New PPC Accounts: How to Get the Ball Rolling

A good pay-per-click campaign needs to come out of the gate running. There is a lot of competition for keywords and phrases, so this post will give you three easy steps to follow to ensure that help you now – and in future marketing campaigns.

Negative Keywords

Once a list of keywords is agreed with the client, they should be taken and tested so that a full list of broad match keywords can be compiled. Google has a fantastic autosuggest tool or there’s also the brilliant Übersuggest which can help you with your potential search queries to boost ad clicks.

Take for example the keyword ‘industrial cleaner’. There will be a long list of keywords, some of which are appropriate and some which aren’t. The ones that aren’t suitable can be added to a list of campaign or group ad negatives. By doing this, you won’t be paying for irrelevant clicks on your campaigns.

Remarketing Lists

URL remarketing lists can be created in Adwords. These audiences can be very useful in PPC. Google Analytics can help you with this, giving you more specific information than just video watchers and URLs. Go to the Google Analytics admin console and create remarketing lists based on the account.

Some remarketing audiences to think about include:

• Gender and age-based demographics – Through marketing to specific genders and ages, you can ensure that the tone and voice of your ads match the demographic you are trying to attract.
  
• The best keyword matches – Learning what the keyword is which first brought your users to the site will help you to reach out to your audience, reminding them what it is that they were wanting in the first place.
  
• Social media – social media sources have different expectations and experiences of our brands. Create landing pages specific to these audiences to keep the same themes and tone as the social media ad, building a sense of familiarity in the mind of the user.
  
• Time on site – People who bounce straight off the site shouldn’t be included in a remarketing campaign. This helps to save money and impression shares.

By building a set of remarketing lists, we can ensure that our campaigns are focused and that the ads are appearing in front of the right people.

Utilise IP Exclusions Immediately

Some clients search for their own ads. You need to put a stop to that – it’s messing up the metrics. You can exclude their IP address from the campaign entirely by in ‘Advanced settings’ in Adwords. Don’t just block the client’s IP, make sure you do your own and anyone in the team that might be working on the account. Also, block the IP address of any old agencies that may have worked on the campaign for the brand previously.

These are just a few simple steps to start out that can be forgotten in the rush to get everything going if you are limited on time or simply are looking at the best way to optimise proactively.

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