To help you maximize the ROI of your PPC campaigns, we’ve gathered twelve expert tips from top professionals including Heads of PPC and CEOs. From adopting a full-funnel PPC approach to improving ROI with regular A/B testing, discover the strategies these leaders use to optimize their campaigns. Here are 12 PPC campaign tips for better ROI.
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- Adopt a Full-Funnel PPC Approach
- Manual Control Boosts PPC ROI
- Utilize Proper Ad Extensions
- Optimize Landing Pages for ROI
- Continually Refine Your Keywords
- Adjust Ads Based on Conversion Time
- Increase Clicks With Dynamic Keyword Insertion
- Filter Out Lurker Keywords
- Localize Your PPC Campaigns
- Tweak Ad Timing for Success
- Harness Negative Keywords for Relevance
- Improve ROI With Regular A/B Testing
Adopt a Full-Funnel PPC Approach
I would suggest using a full-funnel approach in your PPC campaigns. Brand awareness is as important as conversion-based campaigns, as they can capture customers at the top of your buying cycle, promote loyalty, increase brand exposure, and encourage returning customers.
You may not see an instant return on these campaigns; however, in time, you will start to see this return increase within the ROI campaigns. I would also suggest not just reviewing data from your PPC channels, but from all channels, including Direct and Organic channels, as these may see an increase based on your full-funnel PPC approach.
Kathryn Pearson, Head of PPC, The SEO Works
Manual Control Boosts PPC ROI
One of the most effective tactics to improve the ROI of your PPC campaigns is to do as much manually as you can.
Whether it be controlling bids on paid-search campaigns, monitoring for negative keywords, or excluding and including placements on your display campaigns, do as much manually as possible.
Not long ago, a brand was using automated bidding on Google Ads and didn’t see results. When they switched to manual bidding, their ROI increased to 6x after only two months.
Joe Karasin, CMO, Karasin PPC
Utilize Proper Ad Extensions
Use proper ad extensions in your PPC campaigns. Usually, ad extensions don’t cost extra but have a much higher impact on the ROI. For example, I use “Location” and “Price” ad extensions in most of our PPC campaigns.
It helps us to be transparent and filters out unwanted clicks, which helps to increase our ROI. Depending on your business type, you can utilize various ad extensions such as Call, Seller Ratings, Product, etc.
Test out which one suits your goals the most, and your PPC campaign’s ROI will see a significant boost.
Mark McShane, Marketing Head, First Aid Course Edinburgh
Optimize Landing Pages for ROI
We run many PPC campaigns for our clients, and every click counts. Ensuring that each click translates into a desired action is paramount. One often overlooked yet critical element to boost the ROI of PPC campaigns is landing-page optimization.
Utilizing CRO platforms like Instapage or Unbounce can be transformative. These platforms offer tools and insights to refine landing pages, ensuring they align perfectly with the ad’s promise and audience expectations.
A well-optimized landing page captivates the visitor and guides them seamlessly towards conversion, be it a purchase, sign-up, or any other desired action. Advertisers can significantly improve conversion rates by ensuring that the landing page resonates with the ad’s message and offers a frictionless user experience.
While an interesting ad might get the click, the landing page seals the deal, making its optimization a cornerstone of PPC success.
Shane McEvoy, MD, LeadFly
Continually Refine Your Keywords
One tip to boost the ROI of your PPC campaigns, based on my experience, is to continually optimize your keywords.
Regularly refine your keyword selection, bid strategies, and negative keywords to ensure you’re targeting the most relevant and cost-effective search terms. This keeps your campaign focused on high-converting traffic and maximizes your ROI.
Shoaib Mughal, CEO, Marketix
Adjust Ads Based on Conversion Time
Analyze the time of the conversion. In my agency, we found something interesting: Even though Mondays had lots of traffic, most people actually bought things from Friday night to Sunday night—that’s 80% of our sales!
We stopped running ads on Mondays, even though it was busy, and it worked. We saved between 40-50% of our ad money just by choosing not to advertise at the “obvious” times.
This shows that looking closely at your data and trying different things, even if they seem unusual, can really help save money and make your ads work better. It’s super important to understand your customers and be ready to test new ideas.
Divyesh Bhatasana, Founder and CEO, Jeenam Infotech
Increase Clicks With Dynamic Keyword Insertion
I recommend making sure that you’re using dynamic keyword insertion. It’s a relatively simple tweak, but it can make all the difference in your results.
In my experience, I’ve found that by using dynamic keyword insertion, you can reduce costs by up to 15%. The reason for this is that you’re able to target the exact keywords that people are searching for and only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
The problem with traditional keyword targeting is that it only shows up when someone searches for a specific phrase or word—but people rarely think in terms of keywords as they search. Instead, they use short phrases and question marks to ask questions like, “What’s the best way to deal with depression?” or, “How do I get rid of acne scars?”
Dynamic keyword insertion allows you to bid on those types of phrases so that when someone searches for them, they’ll see your ad right away. This means more clicks and less wasted money!
Gert Kulla, CEO, RedBat.Agency
Filter Out Lurker Keywords
Filtering out what I like to call “lurker keywords” will dramatically improve the ROI of your PPC campaigns. A lurker keyword is a search term that gets a high number of searches, but the user has low buyer intent.
The way I have been able to bring down our customer acquisition cost with Google Ads is to do a keyword audit every couple of weeks. This means I go into our Google Ads account and look at every keyword that is costing us money, and check to see if that specific search term is also driving sign-ups.
If the cost per trial signup is too high, or if there have been a lot of clicks and no sign-ups, we add the keyword as a negative keyword. This stops Google from showing our ad when someone searches for that keyword. Consistently doing this will consistently increase your PPC ROI.
Adam White, Founder, Serpple
Localize Your PPC Campaigns
You can localize your PPC marketing campaigns using Google AdWords. So, while creating an advertisement, you can include or omit a specific area or territory. This enables you to limit access to your advertisement to clients in that region.
For instance, a marketer for a real estate company who advertises “Beautiful Beach Houses in Goa” could limit his ad campaigns to only appear in Goa and target customers in that particular place. This way, he can prevent his marketing funds from being wasted on pointless clicks.
Geo-location features are available on almost all search engines, including Google. This makes creating more focused PPC marketing campaigns simpler for marketers.
Oliver Andrews, Digital Marketing, OA Design Services
Tweak Ad Timing for Success
Monitor and manage your ad timing. Even the most relevant ads shown to the right people won’t be successful if you show them at the wrong time, and there’s no hard-and-fast rule. Since every audience is so different, the ideal timing will differ based on your industry, niche, and even the desired outcome of your campaign.
Watch how your PPC ads perform and work to tweak the timing of your campaigns as the results roll in. Since most PPC networks let you customize your ad schedule as you desire, you have the power to really dial in those ideal times and use them to your advantage.
Hardy Desai, Founder, Supple Digital
Harness Negative Keywords for Relevance
Harnessing the power of negative keywords is a significant strategy that can help you capture hot traffic correctly. Take, for instance, a scenario where you’re marketing premium digital marketing courses.
While your primary target might be those searching for “digital marketing courses,” it’s equally critical to avoid those explicitly looking for “free digital marketing courses.” You can do that by inserting “free” as a negative keyword.
Using negative keywords prevents budget wastage on non-relevant clicks and ensures your ads reach the most appropriate audience. With such precision, you improve your ads campaign’s CTR and conversion rates, ensuring your ad spend is maximized for genuine engagement.
Md. Raisul Islam, Digital Marketing Executive, MeasureMinds Group
Improve ROI With Regular A/B Testing
The best tip to improve the ROI of PPC campaigns is regular A/B testing—the method that involves comparing two or more versions of an ad or landing page to determine which performs better. By running two variants simultaneously, marketers gather data on campaign effectiveness and refine approaches based on concrete results.
In addition, through A/B testing, vital components like mobile responsiveness, SEO, and bid adjustments are comprehensively addressed and optimized.
A/B testing leads to incremental improvements, ensuring that the advertising budget yields the highest possible return. Also, it provides a deeper understanding of audience preferences.
While initially incurring costs from running multiple ad variations, A/B testing is a strategic investment. By identifying the most effective content, advertisers reduce costs spent on underperforming ads. Over time, this leads to a significantly higher ROI.
Natasa Mezej, CEO, Promise WD
