Expert Tips for Effective PPC Campaigns

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns are one of the most effective and cost-effective choices for advertising today. You can reach a very large audience while only paying when the ads are actually interacted with. However, as an industrial manufacturer, if you want real results from your campaign you have to make sure that the ads you put out are going to grab the attention of your target audience of engineers and buyers.

Do you currently run PPC ads for your industrial business? How do you define a successful PPC campaign? Do you base it on the number of clicks the ad receives? Conversions? Web traffic?

Honestly the best way to determine the success of your campaign is to measure the effect it had on your overall return on the investment (ROI). PPC ad buying last year came out to approximately $116 million dollars but the question is how much of the money spent on the ads did the businesses actually recuperate from their campaigns? Basically, you need to balance the cost of acquiring the new customer versus how much business that customer actually brought into your shop.

There is quite a bit of work to do before you can launch a good PPC ad campaign. Putting in the effort at the beginning will pay off big time in the end. So, how do you craft an effective ad campaign?

Have Your Budget Ready
The cost per click for PPC ads varies dramatically from one industry to another. Before you get started on your actual ads you need to put together your ad budget. Put together a rough idea of how much you want to spend per-day on the ads, per-month, as well as the overall life of the ads. You may need to adjust these numbers once you get the campaign rolling, but you at least need a rough idea of how much you are willing to spend before you begin.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With any online marketing efforts you need to pay close attention to your SEO; including simply having a website online. One of the main goals of your PPC campaign is to drive your industrial business higher and higher above your competitors in the search rankings. You can sit back and hope that your site’s rankings go up on their own (called organic SEO) but a quality PPC campaign will immediately place you at the top of the search in the sponsored section.

Plan Your Keywords
Every successful PPC campaign begins with the proper keywords. They are the core of your PPC campaign and absolutely essential. The keywords used should be written in SEO-friendly phrases that are 3-6 words in length. The phrases should be something you think a potential customer would type into a search engine to find your products or services. Never use a single-word keyword. Single-word keywords are an outdated technique and long-tail keywords (or phrases) have replaced them in today’s PPC campaigns. The competition for single-word keywords is simply too high at this point which makes the ROI really low.

Choosing the right keywords that will target just the right audience, people interested in your products and services, is your goal. So, how do you do that?

First, it is time for a brainstorming session. Utilizing your own in-depth knowledge of your customers and your industry, start jotting down any words or phrases that pop into your head. Literally any words that are relevant to your business should be included in the initial list you put together. Next, research the words and phrases and consult keyword planners. There are a ton of online services that you can utilize to take an in-depth look at the keywords that relate to your business, products, and overall industry. Search the phrases or keywords you like the most yourself and see what comes up.

After that, you will want to start to refine the list and narrow down the exact keywords to use. Once you have your keyword phrases, it is time to structure and organize them into more targeted groups that are related to one another. You want your keywords to specifically target every single customer group you are looking for.

You will also need to think about and identify any “negative keywords” or phrases that may display your ad but are the wrong customer for your product or service. Think on the search intent of your targeted customer. Their search intent is everything to the success of your PPC campaign. If you sell short-run machining services and someone searches for information about short-run machine shops but they are looking more for general information rather than a job shop for a project they need completed, you don’t want them clicking on your ad and wasting your money. You prevent this by flagging keywords that target the wrong audience known as “negative keywords.”

Research What Your Competitors Are Doing
You should already be very familiar with who your direct competition is and what they are doing with their ads. If not, get to it! You need to know what they are doing and what keywords they are targeting with their PPC ads. If you need a hand, we offer a free analysis of your online presence that includes an in-depth competitor report and more.

Make Your Copy Resonate
Once you have your budget ready, your keywords waiting, and you know exactly what your competition is doing it is time to put together your killer new ad. The words for your ad copy that you choose need to highly target your audience, the visuals (if there are any) need to resonate with them, the ad needs to be personal, and it needs to solve their specific pain points. You don’t get a lot of space for copy in a PPC ad, use it wisely.

Have a Good Call-To-Action (CTA)
Your CTA goes hand in hand with the copy – what do you want your potential customer to do when they respond to your ad? What do you want them to “Buy”, “Shop”, “Try”, or “Learn?” You may want to add words like “Get”, “Now”, and “Free” to help motivate the person to click on your ad. Your call to action needs to be powerful, needs to resonate with your audience, and it needs to lead them somewhere to solve their problem. Utilizing the correct CTA will do wonders for your conversion rate and your ad’s ROI.

Your Landing Page
Your ad’s CTA needs to send your potential customer to a landing page specifically designed to solve their problem. Never send them right to your website’s homepage. Sending people to your homepage is another outdated marketing technique, it is simply too generic to capture your audience’s attention in our hyper-connected digital world. You need to send them to a page that meets the needs, intent, and interest of the visitor immediately. If it does not, they will leave very quickly. The landing page should create a seamless experience for the potential customer coming from your PPC ad. Also, make sure your ad, landing page, and overall website are optimized for mobile view as well as desktop. You are paying to get people to your landing page, make sure that everyone is viewing it as you intend on any platform.

Google’s Quality Score
If you are running your PPC ads through Google, you can get better insight into how relevant your PPC ads and landing pages are to the specific keywords you’ve chosen, by looking at your “Quality Score.” Google looks at your ad’s relevancy as well as your landing page to score the quality of your ad. The higher your quality score, the lower your CPC will be, and the more relevant your ad will be to your audience.

Click here for instructions on how to check your quality score.

Reviewing Your Campaigns
Once you have PPC ads running you will need to continually review and optimize your campaigns. They are not static and should be continuously monitored and improved. You may find that a lot of people are clicking your ads but those clicks are not converting into sales. That is a big red flag that says your keywords, or negative keywords, need adjusting since they are attracting the wrong audience. Your copy may need some adjusting, any visuals, or your landing page. The goal of all of these revisions will be to evoke the reaction you desire from your audience so that you get the best ROI possible. Until you get it, keep tweaking.

Need assistance? Let us help!
Start by downloading our free comprehensive digital marketing success guide to accelerate your Job Shop growth.

Grab your FREE copy now: https://www.thericogroup.com/industrial/

Once you have read through the eBook please take advantage of our free assessment of your company’s current online presence, the analysis includes an in-depth competitor report and professional consultation.

With well over 30 years of experience, The Rico Group specializes in helping industrial manufacturers and job shops grow their business and diversify their customer base. We know how engineers think and what they are looking for. We know your processes, equipment, and materials. We also know that you have very little time to take away from your production and getting your customer’s orders delivered.

Grow your industrial business with better marketing with The Rico Group.
www.thericogroup.com/industrial/
(805) 497-7401