In this blog post I will outline my top tips to using the force of PPC as a key channel in your campaigns. This include the four main platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Adwords. It is worth noting that the strategies within all platforms are fairly similar. All offer slightly different ‘types’ of ads that vary according to your campaign objectives, whether you are aiming to increase web traffic or increase engagement.
Other tips include the importance of understanding who your target audience is, setting your budget, getting creative with images and copy, playing around with A/B testing, and last (but not least) analyzing what’s working and what’s not working, and adjusting your campaign until you hit the sweet spot.
Facebook
Two types of ads you can use –
Targeting your audience on Facebook largely means filtering you campaign according to demographics and interests (in which you can also include job titles within the latter!).
Using Power Editor
Power editor is a Facebook feature that often gets overlooked and for some mysterious reason can only be used via the Google Chrome browser, however it has got a lot of useful benefits, such as the dashboard appears to be more sophisticated for starters.
However, for me, the main and most obvious benefit is the ability to upload email data and add it to your Facebook campaign to broaden your audience reach. Here’s how you do it -
This is largely common sense. However, it is recommended that you simply set the bid at what is suggested or even at the higher end of what is suggested, since the first few days set the tone for how your ad will perform in the future. By setting a medium-to-high bid to start off with, your ad will get shown more than if you had a lower bid, likely leading to more clicks and more exposure.
Tips when creating your ad image and copy
This means if you have a budget of £1000 for an ad to run over a 2 week campaign, why not try creating 2 versions of your ad for the first few days of the campaign, and running it on a smaller budget. You can then analyze, which ad is working best, delete one and keep the other for the remaining time and budget left in the campaign. This gives you the option of experimenting with the copy and target audience for the first few days before fully committing.
Twitter
Two types of ads you can use –
With keywords targeting, you’re not limited to just words but you can use popular hashtags and handles as well, which can be very useful. When you start typing in keywords, Twitter will give you some recommendations of similar keywords that you can target. Twitter will also show you how many daily Tweets there are that contain each keyword. The key is to ensure that you remain as specific to your audience’s interests as possible. (In fact running a Twitter ad campaign is not too dissimilar to Google Adwords!)
Targeting your audience by followers
With followers targeting, you can target users similar to the followers of the accounts of your choosing, and you also have the option to target your own followers and users like your followers.
Targeting your audience from your database
Similar to Facebook’s Power Editor you also have the option to target your audience according to a specific csv database that you can upload. This can be found under the tools tab under Ads, but may take several hours to upload!
Important things to remember when creating you ad image and copy
- A specific ad – A good way of reaching people who don’t already like your page
- A boosted post – A way of increasing engagement with people who already like your page as well as reaching out to a new audience.
Targeting your audience on Facebook largely means filtering you campaign according to demographics and interests (in which you can also include job titles within the latter!).
Using Power Editor
Power editor is a Facebook feature that often gets overlooked and for some mysterious reason can only be used via the Google Chrome browser, however it has got a lot of useful benefits, such as the dashboard appears to be more sophisticated for starters.
However, for me, the main and most obvious benefit is the ability to upload email data and add it to your Facebook campaign to broaden your audience reach. Here’s how you do it -
- Begin by naming your campaign and setting your objective
- Select Audiences on the top drop down menu
- Then click on the green Create Audience button and select Custom Audience.
This is largely common sense. However, it is recommended that you simply set the bid at what is suggested or even at the higher end of what is suggested, since the first few days set the tone for how your ad will perform in the future. By setting a medium-to-high bid to start off with, your ad will get shown more than if you had a lower bid, likely leading to more clicks and more exposure.
Tips when creating your ad image and copy
- The ideal size for you image should be 1200 x 627
- Visually your ad needs to be strong with a strong call to action
- Keep your copy short and straight to the point. Why should the user click on your ad? What value are you providing?
- Try promoting a special offer as part of your ad
- You can only use a maximum of 20% text in your image. Use the Facebook Grid Tool to double-check it.
This means if you have a budget of £1000 for an ad to run over a 2 week campaign, why not try creating 2 versions of your ad for the first few days of the campaign, and running it on a smaller budget. You can then analyze, which ad is working best, delete one and keep the other for the remaining time and budget left in the campaign. This gives you the option of experimenting with the copy and target audience for the first few days before fully committing.
Two types of ads you can use –
- Promoted Tweets – A good way of getting more web traffic (recommended) – This can be a boosted tweet that you have already published, or it can be a brand new tweet.
- Promoted Account – A good way of getting more Twitter followers
With keywords targeting, you’re not limited to just words but you can use popular hashtags and handles as well, which can be very useful. When you start typing in keywords, Twitter will give you some recommendations of similar keywords that you can target. Twitter will also show you how many daily Tweets there are that contain each keyword. The key is to ensure that you remain as specific to your audience’s interests as possible. (In fact running a Twitter ad campaign is not too dissimilar to Google Adwords!)
Targeting your audience by followers
With followers targeting, you can target users similar to the followers of the accounts of your choosing, and you also have the option to target your own followers and users like your followers.
Targeting your audience from your database
Similar to Facebook’s Power Editor you also have the option to target your audience according to a specific csv database that you can upload. This can be found under the tools tab under Ads, but may take several hours to upload!
Important things to remember when creating you ad image and copy
- DON’T use a hashtag in your tweet as that will count within your clicks and will cost you.
- DO add an image as a part of you 140 characters, meaning you’ll have to keep your copy super short and to the point.
- DO use a Twitter Card. A Twitter Card is basically a ‘clickable’ image. This means when people click your image they will be directed to your website. If you don’t use a Twitter Card, when people click on your image they will not be directed to your website, yet it will still cost you!
- DO A/B test your ads (As explained above)
Setting your budget
Now set your budget for what you want to pay per click, remember to set a price that will remain competitive to what others are doing. The more specific your targeting, the less expensive your bidding competition will be.
Analyzing
Remember you can edit your targeting after the campaign launch. This is the key thing to remember about PPC management.
If you go into your ad campaign and click “Handles” or “Keywords” on the left toolbar, you’ll get a list of metrics—spend, impressions, engagement, etc, for each individual handle or keyword as well as the average results across the campaign.
Sort the metric statistics from highest to lowest, and eliminate the handles or keywords performing far below the average, this way, your targeting will be more defined to the handles or keywords that have already proven to be more successful. Similarly, if there is a certain type of handle or keyword that is performing particularly well then you can also brainstorm additional related ones to add to the list.
LinkedIn
Two types of ads you can use
Two types of ads you can use
- Ad – A picture and not much text, placed on the side of the screen.
- Sponsored update – Shows up on users feeds
Important things to remember when creating you ad image and copy
Keep in mind that the image might be too small to include much text meaning the text may be hard to read. Therefore, the creative focus should be on the copy.
Remember to include some kind of call-to-action language in the copy to compel the reader to click on your link.
Keep in mind that the image might be too small to include much text meaning the text may be hard to read. Therefore, the creative focus should be on the copy.
Remember to include some kind of call-to-action language in the copy to compel the reader to click on your link.
Targeting your audience
This is the area where LinkedIn is quite useful in. There are lot of filters for you to narrow your audience down including location and job title for example. So have fun playing about with the section.
Setting your budget
Set your daily maximum budget so you can control how much is spent in the critical first few days of the ad. Then, you can adjust the budget in later days based on how well it performs.
Analyzing
If your ad isn’t succeeding in meeting your goal and/or is too expensive in the first few days, then don’t be afraid to edit/ stop it.
Google ads
Choosing your Keywords
Play around with the Google Adword Keyword Planner to find relative keywords that are performing well in the Google search engine.
Setting your bidding amount and gaining a good quality score
Play around with the Google Adword Keyword Planner to find relative keywords that are performing well in the Google search engine.
Setting your bidding amount and gaining a good quality score
The common mistake that people make with Google Adwords is to assume that the higher your bid the more visible your ad will be in the Google listing, which is actually only partially true. Generally we can say that it is not essential that your bid is on the higher end of the scale but rather you should be focusing more on your ad being well written, and that the keywords you selected match up well with your ad and your landing page. This improves the ‘quality’ of your ad, which is what Google search engines like.
Keyword matches
There are 3 types of matches to be aware of -
Keyword matches
There are 3 types of matches to be aware of -
- [Exact match] - Your ad will only display if the search term includes that exact keyword, with the words in that exact order.
- “Phrase match” - Your ad will display if the search term contains the same order of the words, but it can also contain additional words.
- Broad match – Your ad will display when the search term contains any or some combination of the words in your keyword, in any order.
Setting your budget
Set a low daily budget when you get started, then slowly begin measuring the success and lead quality while trying to optimize your campaign before you really invest a lot of money in it.
Analyzing
There are 4 basic metric to be aware of –
- Click Through Rate
- Conversion rate
- Cost per click
- Cost per acquisition
No comments:
Post a Comment