WolfTrust.com
Online Marketing with Jacob Wolfsheimer
Faster PPC Management for Large Campaigns
When I joined an agency that did search engine marketing, I had no idea just how large some client campaigns would be. I went from managing a few dozen keywords in campaigns for my small sites to managing thousands of keywords with dozens of landing pages.
PPC management is a full time job when the campaigns get this large. Improving your clickthrough rate involves constantly writing, tweaking, and testing ad copy, and remembering to document when changes took place. Improving your landing page relevancy involves design, and then constantly writing, tweaking, and testing copy. Lowering bid costs without actually changing bids will be most successful when it involves both improving your clickthrough rate and your landing page relevancy.
For faster ppc management in large campaigns:
1. Keep ad groups small.
When adding 200 keywords, make sure to group them by relevant keyword themes.
2. Know and monitor your budget.
Month to month, click costs change because your competitors, clickthrough rates, and quality scores may all change. Know your highest volume keywords, if possible, and definitely the rate at which your campaigns increase each week.
3. Test on a schedule.
A/B testing ads and landing pages should happen regularly. Writing a new ad for each adgroup, each week, is a lofty goal for me with multiple clients, so monthly may work better. Note: More often may not be better if ad groups are low volume and inconsistent.
4. Download your account, sort it, and study it.
When working with clients, I pretty up the numbers in an Excel file. It works wonders for quick analysis and questions about individual keywords. Most questions can be answered offline if there’s access to my Excel files. Generally, top level numbers at the top, more granular numbers further down, and really nitty-gritty numbers are on another worksheet.
5. Spending more doesn’t mean converting more.
The long tail says that people are searching for long keyword phrases. Low volume keywords may not convert regularly, if ever. Spending thousands on the long tail each month can be a dangerous strategy and suck up strong ROI. Don’t expect spending more to result in more conversions.