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Advanced PPC Set-Up and Management

Sep 24, 2009
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A properly managed PPC campaign has the potential to deliver incredible results. As campaigns grow they become more challenging to manage efficiently creating opportunity for mistakes which can be costly.

If you’re running a large volume PPC campaign, either for one product or multiple products, there are two things you want to ensure you do to keep your costs down and your conversions up. First, you want to set-up your campaigns properly so that you can segment your traffic and better understand what keywords perform for what campaigns. Second, if your campaigns are truly high-volume, you might want to consider an automated tool that can help you monitor and manage your campaigns as they evolve.

Step 1: Campaign Set-Up

Cost control starts at the campaign level. If you’re running ads on both Google’s Search and Content networks, it’s important that you segment your campaign by setting up identical campaigns, one for search and one for content. This will allow you to better monitor performance, control budgets and optimize ad groups and keyword bids for each network respectively.

For content campaigns, you will also want to use site and category exclusions. Doing so will help you (1) avoid paying for untargeted clicks, and (2) maintain your Quality Score by preserving your click-through-rate (CTR):

Another way that Google gauges the relevancy of a page is by monitoring how many people click-through to it from the search results. The more frequently that users click your ads, the higher the Quality Score your ads receive. Google does this to reward advertisers who show their users the most relevant search results. [...]

Google will also give your entire Adwords account a Quality Score. So the CTR of all adgroups in your campaign in your account will be considered against your Quality Score.

Finally, check the Quality Score of your individual keywords. You will want to pause any term that (1) has a Quality Score of four or less and (2) has zero conversions. Quality Score not only affects a keyword’s cost-per-click (CPC) and first page bid estimate, it also influences your overall ad ranking and a keyword’s eligibility to enter the ad auction.

Step 2: Bid Management

Managing your costs when you’re dealing with hundreds of keywords is one thing. But when you’re working with thousands of keywords, you might want to consider an automated tool that can help you manage your bidding on all of your long-tail terms.

  • Acquisio SEARCH offers PPC software that includes bid management and aggregation tools. Among other things, it shows you which keywords should be paused, emails you when keywords have poor Quality Scores, and lets you to set maximum CPCs aligned with a dynamic expression like first page bid estimate.
  • adCore by Podium is PPC bid management algorithm that adjusts bids at the keyword- and ad group-levels. It can help you test different ad creatives, and there’s even a keyword cleanup feature for removing terms with low click-through rates or that have CPAs above a predefined value.
  • Clickable. Clickable’s ActEngine analyzes your campaign and automatically generates performance recommendations, namely, in the form of proposing bid increases on effective keywords, reducing bids of underperforming keywords, or notifying you of terms that have fallen below their first page estimates.
  • DART Search by DoubleClick is an automated bid management tool. With it, you can bid on your keywords up to 12 times a day. It also allows you to create a bid strategy by choosing two rules to be applied in a particular order. Bid rules include those based on position, conversion, and ROI, etc.
  • SearchCenter is part of the Omniture Online Marketing Suite of applications. SearchCenter is an automated bid engine that offers the most common bid management tactics, such as rules-based and portfolio bidding. SearchCenter also offers Day Parting, but so do most other modern PPC engines.

Automated tools can help you streamline the management process, but they can’t replace regularly scheduled, hands-on fine tuning necessary for successful campaign management. After all, automated tools can only crunch the number you give them. They are not able to recognize and understand trends the same way that human being is. They lack the intuition of experience or the understanding of what makes your product and customers unique. So fine tuning from your campaigns with such measures as testing new ad copy and landing pages will still be an integral part of your PPC maintenance. Automated tools will just help you do the heavy lifting.

About CT Moore

A Staff Editor here at Revenews.com, CT Moore has over 5 years experience leveraging search and social media to help brands meet their business goals online. By day, he provides SEO and social content strategy to both SMBs and enterprise level companies. CT is also an accomplished blogger, podcaster, and conference speaker who educates groups and companies about how they can leverage digital media. You can find CT on Twitter @gypsybandito.

Twitter: gypsybandito
Filed under: Search Engine Marketing
  • http://www.bloggingwithchris.com Chris Peterson

    Hi CT Moore,

    Certainly it's a very specialized area of expertise & you have demonstrated knowledge & experience. The suggestions would definitely helpful. However, I think the post has a hidden tone of rushing through. People, who would need it the most, may not be able to get it all in that rush.

    By the way, I definitely appreciate your insights.

  • http://www.gypsybandito.com CT Moore

    @Chris Peterson, admittedly, it's a big topic, and there was a lot that this post didn't cover. But it's so big, it couldn't really be covered in a single post. In fact, you could probably dedicate a blog to it.

    What I was trying to emphasize here, rather, was kind of "the basics of advanced PPC management." I know that that sounds a bit oxymoronic, but I really just wanted to say: (1) here's the deal, (2) here are some things you should look into and consider, and (3) here are some links to some tools that you might find usefule.

    Really, I was hoping to better equip the reader with some background information so that they can (1) ask better questions, and (2) be able to search more efficiently for even more advanced information.

    Does that make any sense?

  • http://www.soccercleats101.com Bryan

    Hey CT Moore,

    I enjoyed the post! I can definitely see you are experienced in the field. I have been thinking of running some campaigns for my site, but I mostly do reviews with some affiliate links and I am concerned that the click through rate will not be as good as it currently is with organic search. What is your advice if I was to start out slowly?

  • http://www.gypsybandito.com CT Moore

    @Bryan,
    Well, every niche is different, so it’s hard to anticipate click throughs. But if your hosting company offers you Adwords vouchers (most do), this is how I’d experiment.

    First, I would do is check your analytics for the top organic keywords that are bringing users to your site.

    Second, I’d run those through the Adwords keyword tool to get an idea of what they cost, how often their searched, their average click through rate, and how well they convert.

    Because I’m starting out, don’t want to take risks, and only want to experiment with a voucher, I’d look at the exact key word matches only, and add them to my Adwords campaing.

    Then, I’d distribute my voucher budget over a couple days. I’d make sure to only let the ads run during my peak (converting) traffic hours, and also set up my adwords campaign so that it doesn’t exceed the budget.

    When the experiment is up, I think that you’ll be able to gage what kinds of keywords are worth investing your own money in, and which ones aren’t.

  • http://www.bloggingwithchris.com Chris Peterson

    Hi Moore,

    After understanding your thinking behind it, I must admit that you have succeeded in your goal & over-delivered for a lot of people, who would definitely have better judgment than anyone who hasn't read your post.

    It does make more sense, when one understands the viewpoint behind it.

  • http://www.mrmworldwide.com/search-services Aimee Reker

    @aimeereker very nice post, CT. Rich with info and easy to follow. Also important is to group keywords within the main PPC campaign – brand terms in one, product attribute terms, customer support, content/recommendations, etc. And include at least a short negative match bucket (i.e., a florist would want "floral arrangement" but NOT "floral print") to keep the terms as relevant as possible.

  • http://www.gypsybandito.com CT Moore

    @aimee, you absolutely right. I guess I got so focused on discussing how to actually manage bids, that I overlooked stuff that you should do right from the beginning.

    Thanks for the reminder.

  • http://www.philmiranda.com Phil Miranda

    Phil Miranda here… WOW! Where do I start? This article truly reveals the complexities involved with the correct way of performing PPC campaigns, and as an ardent advocate for free, effective seo practices, this is what I speak about when addressing newbie (aspiring) internet marketers who venture online thinking, Hey, I'll put up a few PPC's here and there, and BAM! Strike it rich.

    I've been studying both PPC and free methods for years, and have read many articles in reference to PPC , yet many fail to explain such as you have in this article the extensive research needed to fully obtain the best ROI on a PPC campaign, in particular as you've indicated above when it comes down to the Bid Management.

    Thank you for sharing such an insightful, straightforward approach as to how a REAL PPC campaign should be performed for maximizing ones ROI.

  • Eduardo G.

    I am getting better conversions at cheaper price using pay per view. PPV is really the only way for me to make money. I use mediatraffic.com, linksador.com and trafficvance.com All of these give me great results and excellent ROI

  • Pingback: Optimizing Your Pay-per-Click (PPC) Campaign – Part 2 : Social Reflections

  • http://www.seopositive.co.uk/pay-per-click.php pay per click

    Nice post. Two things keep in mind; Keep your cost low & conservations up. If you are in PPC campaign. Pay per click is an amazing tool,which can help small business attract a lot of potential customers to their website.