An extra special summer of sport is just around the corner with the European football championships followed by the much anticipated London Olympics and Paralympics. Organisers, coaches and athletes alike are clamouring to be fully prepared to perform at the highest level in what could be their career defining moment.
Meticulous planning, state of the art technology and years of knowledge are combined to produce a winning performance and the same kind of preparation is needed to create a PPC campaign.
At Found we have years of experience in launching new campaigns, which has given us the opportunity to test and refine new tools, enhance our knowledge in many fields and give our clients that crucial head start for their business. Here are our top three tips for preparing the winning formula for a paid search campaign.
1. Research – Every campaign requires keyword research, but it doesn’t end there. Competitor research is vital to not only see who you’re up against in the space, but what they have to offer. If a rival company is advertising a product or service at a more expensive rate, there’s your opportunity to prepare ads with the better price in. Or, vice versa, if they have a more competitive price, tailor your ads to focus on the key selling point of your product, for example: free delivery or three nights for the price of two.
2. Structure – The foundation of your campaign comes from its structure and if you get the initial set up right everything else will fall in to place – get it wrong and you could create more work in the long run. Tightly themed campaigns broken down with brand, brand plus generic and generics all separated. Make them as granular as possible with ad groups broken down by match type where possible, and never throw thousands of keywords in to one ad group. Negative matching terms from your exact match ad group in your broad match ad group will enable you to easily mine new keywords from search term reports and also help you secure maximum CTRs. Always use site links and organize your negative keywords in to negative Keyword lists which can be quickly added to new campaigns. Break out devices into separate campaigns; mobile and tablet perform differently to desktop, and even go one further by breaking mobile down by carrier or operating system.
3. Tools – There are many free tools out there to help you create those all-important keyword lists. If you’re not utilizing any of the following the chances are you’re losing valuable time in your pursuit for PPC perfection:
- Google Keyword Tool
- Google Insights for search
- Double Click Ad Planner
- Google Correlate
- MSN Excel Intelligence Tool
- Broad Match Modifier
- Keyword Combination Generator
- Keyword Typo Generator
So that’s it, you’ve done all the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears have fallen and now you’re at the start line ready to enter the race for gold.
