3 Things to Address Before You Spend a Dime on PPC Management

So you own your own business. Congratulations!

Maybe you’re an online shoe retailer or a brick-and-mortar clothing store with a website. You could be a Fortune 500 company or a youth marketing agency looking to increase traffic to your site with the hopes of boosting sales and expanding your clientele. In any case, by now you’ve probably realized the importance of marketing, but you may not be sure how to do it, or be able to tell if your current efforts are producing any real results. You may have heard about something very sexy and alluring called pay-per-click advertising but you’re not quite sure if you’re ready. While PPC can deliver very compelling results (i.e. sales), it can cost a lot of money an advertiser is ill-prepared. While hiring a professional PPC management firm can help mitigate risks, you should address the following 3 things before you make the call.

1 – Do you know what you want to sell?

Don’t laugh. This first question may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many businesses start advertising without a definitive sales strategy. Many think they can go broad with their PPC campaign and they will capture ‘everyone’ but this strategy rarely works. The key to PPC is to be specific and match the user-query. For example, if you are a sporting goods store that carries a variety of goods. Bidding on the keyword ‘sporting goods’ and serving up an ad that says ‘All Sports Equipment’ is fine but you aren’t likely to get great results. This is because a user searching for ‘sporting goods’ may not necessarily be ready to buy. Likewise, serving up an ad with ‘All Sports Equipment’ as the headline won’t do much to separate you from the pack.

When it comes to PPC, specific is better. Bid on specific terms like ‘Jansport backpack’ and use the keyword in your ad-text headline. This will reinforce to the user that you have what they are looking for and also help you target users who are more likely ready to buy than those searching for more general terms. Working with a PPC management firm will also help you identify keywords that convert.

2 – Do you have a strong call to action?

This is a big one. A strong call to action, also known as a ‘CTA,’ helps motivate a user to take action and should be tied into your sales strategy. If a user wants a Jansport backpack for example, ‘Buy your backpack here’ may seem like a good CTA to use in your ad and on your landing page, but you can make it much better by offering up a discount. ‘Get 25% off a Jansport backpack now’ is a compelling CTA and more likely to motivate the sale. Since you can’t advertise discounts you aren’t offering, figure out your CTA’s when you figure out what you want to sell (see #1 above) and make your CTA’s relevant to your overall sales and PPC campaign building strategies.

3 – Do you have a custom landing page designed for each promotion?

The theme again is being specific. If you are bidding on terms like ‘Jansport backpack’ and advertising a ‘25% off discount on Jansport backpacks’ in your ad text, don’t send a user to your website’s homepage and make them hunt for what they want – make sure your landing page reflects the user query and ad copy that came before it. While making unique landing pages for every keyword and ad pair isn’t necessary, start out by identifying your best-sellers and design custom landing pages for each.