Guide to Managing PPC Campaigns Online

These days, if you want to run a successful business then you need the aide of the internet to really reach your business’s true potential. We live in an age where everything revolves around technology and that includes business and basically anything that deals with making money.

The internet is the perfect platform to advertise, promote, and market your products and services to literally billions of people. Now that’s a kind of reach not even a newspaper ad or a flyer is capable of having.

And one of the most highly regarded methods of using the internet to your benefit is by setting up PPC campaigns that advertise your products and services.

A PPC campaign, also known as pay-per-click, is a form of marketing where you would advertise on another high traffic website in the hopes of visitors of that website clicking on your advertisement. That advertisement would then direct those visitors to your personal website or offer.

PPC campaigns would show up on popular search engines, social media networks, blogs and websites. Usually your niche or specific market will determine where exactly these ads will appear to attract the most highly targeted traffic.

There are many who are already reaping the benefits of successful PPC campaigns and with the right ads and efficient management, you too can experience the same results. PPC campaigns are easy to set up, but it does take some up keep. Below is a quick guide to managing PPC campaigns online.

1. First and foremost, you should educate yourself on PPC campaigns as much as possible; learn the ropes sort of speak. You don’t ever want to jump head first into unfamiliar waters because the chances of you drowning is very likely; the same goes for your business and PPC campaigns. Without the basic knowledge and the right tools your ads will sink to the bottom of the barrel.

There are plenty of resources online that teach you in depth about PPC campaigns. You can also commission an internet marketing expert who’s well versed in PPC. And if you really want to get into the nitty gritty of it all then you can read books, go to seminars; listen in on webinars, and purchas courses about on PPC.

2. Choosing the right keywords will greatly impact your ads visibility as well as the kind of visitors it will attract. When it comes to choosing keywords that are relevant to your campaign you’ll most likely have a plethora of options. Do your research on highly targeted and searched keywords to narrow down the list to the most effective ones.

Once you’ve created your campaigns keep track of the keywords that are getting the most hits. Those are the ones you’ll likely see some conversions on and are definitely worth keeping in the pipeline. Keywords that don’t seem to perform well should be quickly tossed out so that your campaigns only consist of the most productive elements.

Negative keywords can also get you highly targeted visitors and will make sure that your ad only shows up in relevant searches. For example, if you have a campaign that sells eBooks then one of your negative keywords would be “free” so that everyone who’s directed to your site comes ready to purchase and knows not to expect anything for free.

3. Take time to make sure all of your settings are correct. Having the wrong settings to your campaign won’t necessarily put an end to all your PPC endeavors, but it might end up costing you time and money. Here are some examples of some of the settings you’ll come across:

• Locations and Languages. If you’re promoting a product that only pertains to English speaking individuals then you’d want to set your geographical locations to English speaking countries. Otherwise you might be spending extra for visitors who click on your ad and don’t even know what you’re offering.

• Network and Devices. This allows you to choose where you want your ads to show up. You can choose between networks, search engines and different websites. You can also manage on what devices you’d like your ads to show up on such as desktops, laptops, mobile devices and tablets.

• Bidding and Budget. Now if you’re not in the position to spend $100 a day on your campaign then you want to pay extra close attention to this section. Don’t go too cheap with your budget otherwise you’ll never get the amount of exposure you want for your ads. You don’t want to go broke either, so choose a budget that’s in the middle and you can do this by taking your budget and dividing it into the number of campaigns you have and how long you’re running your ads for.

• Advanced Settings. Here you will control how your ads are shown as well as how often they’re shown. This makes testing the productivity of each add simpler. Most importantly, choose a “Standard” delivery method, otherwise you can say good bye to an entire’s month budget in a one day.

4. Continually collect and analyze the data of your PPC campaigns. See what’s working and what isn’t. Switch out keywords that aren’t getting any traffic, change some of your ads, tweak settings, group keywords together, etc. Doing this will help you get a better score with Google. The higher your score, the less you’ll be charged per click. The key is to test, test, and test.

Image courtesy of ddpavumba/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Author Bio – This is a guest post by Ryan Francis from MarketizeIt, an Austin based PPC Management Company handling internet marketing for businesses across the globe. To manage your PPC business effectively, if you’re looking for a local PPC management company, do contact MarketizeIt.com today.