Tips For Improving Existing PPC Accounts

For existing PPC campaigns, each keyword used to trigger an ad generally lands in one of four scenarios:

1. Ads Never Show, Ads Never Clicked
2. Ads Often Show, Ads Never Clicked
3. Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Don’t Convert
4. Ad Gets Clicked, Visitors Convert

Ads Never Show, Ads Never Clicked

These keywords are the "bums" of the campaign. Not only do they not drive traffic to the site, but they rarely trigger an ad to display - referred to as an “impression.”

Possible Causes: Not bidding competitively enough, receiving a low quality score due to lack of relevance, targeting phrases that are rarely, if ever, rearched.

Solution: Examine the quality score (QS) assigned to the keyword. As your QS gets closer to 1 (on a scale of 10), Google may decide to stop showing your ad all together. If your bids on keywords are not competitive enough to be shown, look for the suggested first page minimum bid provided by Adwords. This will tell you the minimum amount you have to bid in order for your ad to show  on the first page of the search results. The keyword tool built into Adwords approximates search volume for keywords and is a quick way to determine if a keyword is potentially worth targeting. Google's search-based keyword tool goes a step further by suggesting keywords it considers to be highly relevant and specific to your website. It also provides insighKul information including how often the phrase currently triggers an ad in PPC and how often it triggers your site listing on the organic side of Google.

Ads Often Show, Ads Never Get Clicked

Your keyword manages to get several impressions but no one ever clicks the ad.

Possible Causes: Ads don’t entice the searcher to click, poor alignment of the keyword that triggered your ad and the ad itself, targeting too broadly.

Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Don’t Convert

People click on your ads but hardly ever convert.

Possible Causes: Not showing visitor what they are looking for, poor alignment between the ad and the landing page.

Solution: Start by running a search query report to see the phrases triggering your ads. You could be receiving clicks for search variations you don't mean to target. Using analytics, look at bounce rate to see if the landing page aligns well with the keyword and ad that brought the visitor in. Identify the exit pages (the last page someone saw before leaving the site) to identify trends and possible causes. For example, a product page that displays the price or a disclosure page. If price is a potential issue, consider placing price information in the ad text so the visitor isn't surprised once they get to the site.  Try comparing the onsite behavior of non-converting versus converting traffic to see where the behavior begins to differ.

Ads Get Clicked, Visitors Convert

The keywords trigger the ad and convert at a profitable rate

Probable Cause: High relevance between keyword, ad and landing page. Friendly site experience.