, if you do get a lot of leads from that keyword, at a good cost, then go with it. 

After all, it can be just as problematic having a high CTR, but low conversions, since you could end up paying for clicks that don’t turn into customers.

So, in essence, as long as your keywords and ads are performing well as per your business objectives, don’t worry too much over a CTR that’s slightly on the low side. It’s just one of many metrics to take into consideration.

That’s not so bad when everything goes well, but messing up anything could mean losing money (sometimes a lot of it), and having to deal with an angry manager/boss/accountant/reflection in the mirror (if the money was yours). Is there a way to get rid of the risk? Nope. Is there any way to minimize the risk? Yes, more than you’d want. 

One of such ways is using landing pages for your PPC campaigns, but not just any landing pages – great ones. In this article, I’ll do my best to present you with 10 things to help you with creating a hell of a landing page (in a good way).

Here’s the list, so you can see if any of it seems smart enough to read on:

• Message Match
• Making a strong and relevant headline
• Talk to your audience, not to any audience
• How long is long enough?
• Landing pages and keywords
• Proving your point – reviews and case studies
• How to write CTA
• Everybody uses smartphones (so do your clients)
• Think about Things (and optimizing them)
• Make decisions based on analytics (when it’s possible)

Looks interesting? Nice, read along. Not really? Understandable, have a good day… unless you want to create a landing page for a PPC campaign that will help you get new clients.

Before we begin – a landing page builder

I’ve got a question for you (which you would have to answer yourself because I write here as a guest and I won’t get notified about new comments if they appear): do you have a tool for creating landing pages? If yes, go ahead to the next paragraph… unless you want to try a possibly better one.

Just so we’re clear – I work in Landingi. I honestly think it’s a great tool, but you might think it doesn’t mean much since I work there and they’re literally paying me to write for them (and lots of other stuff). 

Before you can build a landing page, you need to have a landing page builder. Depending on your experience, needs, and budget, there are tons of options available. You might want to go with Landingi if you:

• Run your own business. Then I’d suggest the cheapest plan – Create – allowing you to build unlimited landing pages using 300+ templates and drive as much as 50,000 visitors per month.
• Work as a marketer. Then I’d consider the Automate plan, which provides more optimization options, such as A/B testing or heatmap-based PageInsider. 
• Represent an agency. Well, there’s the Agency plan, which features subaccounts, white-label options, priority support, and all the other things which make it great for marketing agencies.

10 Tips for Landing Pages in PPC Marketing

Let’s get to it!

Landing Pages and Keywords

In the beginning, there were keywords. Not in the beginning of it all, but certainly in the beginning of most PPC campaigns. I assume you already have a handful of them for your campaign. The key to keyword optimization on landing pages is including your keywords without swarming the page with them. 

You’ve probably had the “pleasure” of reading poorly optimized, keyword-packed content causing an immediate urge to wash your eyes. Don’t do it to your readers – keywords are supposed to help to find your content, nothing else. Also, too many keywords may hurt your rating in Google and other search engines.

In short: use your keywords on a landing page, but do not overuse them. Make it something you would read.

Making a Strong and Relevant Headline

Next step: a headline. Every landing page has one, but good headlines are not so popular. I won’t waste your time convincing you that headlines are crucial. They are, let’s move on.

There are certain types of headlines that have a chance to convert well, depending on circumstances. The immortal “How to…” and lists of X ways to achieve Y, but in landing pages, things are not the same. First of all, you’ve got to keep your goal in mind. Do you want to convince visitors to join the online conference you’re organizing? Tell them how they would benefit from it.

The same goes for selling products or lead generation. Tell people what they will get if they click. Also, a little wordplay may help, but you’ve got to be careful with it. 

A strong headline needs to be relevant to the offer. Say no more than what’s in your offer; overpromising can be a great bounce rate accelerator. That brings us to the next point, which is…

Message Match

So you want to get some paid traffic from search engines and you’ll be running ads optimized for certain keywords. Then the traffic will be channeled to a landing page. Sounds great, but you need to remember the most important rule: you’ve got to keep it matched. The message match is very often overlooked and underestimated.

Take a look at your web browser topbar – how many open tabs/windows you’ve got? To me, it’s usually around 15-20 – that’s the charm of multitasking. So, when I’m searching for something online, I tend to open a few links in new tabs, and then I get back to them. 

Such an approach is why you need the copy on your landing page (starting with the headline) to be relevant to the copy you used in the advertisement. Think of it as a chain – the ad is the first link, while the landing page’s headline is a second one. 

How to Write CTA

Generally, everything you write on a landing page matters, but not equally. While the headline is crucial, there’s a good chance that people will just skim the rest of the copy… laying their eyes on the CTA – Call to Action. Writing and designing a CTA cannot be underestimated, as it’s the decisive point of almost every landing page. 

The CTA is usually placed on the button, where it’s much easier for visitors to spot it. Your job is to write an engaging call to action and create a button that stands out. 

While creating a CTA, focus on:

• Color and shape: use a contrasting color to make your button visible. Not sure which color to pick? Try Canva’s color wheel. Also, you may want to experiment with the shape of the button. Rectangular ones are the most popular, but you may want to round it up a bit and see what happens.
• Words: do what it takes to compress the CTA into 2-3 words, such as: Get the deal, Join now, Schedule a meeting or Use the discount. Your visitors have to be able to read the CTA instantly, it also has to be as simple as it gets since the decision-making often takes no more than a few seconds.
• Placement: think of your landing page as a canvas where – to achieve a desired result – you need to carefully place every element in the right spot. Finding these spots for CTAs is important, and may become easier with the heatmaps.

Talk to Your Audience, Not Any Audience

One of the most popular mistakes is trying to get your offer (and content) to everyone. Trying to reach as many people as possible generates enormous costs and results in poor conversions, because – let’s face it – there’s no product or service that’s interesting for each and everyone. 

Build the copy on a landing page thinking about your specific target audience, and if you don’t have any – spend some time on it. Having the profile of your potential clients may turn out to be profitable in a long shot.

Proving Your Point – Reviews and Case Studies

Choosing a product or service online means checking dozens of factors – the price, functionality, but also reviews and opinions. And if that’s not one’s first day on the Internet, they probably know that a big chunk of opinions on the web are at least biased, if not simply fake. 

That’s exactly why including reviews from “Jim, Scranton”, “Fabienne, Paris” or – God, forbid – “A happy customer” is of no use. Also: stock photos in reviews are just sad, don’t do that. 

Make sure that you have a real (based, not biased) opinion to include on a landing page. Of course, it would be great, if it had have 5/5 stars, but sometimes adding a not-so-excited-about opinion may be just as good. As long as it’s real, proven by real name and a photo, if possible.

How Long is Long Enough?

There’s no strict rule to that, other than to keep it as short as you can. People aren’t used to reading a lot nowadays, especially on the Internet; they’d rather skim your landing page, instead of hanging on its copy.

Here’s an example layout of your landing page, made with sections that are often considered crucial:

• Opening (hero section) – the one with the headline, a graphic or video (make sure you’re using the right online video maker to make it beautiful), and an opening CTA.

Note: if your offer is simple and you don’t need big engagement from your customers (like when you just gather leads by giving away a free ebook), you may place the form in the hero section. It may seriously pump up conversion rate.

• Clarification (optional) – if you need to clarify the offer or the opening section wasn’t capacious enough to fit all the necessary information (since you don’t include all information on a landing page).
• Benefits/features – say (and show) what visitors will get if they decide to go with your offer.
• Reviews – include proof that your product/service works as advertised, let your customers do the talk. If you don’t have reviews yet, consider adding logos of companies you’ve had the pleasure of working with (especially if they’ve had the pleasure of working with you). If you’ve got none of these, just skip this section.
• The form/Final CTA – at the end of the landing page, there’s a place to close the deal. Add the form, which your visitors can fill in, and take your offer. Also, make sure the CTA you’re using here is the same as the one in the beginning. 

Note: if your landing page gets longer than this, you may consider adding the third CTA, that redirects to the section with form, somewhere along the way.

Everybody Uses Smartphones (So Do Your Clients)

Responsive web design is a standard since half of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Not preparing your landing pages to work (and look) well on mobile means so much as cutting the number of potential visitors by half. Most landing page builders have the feature allowing to design mobile views of landing pages already implemented, so it’s a no-brainer.

Think about Things (and Optimize Them)

Having your landing page ready means you should publish it, but it’s certainly not the end of the journey. If you want to make sure you get the most out of it, you should observe it carefully and optimize it. There’s always something to improve!

• Optimize page speed – test your landing page in terms of speed here, and if you get a score lower than 90, consider including images in lower resolutions, cutting the videos (or avoiding autoplay), or giving up on animated elements and other fireworks.
• Optimize copy – A/B tests are made for trying out different headlines, CTAs and other parts of copy on your landing pages. Try a new headline and run a test for a certain amount of time or until they reach, let’s say, 1,000 visits each. Then compare the results, pick the winner, and… start another test.

Note: it’s hard to believe, but HubSpot’s study shows that merely 17% of marketers use A/B tests to optimize their pages. I’d recommend joining that 17%.

• Optimize layout – using heat maps can give you invaluable information – knowing where the visitors look and where they(‘re trying to) click means you can actually place the most crucial elements in such places.

 Make Decisions Based on Data (When it’s Possible)

Some landing page builders include the essential tools to track conversions and visits, but they hardly ever go beyond that. While working on PPC marketing campaigns, you’ll probably need more data so that you can base your next moves on solid foundations instead of a hunch. 

To prepare a PPC campaign, you might make use of some powerful yet easily accessible tools. I’m thinking of Adzooma (to find suitable keywords and optimize campaigns), Google Ads Editor (to create and edit your PPC creations), or the aforementioned Landingi (to create landing pages for your campaigns). Don’t forget to check your results in Google Analytics to plan the next steps in the optimization process.

Embark on a PPC Journey

After all, paid marketing campaigns can be compared to adventures. Risky? Yes, but also fun and potentially very successful.

As for takeaways: working hard before launching the campaign pays off, so don’t hesitate to think it over a few times using this checklist. I wish you nothing but successful campaigns and I hope this helps. 

In short, the answer is that it depends on factors such as your company’s content output and platforms used, the product or service you are selling, and your overall marketing and business objectives.

In many instances, PPC and SEO can actually complement each other and work together to drive traffic in their own way, which we’ll explain later on.

This article will cover the key differences between PPC and SEO, what they are and why they’re important, as well as which, if not both, might be best for your business.

What is the difference between PPC and SEO?

PPC marketing (or pay-per-click) is an online advertising model, where the advertiser pays a fee every time someone clicks on their advert. The purpose of a PPC advert is usually to drive traffic to a website or landing page that is intended to persuade the user to make a purchase or another action.

Search engine advertising – or paid search – is one of the most popular forms of PPC. Businesses bid against each other for search engines to list their website when someone searches a relevant query. Each time a user clicks on the paid search listing, the business typically pays between $1-6 in the US, depending on the industry you’re in. 

SEO stands for search engine optimization, a process that is used to drive ‘organic’ traffic to a website from search engines like Google or Bing. Unlike PPC, you don’t pay for SEO traffic. Instead, businesses use SEO practices – such as optimizing the content on their website or increasing its speed – to rank higher on a search engine’s results page (SERP).

One of the key differences between PPC and SEO search listings is where they are positioned. PPC results – or paid ads – will often appear at the very top of a SERP. On most SERPs, however, a higher percentage of users click on organic results than paid listings.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but with the right organic content, you’ll generate more clicks than from a well-placed paid ad.

Getting your business to rank in organic search is no quick or easy task, and relies upon you successfully executing content and SEO strategies over time – plus a fair amount of patience. Competition for keywords can be tough – particularly for commercial search terms.

For example, you may want your business to rank when a user searches for a plumber in their local area, but it can take a while to outrank established competitors who already have a wealth of authoritative content.

Instead, it may be more effective to create content that targets less competitive search terms, while using PPC to bid on more competitive keywords, where your product or services can be seen more straight away.

Other types of PPC advertising

PPC ads aren’t exclusive to just search engines though. There are other forms of PPC ads to experiment with, depending on your audience and business type. These include:

• Display advertising: These are banner, image or text ads that show on other websites which link through to your website and product. They won’t necessarily generate as high a click-through rate (CTR) as paid search ads, but are useful for building brand awareness.
• Social media advertising: Social media platforms like Facebook are used by masses of potential customers. Advertising on these platforms can help increase awareness of your product or services, allowing you to target specific demographics and interests. Advertisers can also choose to pay per click (PPC) or per impression.
• Affiliate marketing: This is where third-party ‘affiliates’ create PPC ads promoting your products or services and place them across search engines, price comparison sites, targeted content sites and high-traffic websites. It uses a performance-based model or Cost per Action (CPA). This method needs ongoing management and expertise, though.
• Price comparison websites: These gather and display various products and offers from a number of providers in one place. The advantage is that you can access customers who are ready to buy a product or service like yours, though the disadvantage is that you’ll be up against competitors.

With PPC advertising, you can also do something called ‘retargeting,’ which uses cookies on a user’s browser to show them specific ads based on their previous online actions. For example, a user searching for plumbers in their local area could see display ads for various plumbing services.

Retargeting can be used as part of search and display advertising campaigns, as well as social media campaigns and email marketing.

What is SEO in marketing? 

SEO is a specialist practice used to increase the quantity and quality of visitors to your website by driving ‘organic’ website traffic from search engines.

SEO in marketing, therefore, requires shaping and optimizing content around what your target audience is searching for online. This means researching the topics they are interested in, the words they’re using, and the type of content they want to consume. 

It also means being able to deliver that content in a way that allows search engines to discover and catalog it – a process known as crawling and indexing. In developing organic SEO content as part of your marketing strategy, it’s therefore important to understand what both your audience and search engines might be looking for.

There are many pros to using an SEO-focused approach. These include:

• Generating free traffic: This is probably the main benefit of doing SEO, in the sense that you don’t pay a cost per click, and traffic that is generated is earned.
• Gain more visibility: When you appear in SERPs organically, it boosts both brand awareness and credibility.
• Building trust: Having your site show up in the search results for a particular topic or keyword builds trust with potential customers and your target audience.
• Improved click-through rate: You can generally expect to generate more clicks from a highly-placed organic listing than from a paid ad.
• Reputation: Once search engines recognize your brand as an authority within your industry or niche, it’s not as easy for PPC-focused competitors to simply buy their way in.
• Broadening topic scope: It’s easier to broaden the scope of your content by reoptimizing content or creating new, relevant organic content, instead of paying for all kinds of clicks on every service or product on your website.

SEO in marketing is a long game though and it can take a fair amount of time and effort to see results. While SEO-driven traffic is free, gaining that visibility will take time and money, and the quality of your content needs to be there in order to achieve it.

You need to think strategically about the kinds of keywords and search queries you’re targeting, too. If the SERPs already include highly authoritative websites like Amazon, eBay or Wikipedia, it may be very difficult to compete and gain the kind of visibility that you want for your business.

Additionally, you may need to budget for quality content assets and invest in a proper strategy for tactics like link building. These can be difficult to manage in-house, especially for smaller businesses, and may require expert support.

With all this in mind, it’s worth considering that PPC can pick up where SEO can’t, ensuring users will see your ads much more quickly, and allowing for laser-focused targeting so you can get in front of potential customers. For this reason, it’s beneficial to utilize both.

The pros and cons of PPC

PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, as mentioned, allows you to increase your traffic and gain better access to your audience by paying when someone clicks on your ad and goes onto your website.

With PPC, you can get results almost instantly, making it an ideal method for smaller businesses and start-ups. SEO is really more about playing the long game, since it takes time to populate your site with content and build brand authority naturally.

You can find out more about PPC advertising with our in-depth guide, but here are a few of the pros and cons to help you understand the difference between PPC and SEO, the factors involved, and which, if not both, might be more beneficial to your business.

PPC marketing has many pros or advantages. These include:

• Quicker results: Paid search marketing is undoubtedly a much quicker and more direct way of reaching your target audience than SEO.
• High position on page: The highest bidder sits at the top of the SERP, so users will always see those results first.
• Better ads for your business or service: With PPC ads, you have more control over the information and messaging you can include, like price, location, callouts and so on.
• Better targeting: PPC provides a laser-targeted way to get in front of potential customers, since ads can be targeted by search keywords, time of day, day of the week, geography, language, device and much more.
• More efficient testing: A PPC ad campaign can allow you to test and experiment with new products, landing pages, marketing messages and call-to-action buttons, helping determine where the best results can be found.
• Increased marketing intelligence: By using analytics software (like Google Analytics), with a PPC campaign, you can see which keywords convert and at what percentage and cost. These insights can then be used to inform SEO marketing and other advertising strategies to improve results all around.

There are, however, some cons to PPC, largely surrounding cost. If you’re targeting several countries or running large international campaigns, costs can soon increase dramatically. 

Additionally, PPC marketing requires constant investment to keep your ads running. Costs can also increase if you’re bidding against other advertisers.

Another potential drawback is that competitors can easily notice if you’re running ad campaigns, and can replicate your ideas and messaging. This is fairly common in advertising and somewhat goes with the territory.

It’s important to remember that PPC depends upon strategic thinking and skill when it comes to managing and monitoring your campaigns. Although it requires some budget to do PPC, search engines and other platforms reward advertisers who can create relevant, targeted PPC campaigns by charging them less for clicks.

This in turn results in higher profits for your business, so it’s worth doing it right. 

How PPC and SEO work together

While there are key differences between PPC and SEO, don’t think of it as PPC vs SEO. In fact, where possible, a strategy that incorporates both can bring about the best results. 

Both SEO and PPC drive traffic in their own ways, but used together, you can ensure all bases are covered when it comes to increasing your traffic and bolstering your messaging overall. So if you’re wondering: “does PPC help SEO?” the answer, for the most part, is yes.

As an example, the data derived from a PPC campaign – like which keywords convert best – can be used to create SEO and content strategies. You can then focus on these high-performing keywords, optimizing them for organic SEO.

Additionally, by looking into which pages perform best from paid referrals, those insights can be used to improve SEO content in the future. You could also test your paid content against the same organic content with a view to see which performs better, and then analyze why that might be.

Taking learnings from your existing SEO content can also be helpful. You can use organic content as a testing ground to see what works before you decide to take the plunge with ad spend.

For example, if a page converts well through organic search, but you’re struggling to outrank a competitor, you can pay for a sponsored listing and improve your brand’s visibility while still retaining the page’s organic listing. 

When using PPC and SEO strategies together, ensure that your brand messaging is aligned and your on-page techniques are up to scratch, giving your potential customers a positive experience of your brand.

Using a PPC tool can help your business execute its PPC and SEO strategies harmoniously. With a free Adzooma account for marketers, you can create, optimize and track your PPC ad campaigns, as well as spotting opportunities for improving and optimizing the content on your website.

You can also super-charge your campaign results by accessing insightful reports, strategic suggestions and rule-based automation features.

PPC vs. SEO – which should you choose for your business? 

Although a frequently asked question, it’s not possible to give an either/or answer without taking into account an individual business’s situation. Deciding whether PPC or SEO is a better investment for your brand depends upon your short and long-term business goals. With this in mind, a clear marketing strategy is needed before you opt for one or the other.

Consider if you need leads quickly. As a small, or new business without much content or brand authority, PPC can be a way to generate instant traffic.

Is competition high in organic search? If so, PPC can help bolster your visibility, getting your website to the top of the SERPs. If your brand is very product-driven, Google Shopping is a great feature that allows you to visually showcase your products in the SERPs.

Although PPC has a cost attached, the budget is much easier to control in the sense that it’s easier to track and prove ROI. With SEO, there’s a need for patience and creativity.

Our advice? If you can, opt for an integrated marketing strategy that combines both PPC and SEO, as when managed correctly, this will achieve the optimum outcome.

To reiterate, PPC is all about fast results and (more or less) guaranteed visitors at a cost. What’s not guaranteed is that you will convert into loyal customers. While SEO traffic is free and important in your longer-term marketing strategy, you’ll need to be patient in regards to the time involved.

A combination of both PPC and SEO marketing is arguably the best approach.

Looking to begin your PPC journey today? Sign up for a free account with Adzooma for full PPC management, strategic insights and expert optimization tips.

You can also use our SEO report tool in partnership with Hike SEO, helping you to create a bespoke SEO strategy, implement recommendations and track your progress with accurate reporting.

Google has 70% market share of search engines, making it one of the most lucrative and tempting platforms to advertise on. And, if done right, you can achieve an incredible return on investment that will practically double your profits. In fact, Google themselves promote that businesses can make on average $2 for every $1 spent. 

It’s all about effective advertising management. To do this, you don’t just need Google Ads. You need Adzooma, the all in one platform to save you time, achieve better results and scale your business. 

Why? Because we have more features and tools than the Google Ads platform alone can offer, such as advanced time-saving automation and one click optimisation opportunities. And we’re going to go through each and every one for you in this blog. 

Partnered with Google for better ads management 

We’re not competing with Google. We work with them to give you the best advertising management platform possible. 

Google has been by our side since the very beginning. Partners since 2015, Google saw our vision to make online advertising easier and more accessible for all businesses. So, they invited us to join their Accelerator Program and work alongside their development team to make Adzooma the best Google Ads management platform you’ll ever use.

We are pleased to have Adzooma on board as a Google Partner. Adzooma has demonstrated the product knowledge, technical expertise and drive to help their customers build online success through Google Ads.

Adrian Blockus – Head of Channel Sales, Google UK & Ireland

With our continued partnership, we’ll be the first to know of any updates or changes and have them ready in the Adzooma platform for you. 
You can find out more details about our partnership with Google here.

More intuitive for better time saving

One of the very first things that sets Adzooma apart from Google Ads is that it’s easier to use. Everything inside this platform was designed by those that have used Google Ads for years, but wanted easier, quicker and more intuitive ways of accessing their data and applying optimisations. 

Adzooma is that answer. It takes away the complexity of Google Ads, while leaving in the functionality that you need, in easier to find places. 

Rather than trying to find the tool or data through Google’s navigation menu, page menu, subpage menu, top bar, or table toolbar (yes, all of these are on a single page), every feature is listed in your top navigation.

For example, instead of having separate screens for your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads, Adzooma combines them all into one, single Management screen. 

Here, you’ll see key data for all your campaigns, including impressions, clicks, conversions, cost and more. You can customise the metrics and the date range, meaning that the data you want to see will always be displayed first. 

You can drill down to any level you want by clicking on the arrow.

Adzooma Management is more than just looking at your campaigns. It’s how you can make quick edits and adjustments without having to navigate through numerous Google Ads menus. 

• If you want to change a budget for a particular campaign or a keyword bid, you just have to click the edit icon and enter your new budget. 
• If you want to make mass changes, just select the campaigns, ad groups, keywords or ads in question and click the ‘edit’ button at the top to make quick changes.
• If you want to pause or enable campaigns, just click the status toggle. 
• If you want to add new keywords, adverts, ad groups or more, just click the ‘+’ button.

See your performance data, make optimisations and add new adverts or campaigns all from a single screen. That’s a more intuitive Google Ads.

Automatic ad groups with the campaign builder 

Adzooma Management is where you can view and edit all of your Google Ads campaigns, at any level, from a single screen. 

It’s also the home of the Adzooma campaign builder, which allows you to create full Google Ads search campaigns, or add keywords, adverts, Responsive Search Ads (RSAs), ad groups or more to your existing campaigns, without having to navigate to the right screen inside Google Ads. 

It’s simple to operate, and has less steps than Google’s, which means less time spent on new campaigns and more time gained to apply optimisations and scale your business.

The Adzooma campaign builder has another exciting feature that Google Ads doesn’t: you can automatically create ad groups based on keyword match types.

To do this, just select ‘Match type’ at the top of the ad group builder and enter your keywords into the field. When you’re ready, we’ll automatically separate them out into different ad groups based on keyword match type.

One-click optimisation Opportunities

Google Ads have a recommendation system that will send you suggestions to optimise and get more out of your campaigns. Instead of recommendations, Adzooma has Opportunities. Don’t worry, there are more differences than just the name. 

First, let’s talk about Google. There are different types of recommendations that Google offer, including: 

• Ads and extensions, which include suggestions to add extensions to ads, try out different headline variations, or to use optimise ad rotation settings. 
• Automated campaigns, which suggest that you should run Google’s own smart campaigns or automated bidding.
• Bidding and budgets, which mostly suggest smart bidding targets, but also offer some suggestions when to raise budgets to keep ads running on your busiest days. 
• Keywords and targeting, which can identify poorly converting keywords or suggest other match types or negative keywords to add. 

Repairs, which aim to fix issues in your account such as making sure your campaigns are structured correctly, tracking is set up and enabled or any other certification issues you might have.

Google also gives you ad suggestions, which are created by analysing your adverts to see which ones are performing best, then giving you variations to try against them. Over time, you’ll get up with a host of tested and continually improving campaigns to drive up your ROI. 

One thing you’ll see pretty quickly with Google Ads suggestions is that 90% of them are built to guide users into smart bidding. If you’re already using this, there’s not a lot else in store for you.  

What’s more, Google’s suggestions will always want you to spend more. After all, it’s how they make money. However, at Adzooma, we care about you getting the best return back from your campaigns, so we’ll also give you suggestions when you can save money by cutting back wasted spend. In fact, it’s one of our core categories. 

Alongside wasted spend, we also have Opportunities to help Improve Performance, Opportunities to make sure you’re following Best Practices and Opportunities to ensure that your Account Structure is as good as it can be.  

Each Opportunity will have two options: details or ignore. If you press details, you’ll be given a detailed explanation of why it’s important and how it can affect your account. If you want to apply it, click the ‘add to queue’ button. When you’re ready, hit ‘apply all’ Opportunities in the queue to action all these changes in a single click.

If you click ignore on an Opportunity, our platform will use this information to get smarter over time, making sure we only send you relevant Opportunities that you’ll want to action. 

We don’t just explain why we’ve generated this opportunity, we also give you estimated figures showing you how many impressions, clicks, conversions it could generate you, as well as how much money and time you’ve saved. 

In addition, we also offer Opportunities that Google Ads does not, such as:

• Bid adjustments based on device, gender or age
• Stop targeting non-performing age ranges or genders
• Check low performing landing pages or fix broken links 
• Remove modified negative keywords 
• Fix spelling mistakes
• And more 

Occasionally, we’ll also have a special partner deal for you in there too, like claiming cashback on all your Google Ads spend with Revolut.

Automated rules every 30 minutes, not every day 

Automated rules are the PPC assistant you’ve always wanted. They’re there to provide around the clock optimisation, time-saving automatic actions and custom alerts of important changes. 

With rules, you can adjust budgets, pause poor-performing keywords or get custom alerts when it’s time to take action, saving you hours of manually monitoring the data. 

You can create automated rules in both Google Ads and Adzooma. To create rules in Google Ads, you need to click ‘Tools and Billing’ in the top navigation, then select Rules from the Bulk Actions menu. Once there, you’ll need to click the + button and select from a rather wide range of options of where your rule applies, before you even get to the editing menu. 

We’ve made this simpler at Adzooma. To create a rule, just click Automation at the top and the ‘New Automation Rule’ button. There, you can choose a template (which we’ll cover below) or create your own custom rule. All rules are created using 5 steps – with detailed explanations all the way through if you need it. 

Whatever rule you want to make, you can do it from this one, simple creator.

When it comes to automation, Adzooma’s feature is more advanced than Google’s by offering: 

• Rules that run every 30 minutes, not every day. This gives you greater control and enables you to make impactful changes at the right time to increase your success. 
• And/Or conditions, which allow you to create intelligent rules that will run on multiple metrics, for example if a campaign has more than 50 conversions OR if it has a CPA of less than £5. 
• Select which teammates you want to be notified when a rule fires, without having to manually import their email address. 

Simply put, Adzooma’s automated rules are smarter, faster and more efficient than Google Ads, helping you save time and scale.

For more information on creating your own automated rules, you can follow our step by step guide on creating a custom ‘high volume, low conversion’ rule here.

Templated rules to get you started quickly 

New to automated rules or just looking for a quick way to apply them to your account?

Adzooma also has an entire library of premade rules that you can apply to your account in a few clicks. Each rule was created by PPC experts as the go-to rules that have been proven to increase performance, save time and improve their ROI. 

To see our rules, head to Automation and click ‘New Automation Rule’. Then, select ‘Choose Templates’ to be taken to our library of 28 premade rules that you can apply to your account.

When you’ve found one you like, just click on it, choose what campaigns you want to apply it to, how often you want it to run and click save. You can make any edits and customisations to these rules as you want – they’re your starting point for you to make them your own.

Want to know more about our templates? Find out our five most popular automation rules and why they’re used here.

Intelligent reporting to prioritise your workload 

The key to great campaigns is data. 

Without data, you wouldn’t know what’s working, what needs your attention and what you can do to improve your results. The good news is that Google Ads is rife with data and offers dozens of premade reports that you can click and access at any time. 

The bad news? Selecting the right report can be a navigational nightmare. And by just giving you the raw data, you still need to spend time crunching the numbers before identifying where you need to take action.

Adzooma does reporting differently. 

We offer 7 predefined reports to remove the hours of data analysis and number crunching, so you can prioritise your workload. 

Our flagship one is the PPC Performance Report. Analysing your Google Ads account, the PPC Performance report gives you an overall score out of 100 with a breakdown of how optimised your account is. The closer to 100 you are, the better optimised your ads are. 

Underneath the score, you’ll find cards showing you where you can improve and the actions you can take right now. To make things even easier, you can also click to action these changes inside Adzooma, taking you from reporting to optimisation in seconds. 

That means you’ll spend less time finding problems and more time fixing them.

Google Ads do offer a custom report feature, but this is very limited. You get to choose the type of table or chart that you want, then select the metrics that you want to appear in it. That’s it.

In comparison, Adzooma’s customisable reports give you so much more freedom and options. You can have as many pages, graphs, charts and data as you want. Add your own images and text and show off your success with clients or shareholders. 

Whatever you need, just click it and Adzooma will add in the data. What’s more, every report will automatically update with the latest figures, giving you 100% accurate reports you can rely on.

Manage your Microsoft and Facebook ads simultaneously 

Adzooma isn’t just for Google Ads. 

You add as many Google, Facebook and Microsoft accounts as you want. 

When you log into Adzooma, you’ll be able to see top level data and PPC performance scores for your accounts, letting you prioritise which account needs your attention first. It’s your secret weapon to managing multiple accounts on the go. 

Want to know more? 

• See how Adzooma compares to Microsoft Advertising 
• See how Adzooma compares to Facebook Ads 

Ready to transform your Google Ads management with Adzooma?

Sign up for free today.

It has over 2.7 billion monthly active users, who will religiously use the platform every day. In fact, on average, each person spends more than 50 minutes a day using Facebook. What’s more, 74% of high earners with an income of more than $75,000 also use the platform.  

Combined with an average CPC of $1.72, if you can achieve success with Facebook Ads, you’ll be able to more than double your ROI and scale your business in no time at all.  

And to help you make sure that you’re getting the best results from your Facebook Ads, we created Adzooma to manage your campaigns more effectively than ever before. 

Complete with features that you won’t find inside the Facebook platform, such as ready-made automations you can apply in a click, Adzooma is here to save you time, achieve better results and scale your business.

Creating better ads management as Facebook partners 

Adzooma is proud to be partnered with Facebook and work alongside their development team to create a truly intuitive, and effective experience for its users to manage their campaigns. 

In just one year of being partners, we added full Facebook functionality to the Adzooma platform, created unique optimisation opportunities and implemented an industry-leading automation feature that surpasses the rules on offer in the native platform. 

As this partnership continues to grow, the Adzooma Facebook offering will continue to get better.

Facebook is one of the biggest marketing platforms out there and it’s been amazing being at the forefront of this with our partnership. Working with their teams, we’ve been able to implement amazing features in the platform and get early alerts to  the new features coming.

David Sharpe & Robert Wass, Cofounders of Adzooma

Our exclusive Facebook partnership also means that we get first access to updates, news and knowledge to share with our customers and update the platform, giving you an advertising management solution that you can always rely on.

More intuitive than Facebook Ads Manager 

Adzooma takes all of the functionality and data that you’ll find in the Facebook Ads Manager and gives it a cleaner, fresher look that’s easier to use. 

Let’s look at the campaigns page for example. In Facebook Ads Manager, you have to navigate and click through the different campaigns, ad sets and ad tabs to see all of your data.

In Adzooma, we consolidate all of this down into one, single Management screen. 

All the key data you want to know, including impressions, clicks, conversions, cost, will be neatly displayed in your management table. If you want to get a closer look at your ad sets or ads, just click the arrow to reach the right level. There’s no navigating between different tabs to find the information you need. 

All of the metrics can be customised here, meaning that the data you want to see will always be displayed first. You can also customise the date range by clicking on the calendar icon at the top of the page. 

Adzooma Management is more than just looking at your campaigns. It’s how you can make quick edits and adjustments without leaving the platform.

• If you want to change a budget for a particular campaign or a keyword bid, you just have to click the edit icon and enter your new budget. 
• If you want to make mass changes, just select the campaigns, ad set or ads in question and click the ‘edit’ button at the top to make quick changes.
• If you want to pause or enable campaigns, just click the status toggle.

It’s the same management you’re used to, just made that extra bit simpler, easier and faster.

Powerful automation to save even more time 

Facebook has a great automated rules tool that provides around the clock optimisation, time-saving automatic actions and custom alerts of important changes. 

Fully customisable, you can use these rules to adjust budgets, pause poor-performing adverts or get custom alerts when it’s time to take action, saving you hours of manually monitoring the data. 

It’s like having a virtual PPC assistant by your side. 

At Adzooma, we’ve made automated rules even more powerful.

Our automated rules allow you to select from 50+ Facebook metrics and create rules for any campaign, ad set or advert you want. In Facebook, you can only create rules for all active campaigns, ad sets or adverts. This is a real setback to create specific rules for individual campaigns with different goals attached to them. 

What’s more, you can also send notifications to your teammates, helping to manage workflow, delegate tasks and keep people informed.

Adzooma’s automated rules are simple and easy to create. 

To create a rule, head to Automation and click ‘New Automation Rule’ button. There, you can choose a template or create your own custom rule. All rules are created using 5 steps – with detailed explanations all the way through if you need it. 

Whatever rule you want to make, we’ve got you covered from our intuitive creator.

For more information on creating your own automated rules, you can follow our step by step guide on creating a custom ‘high volume, low conversion’ rule here.

Intelligent conditions not available on Facebook 

Facebook’s automation rules are limited. 

With them, you can only use the same metric once and all conditions you set are connected by an AND operator. This means that every single one of your conditions has to be met before the rule can run. 

So, if you create this rule in Facebook:

Your campaigns will only be paused if:

If one of those conditions aren’t met, the rule doesn’t fire. 

At Adzooma, you can set up more intelligent and precise rules through And/Or conditions. Or conditions allow your rule to run when any of your conditions are met. 

So if you wanted to increase the budget for well-performing posts, you can set a rule that will increase the budget by 10% if:

This allows greater automation and control over your account, without having to set multiple rules to cover every possibility. All your metrics can be covered in a single rule. 

You’re not limited to using either AND or OR conditions here. You can mix and match to create your perfect rule in Adzooma.

Easier frequency settings for one-off events 

For around the clock account optimisation, both Facebook and Adzooma run rules every 30 minutes.

But there are some cases where you need rules to run at specific times, or as a one-off event. For example, if you’re scheduling new campaigns to cover seasonal events or a limited sale, you’ll want them to start on the exact time and date that you choose. 

Facebook has three rule scheduling options, continuously, which will run every 30 minutes, daily, which will run at 12am Pacific time or custom.

Facebook’s custom scheduling options allow you to run the rule between certain times on certain days, for example, you can run it between 8am-5pm, Monday to Friday.  But if you want it to run once only, you have to set the same start and end times. So, a rule will start and end at 12pm on Monday.

However, you can’t choose a certain date, only weekdays. So if you want it to run once, you’ll have to create the rule, wait for it to start then delete it. 

In comparison, Adzooma gives you full control over your frequency settings. You can select to run the rule every 30 minutes, daily, weekly, monthly or as a one-off. If you choose to run the rule once, you’ll be able to select the exact date and time from the calendar.

Templated rules to get you started quickly 

Inside Facebook Ad Manager, you have to build every rule from scratch. 

At Adzooma, we have an entire library of premade rules that you can apply to your account in a few clicks. 

Each rule was created by Facebook experts as the go-to rules that have been proven to increase performance, save time and improve their ROI. It’s perfect for those that are new to automated rules or are just looking for a quick way to apply them to your account. 

These rules include: 

• High CMP Warning, which notifies you when you CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) increases above your set target for your campaign or ad set. 
• Website Purchase ROAS Booster, which increases your budgets for campaigns where your website ROAS is exceeding targets to maximise your success. 
• Pause Ads with Low CTR, which pauses low-performance ads and ensures that your budget is reallocated to those that are delivering better results. 

And many more.

To see our rules, head to Automation and click ‘New Automation Rule’. Then, select ‘Choose Templates’ to be taken to our library of 25 premade rules that you can apply to your account.

Found one you like? Choose what campaigns you want to apply it to, how often you want it to run and click save. You can make any edits and customisations to these rules as you want – they’re your starting point for you to make them your own. 
Want to know more about our templates? Find out our five most popular automation rules and why they’re used here.

One-click optimisation Opportunities

Managing your advertising efficiently means being able to recognise and take optimisation opportunities when they come about. 

Facebook ads manager gives you all the tools to access your data and make those changes, but they leave finding those opportunities up to you. Which means that unfortunately, the changes you need to make to improve your ROI are hidden behind hours of data analysis. 

At Adzooma, we’ll analyse your account and send you personalised optimisation Opportunities, including: 

• Replacing image ads for ads that have been live for over 4 weeks with a decrease in performance
• Removing interest groups with a small audience size to increase your reach 
• Fixing broken landing page URLs or site experience which could be harming your conversions

Each Opportunity will have two options: details or ignore. If you press details, you’ll be given a detailed explanation of why it’s important and how it can affect your account. If you want to apply it, click the ‘add to queue’ button. When you’re ready, hit ‘apply all’ Opportunities in the queue to action all these changes in a single click.

Intelligent reporting to prioritise your workload 

Data makes great campaigns. It’s the key to understanding what’s working and what isn’t, what needs your attention and where you can make optimisations to improve your performance. Having the right data is like being given a torch to light your way out of a dark cave. 

To understand this data, you need good reporting. Facebook ads manager offers two types of reporting:

• Templated reports, which are premade reports that designed to highlight a certain area of your account. Some examples are ROI Snapshot report, Reach and Frequency report, and Overall performance report. 
• Custom reports, where you can choose either a pivot table, trend line chart or bar chart and customise the metrics that appear inside of it.

Adzooma does reporting differently. 

Like Facebook, we also offer premade reports that analyse a specific part of your account. These are: 

• Funnel Performance Report, which helps you measure and understand how your online advertising is performing at every single level and spot weaknesses in your customer journey 
• Device Report, which gives you a full breakdown of how your campaigns are performing across desktop, mobile and tablet to increase budgets on your best-performing devices 
• Best & Worst Performers Report, which instantly identifies your best and worst-performing campaigns, ad sets and adverts to replace weak performers and put your champions to the test
• Cross Channel Report, which allows you to compare the performance of your accounts across two different platforms, such as Google Ads and Facebook Ads to make strategic decisions on a platform level.
• KPI Trend Report, which allows you to track your performance against your company’s goals. 

If you want to run a report, just click it from the Reports menu and we’ll automatically load it with the most accurate data.

Our customizable reports are more advanced as well. Instead of just choosing what type of graph you want, you can build out complete reports containing multiple pages, different types of chart, text and images. That means you can add your own logo, explain your results and send it directly to clients or stakeholders to show off your success.

Even more features for your Google and Microsoft ads 

Adzooma isn’t just for Facebook Ads. 

In fact, you can use this all-in-one platform to also manage your Google and Microsoft accounts simultaneously. Switch between them in seconds, apply your optimisations in less time and automate manual tasks with the most intelligent automation feature on the market. With Adzooma, you can do it all without having to switch platforms. 

For Google and Microsoft, you’ll get all these features, plus custom Opportunities and a unique campaign builder. To find out more: 

• See how Adzooma compares to Google Ads 
• See how Adzooma compares to Microsoft Advertising

Ready to transform your Facebook Ads management with Adzooma? 

Sign up for free today.

It offers: 

• One of the cheapest Cost Per Click prices, with CPC 32.5% to 60.2% less than Google Ads. 
• Reaches 63 million users that Google doesn’t. 
• 75% of Bing users aged 35 and over; 50% of them have an income of over $75,000. 
• Incredible targeting options, including LinkedIn profile targeting, advanced device targeting and more. 

We’re big Microsoft advocates at Adzooma. In fact, if you’re new to Microsoft, we’ll give you $125 of search advertising spend for free when you sign up with $25.

However, if you really want to get the best results from your Microsoft Advertising campaigns, you need Adzooma. As an all-in-one advertising management platform, Adzooma offers more features than Microsoft Advertising alone to save you time, achieve better results and scale your business. 

Find out how Adzooma compares to Microsoft Advertising and the best features you might be missing out here.

Recognised as one of Microsoft’s best partners 

Adzooma wouldn’t be able to provide this platform without Microsoft’s help. 

Working alongside their team, together we created a truly one of its kind platform to help advertisers grow and scale their Microsoft Advertising success like never before. 

It’s why we won the Rising Star Of The Year award at the 2021 Microsoft Advertising Partner awards. We don’t just work with Microsoft, but how we go above and beyond to ensure that our users get the best possible result from their campaigns. 
In the same awards, this success was also recognised through 3 other nominations: 

• Account Team of the Year – Awarded to an exemplary account team or group that partners, engages, and drives Microsoft Advertising revenue growth and feature adoption throughout the year
• Community Response Award – This new award category offers recognition to partner organisations or someone within a partner organisation that has provided innovative support or services to the industry or the community this year amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Trailblazer of the Year [Chief Technology Officer Thomas Hampson] – Awarded to an individual that, in an innovative and engaging way evangelises Microsoft Advertising and drives Microsoft Advertising brand awareness and affinity internally, as well as in the industry

Our continued partnership with Microsoft means that together, we’ll continue to update, innovate and grow the platform for you to reap the rewards.

More intuitive for better time saving

Adzooma offers the same functionality as Microsoft Advertising. And more. Plus, we make it easier, quicker and more intuitive to use. 

For example, instead of having separate screens for your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads, Adzooma combines them all into one, single Management screen. 

All the key data you want to know, including impressions, clicks, conversions, cost, will be neatly displayed in your management table. If you want to get a closer look at your ad groups, keywords, or ads, just click the arrow to reach the right level. 

All of the metrics can be customised here, meaning that the data you want to see will always be displayed first. You can also customise the date range by clicking on the calendar icon at the top of the page.

Adzooma Management is more than just looking at your campaigns. It’s how you can make quick edits and adjustments without leaving the platform.

• If you want to change a budget for a particular campaign or a keyword bid, you just have to click the edit icon and enter your new budget. 
• If you want to make mass changes, just select the campaigns, ad groups, keywords or ads in question and click the ‘edit’ button at the top to make quick changes.
• If you want to pause or enable campaigns, just click the status toggle.

What’s more, you can add new campaigns, ad groups, keywords, search adverts or Responsive Search Adverts (RSAs)  to your account without leaving the platform with our advanced campaign builder. 

Just click the ‘Add campaign’ button to create an entire new campaign, or hit the ‘+’ button to add more ad groups, keywords or adverts to an existing campaign. 

It’s simple to operate and has fewer steps than Microsoft’s campaign builder, which means less time spent on new campaigns and more time gained to apply optimisations and scale your business.

What’s more, you can automatically create ad groups based on keyword match types.

To do this, just select ‘Match type’ at the top of the ad group builder and enter your keywords into the field. When you’re ready, we’ll automatically separate them out into different ad groups based on keyword match type.

What’s more, you can automatically create ad groups based on keyword match types.

To do this, just select ‘Match type’ at the top of the ad group builder and enter your keywords into the field. When you’re ready, we’ll automatically separate them out into different ad groups based on keyword match type.

One-click optimisation Opportunities

Microsoft Advertising has a recommendation system that will send you suggestions to optimise and get more out of your campaigns. Instead of recommendations, Adzooma has Opportunities. Don’t worry, there are more differences than just the name. 

To see your Microsoft recommendations, you need to click the recommendations tab from the campaigns page. There you’ll see a list of your recommendations split into these four types: 

• Ads and extensions, which include suggestions to add extensions to ads, try out different headline variations, or to use optimise ad rotation settings. 
• Bidding and budgets, which mostly suggest automated bidding targets, but also offer some suggestions when to raise budgets to keep ads running on your busiest days. 
• Keywords and targeting, which can identify poorly converting keywords or suggest other match types or negative keywords to add. 

Repairs, which aim to fix issues in your account such as making sure your campaigns are structured correctly, tracking is set up and enabled or any other certification issues you might have.

Most of the Microsoft Advertising recommendations are based around their own automated bidding strategies. At Adzooma, our suggestions are a little more intelligent than that. 

We offer 25 unique Opportunities for Microsoft Advertising, broken down into these key categories: 

• Improve Performance, which includes unique suggestions to make bid adjustments based on device, gender or age or even fix spelling mistakes. 
• Reduce Wasted Spend, which aims to increase your ROI with suggestions to stop targeting non-performing age ranges or genders, or decrease bids on your weak performers.  
• Best Practice, which uses industry standard practices to ensure your campaigns are competitive, including suggestions to check low performing landing pages or fix broken links. 

Occasionally, we’ll also have a special partner deal for you in there too, like claiming cashback on all your Microsoft Advertising spend with Revolut.

Each Opportunity will have two options: details or ignore. If you press details, you’ll be given a detailed explanation of why it’s important and how it can affect your account. If you want to apply it, click the ‘add to queue’ button. When you’re ready, hit ‘apply all’ Opportunities in the queue to action all these changes in a single click.

If you click ignore on an Opportunity, our platform will use this information to get smarter over time, making sure we only send you relevant Opportunities that you’ll want to action. 

We don’t just explain why we’ve generated this opportunity, we also give you estimated figures showing you how many impressions, clicks, conversions it could generate you, as well as how much money and time you’ve saved.

Automated rules every 30 minutes, not every day 

Automated rules are the PPC assistant you’ve always wanted. They’re there to provide around the clock optimisation, time-saving automatic actions and custom alerts of important changes. 

With rules, you can adjust budgets, pause poor-performing keywords or get custom alerts when it’s time to take action, saving you hours of manually monitoring the data. 

These are the instructions that Microsoft Advertising provide for setting up an automated rule: 

1. From the main menu on the far left, click All campaigns.
2. From the page menu, click either Ad groups, Ads and extensions, or Keywords.
3. Click Automate.
4. Select what you want to happen (for example, Pause campaigns when).
5. Optional: Specify the circumstances that you want to trigger your action (for example, CPC > $5.00). You can set up to five such triggers for each rule.
6. Specify how often you want the rule to run.
7. Choose if you want an email sent to you when the rule is run.
8. Optional: If you want to see a preview of what would happen if the rule were run immediately, click Preview results.
   For example, if you create a rule to automatically increase your budget based on CTR, you can use Preview results to see which budgets would change and by how much.
9. Click Save.

We’ve made this simpler at Adzooma.

To create a rule, just click Automation at the top and the ‘New Automation Rule’ button. There, you can choose a template (which we’ll cover below) or create your own custom rule. All rules are created using 5 steps – with detailed explanations all the way through if you need it. 

Whatever rule you want to make, you can do it from this one, simple creator.

What’s more, our automated rules are more advanced than Microsofts as we offer: 

• Rules that run every 30 minutes, not every day. This gives you greater control and enables you to make impactful changes at the right time to increase your success. 
• And/Or conditions, which allow you to create intelligent rules that will run on multiple metrics, for example, if a campaign has more than 50 conversions OR if it has a CPA of less than £5. 
• Select which teammates you want to be notified when a rule fires, without having to manually import their email address. 
• As many conditions as you want, instead of a limit of 5.

Simply put, Adzooma’s automated rules are smarter, faster and more efficient, helping you save time and scale.

For more information on creating your own automated rules, you can follow our step by step guide on creating a custom ‘high volume, low conversion’ rule here.

Templated rules to get you started quickly 

Unlike Microsoft Advertising, Adzooma also offers an entire library of premade rules that you can apply to your account in a few clicks. 

Each rule was created by PPC experts as the go-to rules that have been proven to increase performance, save time and improve their ROI. It’s perfect for those that are new to automated rules or are just looking for a quick way to apply them to your account. 

To see our rules, head to Automation and click ‘New Automation Rule’. Then, select ‘Choose Templates’ to be taken to our library of 28 premade rules that you can apply to your account.

When you’ve found one you like, just click on it, choose what campaigns you want to apply it to, how often you want it to run and click save. You can make any edits and customisations to these rules as you want – they’re your starting point for you to make them your own.

Want to know more about our templates? Find out our five most popular automation rules and why they’re used here.

Intelligent reporting to prioritise your workload 

The key to great campaigns is data. 

That’s why Microsoft Advertising runs multiple reports for you to get a deeper look at your data to figure out what’s working, what isn’t and what needs your attention. 

For example, Microsoft offer reports such as:

• The Keyword, Campaign, Ad and Ad group reports, which tell you which campaigns are performing well and how your keywords are contributing to campaign performance.
• The Search term report, which shows which words customers enter into search to cause your ads to display.
• The Share of voice report, which gives you an estimate on where you might be losing to competitors in the marketplace.

Once you’ve selected which report you want to run, there are a few extra steps you have to take. You’ll need to select the date range, which specific campaigns you want to run the report for and what metrics you want to appear in the columns before you can think about interpreting the results.

Adzooma does reporting differently. 

We offer 7 predefined reports to remove the hours of data analysis and number crunching, so you can prioritise your workload. 

Our flagship one is the PPC Performance Report. Analysing your Microsoft Advertising account, the PPC Performance report gives you an overall score out of 100 with a breakdown of how optimised your account is. The closer to 100 you are, the better optimised your ads are. 

Underneath the score, you’ll find cards showing you where you can improve and the actions you can take right now. To make things even easier, you can also click to action these changes inside Adzooma, taking you from reporting to optimisation in seconds. 

That means you’ll spend less time finding problems and more time fixing them.

Adzooma also offers customisable reports for complete freedom and control. ou can have as many pages, graphs, charts and data as you want. Add your own images and text and show off your success with clients or shareholders.

Whatever you need, just click it and Adzooma will add in the data. What’s more, every report will automatically update with the latest figures, giving you 100% accurate reports you can rely on.

Manage your Google and Facebook ads simultaneously 

Adzooma isn’t just for Microsoft Advertising. 

You can use it to manage your Google and Facebook accounts simultaneously, without having to use a separate platform. You can add as many accounts as you want and switch between them in seconds. 

When you log into Adzooma, you’ll be able to see top level data and PPC performance scores for your accounts, letting you prioritise which account needs your attention first. It’s your secret weapon to managing multiple accounts on the go. 

Want to know more?

• See how Adzooma compares to Google Ads 
• See how Adzooma compares to Facebook Ads

Ready to transform your Google Ads management with Adzooma? 

Sign up for free today.

Why are Google Shopping Campaigns Important?

Google Ads Shopping Campaigns (Product Listing Ads or PLAs) are, almost indisputably, the single most important weapon in any ecommerce business’s armoury. The return on investment from Shopping Ads so surpasses conventional text ads that, for many retailers, PLAs are the only game in town.

Shopping ads dominate the search engine results page (SERP) for most competitive ecommerce terms and, with their introduction into image search, this trend is only going to continue.

Google Shopping, when optimised and managed correctly, delivers an amazing return on investment, puts your products in the shop window for anyone looking for what you sell, and can be the platform to build your ecommerce business.

Google Shopping managed badly can be a massive drain on your business, can negatively affect the perception of your brand and, at the very least, can be a huge waste of time, money and resources. So, how can you tell if your Google Shopping Campaign is in trouble?

The 16 Biggest Google Shopping Problems That We See Every Day

1. Disapproved Products

You’ve got to be in it to win it, and if all (or a large number) of your products are not approved, then you are unlikely to do very well with Google Shopping.

There are a huge number of potential reasons why your products could be disapproved, from the fundamental (e.g. incorrect or broken product links) to the arcane (e.g. incorrect GTIN for the product) to the farcical (e.g. Google’s automated systems incorrectly identifying items that violate their policies). We had an issue recently that one of our client’s mattresses was incorrectly identified as a gun bed!

2. Incorrect Data in Product Feed

Analysing the data in your product feed is, quite possibly, not the most exciting of jobs, but making sure your data is accurate and complete is fundamentally important.

If it isn’t, at best, your products could be disapproved. Worse still, your products could appear in the wrong searches – wasting money – or your account could even be suspended.

3. No Product Strategy

It’s unlikely that you’ll only have a small number of products all sold at the same price and margin. The chances are you’ll have some low-value products, some high-value products, some products you make more money on, some you make less money on, some that you are competitive with, some you are not, some you want to sell lots of, some that are there to make up the numbers and some, you don’t even want to sell.
You need to decide on this and then focus your time, efforts and bid management on those items, whilst minimising bids or even excluding the other items. We’re amazed by how many people start a Google Shopping campaign without a clear product strategy.

4. Poorly Optimised Product Titles and Descriptions

Google Shopping doesn’t work with keywords, so your product titles and descriptions are the single biggest opportunity you have to ensure your products are found in the right searches, by the right searchers, rather than vice versa.

If you have an oak dining table, for it to appear in searches for ‘oak dining tables’ the term really needs to be in your product title and description. You’d be amazed at how many retailers forget this.

Similarly, if your title or description mentions something very different, the chances are your products might appear in completely inappropriate searches.

5. Under or Non-Optimised Product Feed

Your feed is the element that drives your campaign, and you need to be onto it all the time. You need to work out what’s working, what’s not working, where your problems are, where your opportunities are, and how you use your feed to achieve the best return on investment.

There’s no simple solution, and Google provide limited information and resources. So, detective skills and a lot of time are required, feed optimisation is key to the success of your campaign.

6. Disorganised Account/Campaign Structure

Having developed your product strategy, your shopping campaigns need to be the embodiment of this and be easy and clear to manage and optimise. The number of shopping campaigns that we see with one campaign and one AdGroup, with everything lumped together, is frightening.

7. Incorrectly Used Negative Terms

Whilst you can’t use keywords for your shopping campaign, you can use negative keywords to exclude certain, non-relevant keywords and phrases. Although this is extremely useful for stopping certain terms and excluding certain phrases, be mindful that your products are different and a negative term that might be appropriate for one product might not be for another.

For example, a common negative term that people use might be free or review – simple, this should exclude people looking for free versions of your products or reviews on them. But, if you also sell gluten-free products or books that include ‘review’ in their title, for example, you could be stopping your products appearing for valid searches.

Similarly, if you sell wood floor and also wood floor cleaner, adding the term cleaner to the group that contains the former and not the latter is really important.

8. No Differential Bidding for Mobiles

Whilst you are not allowed to differentiate your bids between desktop and tablets, you can increase or decrease your bids for mobile devices.

You need to understand how people buy your products, how your competitors are behaving and pitch your bids accordingly.

There are a number of items that sell better on mobiles, as the need may be more immediate. However, other items may be researched on mobiles but, because the buying process is more complex or involved, will result in transactions being carried out mainly on desktops.

You need to analyse buyer/user and competitor behaviour and target bids for mobiles accordingly.

9. No Differential Bidding for Location

If your key market is London or you don’t deliver to Northern Ireland, failing to use location bidding is a major issue.

Analyse your market, delivery areas, even the delivery times to out of the way areas, and set your bids accordingly. This will ensure you are appearing in the most profitable searches and not bidding to attract customers you can’t deliver to.

10. No Ad Scheduling

There are certain times of the day, in general, when people do more shopping online, and certain times that are unique to particular sectors or products.

For example, B2B products are generally sold at different times of day to B2C ones, and clothes have different peak times to foods.

You need to analyse the times your products are sold and research and optimise your bids so that your products appear in searches when your customers are looking to buy them.

11. Not Utilising Audience Bidding

People who have bought from you, abandoned a basket on your site, or have even just visited your site, are generally worth more to you than people who don’t know you – they’re more likely to be responsive to buy from you.

In some cases, however, you might only want to be advertising certain products to entirely new customers.

In either case, you need to be using audiences so that you can match your bids to the value of each user to your business.

12. Poorly Performing Ads Drain Your Budget

This is a symptom of all the issues but, again, it is a tell-tale sign when analysing a Google Shopping campaign that an account has numerous products that are doing really well but one or two that are performing really badly due to bids and budgets. Badly performing ads will be using all the budget and stopping the star performers from appearing.

13. Not Enabling Conversion Value Reporting

If you are relying purely on basic Google Ads Conversion tracking or Analytics Goal Tracking, and just reporting numbers of conversions rather than the value of them, you could end up in trouble.

We’ve seen many accounts where the conversion numbers and conversion rate look great until you look at the sale value and see most of those conversions are for really low priced or low-profit items.

We were looking at a big keyword term the other day that would have been highly competitive and expensive. Still, two products from one advertiser were both under £1, meaning that advertising was unlikely to be very profitable for them.

14. Not Using Competitive Metrics & Auction Insights

Google provides competitive data on impression share, lost share through rank and lost share through budget. This data is vital to analyse and see where opportunities do and don’t exist.

Similarly, by using auction insights, you can see who you’re up against. It’s another one that leaves our jaw-dropping on why people spend large amounts of money without learning from this.

15. Not Using Seller Ratings or Merchant Promotion Extensions

Seller Ratings are hugely important in purchasing decisions, and Google offers a free extension to show your ratings, with nice gold stars if you’re well-liked.

It also offers a free Merchant Promotion Extension, if you wish to offer a promotion, like a voucher or discount. These offer prominent extra promotion and improve click-through rate and performance significantly, but again, are not used by a lot of people.

16. Not Properly Using Google Product Categories

The GB Google Product Taxonomy is a bewildering and sometimes baffling list of categories (including a whole section on Guns) that causes us much consternation and, not infrequent, amusement.

Things that are used every day, like dishcloths or tea towels, are ignored, whilst products that seem, to us, quite niche, e.g. Brass Instrument Polishing Cloths, are well catered for. Even so, Google has set this up for a reason, and if you play by their rules and try to please them, they often try to please you back.

So there you have it, these are 16 of the main things to look out for that will tell you whether or not your Google Shopping Campaign is delivering the sort of results it should be, or if you’ve got Google Shopping Problems.

If you don’t think your Google Shopping Campaign is working effectively, our PPC specialists would love to talk to you about it – please get in touch or take a look at our listing on Marketplace. 

But not every PPC metric is important for what you want to achieve and it isn’t as daunting as you may think.

So much of it comes down to intent. For example, you may hear people in the PPC community say, “Impressions don’t matter one jot!” But that’s not the case at all. If you’re running a brand campaign for example, one of the most important metrics you should be looking at is impressions.

So in this article, I’m going to lay out all the PPC metrics you should be keeping an eye on (as you may have guessed from the title), but I’m also going to lay out for what reason you should be keeping an eye on them.

That way, when you next head into your PPC campaigns and you’re looking at the performance of your brand campaigns for example, you can start to prioritise some metrics more than others.

Intent Is Key

Aligning your campaigns with intent is crucial to PPC success. Before you start any campaign you need to ask yourself the question, “What do I want out of this?”

This can be just something as simple as: 

• more customers (sales campaign)
• more eyes on my brand (brand campaign)
• more users on my website (traffic campaign)
• more sign ups for my free webinar (lead campaign)

Those are the campaigns we’re going to concentrate on today. You could go more granular if you wanted, but for the vast majority of PPC users, your campaigns will fit into one of the four buckets above.

Therefore, once you’ve made your decision regarding which campaign you want to proceed with, you then need to ask the question, “What metrics do I need to keep an eye on to measure this campaign’s success?”

That’s what this article is for. Here I’m going to go through each metric you’d see in your Adzooma, Microsoft or Google ads account, then tell you which type of campaign this metric is most useful for.

Cost – Everything

Let’s start with a super easy one, cost: how much your campaign has spent.

Unless you’re Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, you’re probably going to want to keep an eye on this one so you’re not bankrupting yourself.

Verdict: Keep an eye on it unless you’re a billionaire

Want to save more money on your campaigns? Have a read of our article on 4 simple ways to save money on your PPC campaigns right now

Clicks – Everything

Clicks aren’t the be all and end all, but they’re an important measurement stick for every kind of campaign you’re running.

Every sale and every lead has to start with a click first.

If you want your brand out there, aren’t crucial, but someone just noticing your brand’s name in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) isn’t likely to do that much – even if you’re running a brand campaign you still want someone to click your ads.

Verdict: Always be measuring those clicks no matter what campaign you’re running

Click-Through Rate (CTR) – Everything

Click through rate is the percentage of people who see your ad  and click it. So if 100 people see your ad, but only 5 people click it, your CTR will be 5%. 

Typically, if you’re connected to the Adzooma platform you’ll see a CTR of 6% on Google Ads and 3.7% on Microsoft, which is about 4% and 1% higher than industry average.

You always want to keep an eye on this one, for every kind of campaign you run. If that CTR is dropping to below 2% then you probably need to take action and revise your ad copy or ad relevancy to try and get people clicking on your ads.

This isn’t a cut and dry rule, though. You could have thousands of clicks and hundreds of conversions while your CTR might be at 1%. Then you’d say to me, “Tom, stop telling me I need my CTR above 2% because I’m here raking in the dollar.”

Your own judgement is key afterall. PPC isn’t always a science, sometimes it’s an art.

Verdict: You don’t always have to be concerned if it drops too low, but it’s something to always keep an eye on

Adzooma users see an uptick in CTR rates due to the easy to implement Opportunities that are a part of the free platform.  Learn More

Cost Per Click (CPC) – Everything

Staying on the theme of clicks, staying on the theme of metrics you need to measure for every kind of campaign, we approach the subject of CPC.

Now, whereas the two above you don’t always have to be concerned about, this one you very much do. Because if you’re paying way over the top for your clicks, then something is very wrong, and it’s going to hit you in the place that hurts most – your pocket.

How much you pay for clicks depends on what industry you’re in, but whatever they are, you need to keep an eye on them. Not doing so could destroy your campaigns.

Verdict: Always measure this. No ifs or buts.

Quality Score – Everything

Quality Score is another really important metric because if your Quality Score is low, then you’re going to pay more for your ads no matter what campaign you’re running.

Quality Score is a little bit tougher to understand than the other KPIs because it’s a little bit vaguer – it’s made up of different measurements like ad relevance, landing page experience, ad format, expected CTR etc.

It also has a scoring system out of 10. Anything 5 and below isn’t particularly great and therefore your ads should be revised (unless you’re running competitor campaigns, for example).

You can read our Quality Score explainer article to get more information on what it is, why it’s so important, and how you can improve it.

Verdict: Very important for all campaigns to save on unnecessary wasted spend

Conversions – Sales / Leads

You can discount this if you’re running brand or traffic campaigns, but for those running sales or lead campaigns, then stick around.

Conversions are simply what you define as a user completing an action which becomes a lead or a sale – that could be: 

• Signing up to your email newsletter
• Enquiring about your services
• Making a purchase.
• And so on

As you can imagine, this is something you will want to keep an eye on – especially if you have a target of getting 1,000 people signed up for your newsletter or something.

However, make sure you don’t measure this in isolation. You don’t want to look solely at conversion without cost too (spoiler: that’s what the next one’s about).

Verdict: Important for sales and lead campaigns, but make sure you don’t measure it in isolation

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – Sales / Leads

Here comes the context.

CPA is how much you pay per lead or customer (dependent on what you class as a conversion in Google Ads), so say 15 people click your ad for a total cost over £75 and you get two conversions, the CPA will be £37.50. 

You can see why this would be important. If your CPA is at £37.50 , but you’re only making a £20 sale, it’s likely you need to change your strategy up.

When you set up your campaigns in Adzooma, you will be able to set a Target CPA.  Using historical information and contextual signals, Adzooma automatically set your bids to try to get your conversions to remain at that Target CPA. 

This can’t be something you do straight away, though – you need to have had at least 30 conversions in the last 30 days for the algorithm to work.

Verdict: Super important metric to watch if you’re running sales or lead campaigns

Conversion Rate (CVR) – Sales / Leads

Another one that applies to the sales and lead campaigns, CVR is the percentage of people who convert from a click. So say you have 1 conversion and 10 clicks, your CVR will be 10%.

This metric is important to see how well you’re performing after the click, when a user is on your site and looking to make an action. If this metric is super low, maybe the audience you’re attracting isn’t right, maybe your site is too slow, maybe your landing page isn’t the best. 

Those are things you’ll have to dig into yourself, but CVR is a good indicator that either something’s going wrong after the click or something is going pretty darn well.

Verdict: A good indicating metric for sales and lead campaigns to help figure out your success after the click

Impressions – Brand 

Now, a lot of people would say impressions don’t matter at all, but that really isn’t true.

If you’re wanting eyes on your brand, then impressions do matter. For example, imagine if you’re a small cola brand and you’re beside Coca Cola and Pepsi with a quirky ad – that’s automatically going to get people thinking about you. Even if they don’t click on you, being in their mind is good enough.

That’s why impressions are important. Not for every campaign, sure. But don’t rule them out entirely.

Verdict: Important metric for brand campaigns. Not for anything else

Impression Share (CPM) – Everything

Now impression share is a little bit different to impressions. It’s actually the total impressions divided by the total eligible impressions.

Total eligible impressions take into account things like bid budget, targeting settings, quality score and approval statuses.

So if you’re really wanting to get those eyes on your brand, this is a really important metric for you, as if that CPM is low, then you may want to do something about that.

However, this also impacts sales and lead campaigns too, because again if your CPM is low, you could be losing out on clicks to your competitors because more often than not, your ads aren’t being seen.

Plus, on top of CPM, there is also Absolute Top Impression Share and Search Top Impression Share, which gives you a percentage run down of the location of your ads in the SERPs. 

This percentage indicates whether your ads have the possibility of reaching the top or absolute top. This how they’re worked out:

• Search top impression rate = Impressions on top/Impressions
• Search absolute top impression rate = Impressions on the absolute top/Impressions

Verdict: Important for all campaigns.

An Easier Way?

If you’re thinking, “That is a lot to remember, isn’t there an easier way?” 

Well, the answer to that is yes!

With the free Adzooma platform, the software can keep an eye on all these metrics for you and then notify you whenever they turn bad or there’s opportunity for something more.

If you’re starting out in PPC, then it’s the perfect sidekick to help you along in your learning journey.

Then when you’ve navigated your way to an added level of competency, it’ll be your trusty assistant who’ll be there to handle all the manual work so you don’t have to.

All you have to do is connect your Google, Microsoft or Facebook account to the Adzooma platform, then you’ll have access to one-click optimisations, a full reporting suite, extensive automation, and so much more, at no cost at all.

Get started today.

To find out more about how Phable can improve your bottom line with world class design and comprehensive writing services, book a consultation and tell us all about your business.

Below you’ll find advice on how to put in the hard work that will make your conversions look easy. By taking a holistic approach to advertising, both creating campaigns and embracing disruption opportunities, you can unlock the secrets to standing out. Whether you call it being prepared to do what the competition isn’t, or zigging while they zag, this is the work you need to put in so that your spend goes further and your message reaches more people.

1. Lead on the benefits of what you can do for your audience.

Embracing Google Adwords keyword research is a great way of ensuring your CTA cuts through, whatever the advertising platform. Use Adwords, Google Ads features and search intent, not only as SEO tools in their own right, but to reveal the needs of customers so that you can lead with that detail in your messaging.

This also works on social just as much as PPC or other forms of advertising. Pay real attention to the verbiage that your audience and competition are using; search out high ranking keywords relating to these terms and embrace them in your messaging. It’s got to remain natural and to your brand’s tone of voice, but engineering your ads with focal points of what your potential customers are already searching for will only go to help you satisfy their need.

Combine this with your tailored strategy, leading on the benefits of what you do best, and you’ll create attention-grabbing advertising with an irresistible click-through opportunity every time.

2. Find your why and tell people about it in your advertising.

Facebook ads and social media spend is all about immediacy and intimacy. In the era of attention, you’ve got a split second to engage, persuade and delight your potential customers. This is the secret to inbound marketing plus.

When you pay to play on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or through Google, put the right message in front of the right people by understanding where your customers are in their buying journey. This isn’t new advice, but it’s rarely used in these days of “do everything immediately if not sooner.” There’s a lot to be said for populating platforms with content for long term engagement, but that doesn’t mean you should forgo a little thought about what you’re saying.

If it’s a new audience, lead on the inspirational “why” of your business or service – what is your purpose and what do you believe as an entrepreneur? Learn more about this approach in the Simon Sinek TED Talk: How great leaders inspire action.

When the advertising demographic is made up of people that already know your background and product, adjust your message accordingly. When you display crafted ads to the right people in the right mindset, they click and they convert.

3. Great graphic design has never been more important.

Just as vital as a consolidated message in advertising and lead generation, your ad design needs to be immediate and engaging in every campaign you set live.

At just eight seconds, the human attention span is now less of that than a goldfish – seriously, look it up. Think how little time you spend looking at a post as you’re swiping your finger up the screen. Would you pay attention to your ad? Do you pay attention to any ads?

You can think of those adverts that genuinely captured your attention. The ones that looked different and exciting; the ones that just worked. Whatever your competition is doing, even if you perceive it as being a successful approach, do something different. Look to other markets and sectors; even completely different industries for inspiration. Borrow elements you like and let others inspire you to do better. Adapt and never copy what you see. It’s the internet. Someone will call you on it and you’ll lose more than you started with as far as reputation goes.

When disruptive design meets value in the copy, ad magic happens.

4. Track your progress and create your own advertising insights.

There are no steadfast rules when it comes to adverts that convert, every time. First of all, algorithms across Google, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms change and audiences catch on to advertising technique trends.

Just like the pop-up ads hell of the late ’90s, prospective customers will soon start turning their noses up if their experience is interrupted for no benefit to them. Instead, use the advice above to add to their experience and service the needs of tailored audiences.

Lastly on this point, listen to the insight of others but follow your own results. There are endless pages and accounts around promising conversion rates and follower numbers, but your business and your audience is unique. If someone is saying “I can get you x followers or x conversion rate on your marketing spend,” it should come as no surprise that they’re not the people to be talking to. At best they can tell you how they achieved those metrics, numbers or sales.

In fact, if you can find someone who’s willing to talk to you about their experience as opposed to trying to sell you on how to do something, nurture a relationship with them as a trusted advisor. They are few and far between.

Look at what posts engages your audience the most and build on that. For paid ads, test a few options with smaller spend and then keep what works and ditch what doesn’t. Increase the spend as you find out what gets you the best conversions, and keep evolving your strategy over time to keep more eyes on your ads.

5. Communicate, share ideas and help other people.

You’re reading this article to gain insight on how to get more attention from less effort with your marketing spend, but more likely than not you already have plenty of advice of your own. Share it. There are no secrets anymore, and communication is key to unlocking new paths and partnerships.

The advertising and marketing communities have so much to offer between businesses, and between hierarchal levels, too. Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone higher than your pay grade, and don’t ever think that anyone’s position is beneath you. We’ve probably all reached the point of webinarmageddon; we’re Zoomed out and have made enough notes that we’ll never read. However, sitting as part of an audience is very different to a one-on-one where you can riff off each other’s ideas.

Get in touch with colleagues or old friends and forge new contacts by reaching out to the people behind campaigns that inspire you. Ask questions. Ask those people who inspire them. Then make a note of their answers and get in touch with those people. Expanding your networking capabilities will expand your professional influence and inspiration.

Keep learning, keep applying those lessons and keep pushing for better. Put the effort in before you create those ad campaigns and you’ll save effort in the long run.