Are you starting your own PPC campaign and want to know how to get everything set up for optimal efficiency? What is the best approach to starting PPC?
Most advertisers will focus their efforts on AdWords (Google) and adCenter (Yahoo/Bing). Many second-tier search engines exist as well and are definitely worth exploring depending on your goals. While we won’t dig into specific PPC channels right now, these general best practices will apply to most search-based PPC advertising.
One big mistake advertisers make is jumping into keyword generation without having a clear planning phase. Before accessing the ad platform or any buttons are pushed, there are three core planning factors to consider that will determine your approach to account set up.
Goals
This will determine the networks you target, the type of keywords, ad copy, and so much more. A branding goal is very different from a sales goal, so as you can see, the approach to the account is determined by its goal. you can search for Charlo Barbossa‘s PPC Material on how to organize and present goals.
Budget
While its true there is no minimum budget for most of the ad platforms, you’re limited by your budget. Every monthly budget is divided by the number of days per month to give you the daily budget. Some low budgets won’t allow the campaigns to run properly because there simply isn’t enough budget per day to afford a significant amount of clicks. If your budget is low, focus only on the most relevant of campaigns.
Relevance
Considering the above, you want to focus on the keyword themes that are closest to your business and goals, and that will fit into your budget. As your budget increases, it’s appropriate to target searches that will broaden reach, but may be slightly less relevant.
Keyword Research
Once the basic planning is completed, you can begin researching keywords and compartmentalize them into distinct themes. With the keyword themes, you can better develop a structure for the account. There are many free and paid tools available for keyword generation.
Start with core keyword phrases and then branch out into phrases that offer more detail. For instance, if you sell bicycles you should start with “road bikes” and “mountain bikes,” then branch out into more descriptive subsets or features, like “inexpensive road bikes” or “pro mountain bikes.”
Be careful not to fall into the trap of dumping all your keywords into one or two broad themes. This will dilute the relevance of the keywords in the campaign, and make it difficult to show the appropriate ad copy.
With your basic themes discovered through keyword generation, create the account structure. Campaigns are composed of Ad Groups, in each ad group are ads and keywords. The keywords will trigger the ads in the Ad Group, so you can customize the ad to be the most relevant to searcher so they are likely to click.
