To PPC or not to PPC?!

[Stas Lawicki]

Hi all. A regular topic and something I have experience with, but recently I've found PPC is hopeless. In fact, beyond hopeless. A few years ago it was easy to track visits by checking clicks vs site analytics and I had great success with it. I've seen the new Google dashboard and went at it the same way but lots of cash later, nothing. Not a sausage. Anaylitics don't match and Google support is hopeless.

I'm keen on applying a short PPC campaign to a new business (along with a whole load of other outputs) but wonder if it's a waste of time and money.

Any seo wizards here able to offer some opinion/insight? (of course there are!)

 

[Ian J]

Hi all. A regular topic and something I have experience with, but recently I've found PPC is hopeless. In fact, beyond hopeless.

Nothing new there then. I tried it out 18 months ago specifying that my ad only appear to UK IP addresses yet almost all of the clicks came from Bangladesh and Pakistan so I was just chucking money down the drain

 

[Limited100]

The thing about PPC is keep it relevant. Be highly specific to minimise wastage and monitor your search terms and over time add negative keywords. You will end up with your ads showing only to your ideal target audience.

If you're interested in some consultancy I do this freelance and work in SEO and PPC full time so happy to help if you send me a DM.

 

[dotcomdude]

I'm keen on applying a short PPC campaign to a new business (along with a whole load of other outputs) but wonder if it's a waste of time and money.

Google PPC - and in particular Google Shopping - can be fantastic if/when you get your campaigns working properly.

Personally I always start with exact match keywords in a closely defined geographical area.

 

[Andy Harris]

PPC works when you take this approach:

1. Create a very niche group of keywords in one campaign/ad group (focusing all your budget there).

2. Ensure the targeting is perfect (e.g. location, times of day, what the advert says - often to discourage some irrelevant clicks).

3. Be brutally honest about whether your website can convert clicks to enquiries (this is where most fall down).

4. Closely monitor what happens to every individual click page by page (yes, you can do that - see our guide: https://www.a1webstats.com/what-it-...-ads-tracking-setup-deeper-accuracy-analysis/).

Most importantly, don't spend more than a tight budget, unless you have analysed everything in depth. No more than £200.

Historically I did a lot of PPC/website success consultancy but don't have the time anymore, but if you need any further freebie help, just reach out Stas.

 

[Stas Lawicki]

Thank you all. I shall have a ponder on this. I think general consensus is keep it tight and focused it might well work again. I too have had tens of clicks from Pakistan on ads which hasn't been a target area - in fact, nowhere outside of the South East of England was!

No opposed to paying for some direction but I'll consult my bus. Partner on that bit...

Thanks again.

 

[Alex Calinov]

The mistake a lot of people make when it comes to PPC, is that they create one campaign and they let that running until they run out of budget.

Marketing = Split-testing.

You need to test different keywords, different ads, etc... Google is an auction, not a set and forget, so you need to be active in managing the campaign/s.

1. Focus on the keywords that are more likely to convert. You can tell by what people are searching whether they are just doing some research, or actually looking to buy something.
2. Have different Ads for different keywords, basically make good use of the ads sets/groups. That's your opportunity to speak specifically about what the person is looking for.
3. Send people to relevant pages based on what they are looking for. Don't just send them to the homepage. Even better you can use landing pages for each one of your product or service.
4. Make good use of the different keywords types. This is where a lot of people waste money as they just use broad keywords. To start with I would avoid broad match. Focus on Exact, Phrase, and broad match modifier.
5. Do your keywords research and fill in that negative keyword list. Because if you waste money on showing ads to people who are looking for jobs, CVs, courses, etc... Google won't have enough money to spend on what's actually relevant.
6. Once you start your ads, keep an eye on the search terms, in case there might be other keywords people have search for that you can add to your negative keyword list.
7. Above everything else. Install your Google Ads, conversions, phone tracking. I can't tell you how many times I had clients who came to me from previous bigger agencies who would pretend to be doing google ads, but they missed the most important step, and that is tracking your conversions. I don't mean tracking your clicks, but your actual enquiries, leads, sales, etc...
   
   Google also relies on these actions/conversions to show ads in front of the right people. Because if your budget is £10 per day let's say, an average click is £1, that would give you 10 clicks right? But what if in a day there are 300 people searching for those specific keywords? How will Google decide who to show ads to? So that's why you need to make sure you track everything.
   

I hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I think if it is not your game it is better to get a good company to manage both the SEO and the PPC . This stuff changes so much that you need people that know what they are on about .
I use Pixus in Liverpool and have done for the last 15 years .
If you DIY it you might spend less money but you may only end up with 30 per cent of the sales that you would of had if you used a professional company . ! So it is a completely false economy .
@Stas Lawicki Your a business consulting company not a SEO/PPC geek squad You don't need to be messing around with this stuff . Look at the worry it is causing you

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Your a business consulting company not a SEO/PPC geek squad You don't need to be messing around with this stuff . Look at the worry it is causing you

I would echo this although you've also got some good advice from others. Running pay per click campaigns is complex and time consuming. If you're only spending a few hundred then, by all means, have a go yourself but when you are getting into 4 figures it's best to hand over to someone who knows it all inside out.

 

[Stas Lawicki]

I think if it is not your game it is better to get a good company to manage both the SEO and the PPC . This stuff changes so much that you need people that know what they are on about .
I use Pixus in Liverpool and have done for the last 15 years .
If you DIY it you might spend less money but you may only end up with 30 per cent of the sales that you would of had if you used a professional company . ! So it is a completely false economy .
@Stas Lawicki Your a business consulting company not a SEO/PPC geek squad You don't need to be messing around with this stuff . Look at the worry it is causing you

Yes, indeed! I'm all for right people right jobs. It's too much on top of the childcare circus at home even if I was a whiz! I am however becoming expert on Mr Tumble and Charlie & Lola... If only I could monetise this new found knowledge...!

It's also a new co www.powerworksevc.com we've got pretty much everything to get us started but would like a bit of a boost when the site is finished.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Yes, indeed! I'm all for right people right jobs. It's too much on top of the childcare circus at home even if I was a whiz! I am however becoming expert on Mr Tumble and Charlie & Lola... If only I could monetise this new found knowledge...!

It's also a new co www.powerworksevc.com we've got pretty much everything to get us started but would like a bit of a boost when the site is finished.

Now if you watch Ben and Holly and find the episode with the fairy mayor that is interesting
Hope this helps !

Oh and Mr Tumbles dad reminds me of the usual suspects on here

 

[Stas Lawicki]

Now if you watch Ben and Holly and find the episode with the fairy mayor that is interesting
Hope this helps !

Oh and Mr Tumbles dad reminds me of the usual suspects on here

I think Tommy the baking assistant (gigglebiz) is like a few on here... I'm a Keith Fit kinda guy

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

Honestly, PPC is really expensive way to get traffic. You can make all things in the right way to get nothing. Our agency provides PPC services, so I know what I'm talking about. There is no rules because any platform use "data" and "methods" to show your ad copy.
I think it is better to pay a marketer who be able to create marketing plan and to calculate a budget. Choosing right channels to promote a company is really difficult task.

 

[Ian J]

Honestly, PPC is really expensive way to get traffic. You can make all things in the right way to get nothing.

Thanks for that as I think that you've just saved me a lot of money as I was about to dip my toes in the water again

 

[Ian J]

Honestly, PPC is really expensive way to get traffic. You can make all things in the right way to get nothing. Our agency provides PPC services, so I know what I'm talking about. There is no rules because any platform use "data" and "methods" to show your ad copy.

Any comment from @zigojacko as I would appreciate your input

 

[Paul Carmen]

There's been lots of good advice on here, but in our experience almost all existing non-professionally setup PPC search campaigns are started the wrong way around; e.g. via the "have a go and see what happens type mentality". This leads to three outcomes normally, listed in order of likelihood: -

1. Google search PPC seems rubbish and doesn't work, so is stopped after spending hundreds or even thousands of pounds
2. it does OK, but isn't highly lucrative, so gets largely ignored as it generates some leads
3. it does well, so more money is thrown at it and it's expanded, but profitability goes down as more is spent

None of these are great outcomes. The 1st may be what would happen, even if PPC is setup professionally, but is unlikely to be the outcome if research had been carried out properly up front. The 2nd usually means it should be really successful and that with optimisation could be generating a lot more leads/sales. The 3rd seems like a good outcome, but generally a lot of money is wasted, and the efficiency and ROI can be much higher…

Like all marketing, a Google PPC campaign should be planned and approached with a successful outcome in in mind. You should have an idea of: -

• how many leads/sales you want/need per month
• what your key USP is for your service/product
• plus at least an idea of budget and cost per conversion you’re looking for

A campaign can be planned and researched largely in advance, as there is so much data available from Google about keywords and cost per click (CPC). A decent qualified PPC specialist knows that longer tail keywords and buying intent are what drives results, short tail or broad match keywords will potentially get loads of traffic, but not necessarily conversions. At this stage, for some clients, the average order value or profit margin, may be too low for a sensible campaign if the CPC is too high, so you should be able to understand whether PPC can work long before any PPC takes place.

The other key detail is that building it is just the start. A campaign needs lots of work, especially initially; e.g. A/B testing of adverts/copy and the website needs to be fully optimised to convert well. This usually involves proper lead funnel processes or highly conversion optimised pages (again using insights from website A/B testing). For large scale campaigns tens or hundreds of landing pages may be needed for keyword/search term relevance.

One thing that should always be in place is proper conversion tracking, it should not be difficult to get this working on a website, it’s just a question of identifying what a lead is and what page is the right place for the conversion tag. This can be more difficult if phone calls play a large part in the lead process, but there are great 3rd party tools to track all these for £20-25 a month. There may always be a slight difference between Google Ads and Analytics, as their attribution and time models are different as standard, but they can be altered to measure in the same way and should be accurate to +/- 5%.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Nothing new there then. I tried it out 18 months ago specifying that my ad only appear to UK IP addresses yet almost all of the clicks came from Bangladesh and Pakistan so I was just chucking money down the drain

There are so many controls and options, that's why many people struggle to do it this well. Did you setup UK only geographic targeting and still get a lot of clicks from Bangladesh and Pakistan? If so, there are click fraud analysis tools to stop this, which looking at the CPC for your industry keywords would be wise anyway!

 

[Ian J]

Did you setup UK only geographic targeting and still get a lot of clicks from Bangladesh and Pakistan?

Yes. After a couple of days I gave it up as a bad job. The campaign wasn't set up professionally but by a friend

 

[Alex Calinov]

Yes. After a couple of days I gave it up as a bad job. The campaign wasn't set up professionally but by a friend

Perhaps that was the problem. You can't really judge whether google ads is good or bad, if it wasn't setup properly.

There are 2 options in the Locations settings, which look very similar but can make a difference:
- People searching in the target area or something like this. And this is actually selected by default
- OR people who are actually in the targeted area.

So if you're trying to target people in London, and someone from India is searching "web design London" you ads will show to them, because they are interested in your targeted location.

That's why I always recommend changing the location setting to the 2nd option.

Small things like this can make a huge difference.

 

[UKSBD]

A lot of time the problem isn't the PPC, it's the page the person lands on after clicking.

 

[Paul Carmen]

A lot of time the problem isn't the PPC, it's the page the person lands on after clicking.

This... most lead generation website landing pages convert leads at 2-4% using basic forms or phone numbers (many sites just use their homepage!), which means you need to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince!

Properly optimised lead landing pages convert at 10%-15%+ in virtually all industries. In some industries we've achieved 40%-50% conversion rates, which along with properly built/managed customer focused campaigns, makes several hundred percent difference to the ROI.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

Most Google PPC campaigns are lucky to break even first go. Then stop see what keywords have converted and dump the keywords that have not worked, retry.

Personally, I think Bing is great for testing very cheaply and then what works at Bing copy over to the more expensive Google campaign.

I remember a few years back Google hid the "exact match" option so people were forced to select broad and phrase matches which Google made a fortune from, but the advertisers did not.

Pay a PPC expert say £50 to check over your campaign after you have set it up to ensure you have not made costly mistakes (its a full time job at the start and for a few weeks, and likey to drive you insane).

 

[Stas Lawicki]

Some good tips, thanks guys.

 

[fisicx]

@Stas Lawicki - the problem isn't PPC, it's the site.

1. It's Wix
2. It's not set up for PPC
3. It's Wix
4. It's not a lead generator.
5. It's Wix

The right keywords with the right adverts with the right landing page can be very lucrative. I've had up to 60% conversions on a highly targeted advert campaign.

 

[Stas Lawicki]

@Stas Lawicki - the problem isn't PPC, it's the site.

1. It's Wix
2. It's not set up for PPC
3. It's Wix
4. It's not a lead generator.
5. It's Wix

The right keywords with the right adverts with the right landing page can be very lucrative. I've had up to 60% conversions on a highly targeted advert campaign.

My wix site a couple years ago was excellent. As was the subsequent two that followed! PPC worked well on the old Google ad words. I'll get a proper site built next year, but for now, it'll have to do. As I said, it's one of range of actions . So far any work has been word of mouth or direct contact so I'm not expecting a great deal off the website. I only launched it a week ago so Mr Google is yet to take notice...

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Your negative keyword list should be the main one you constantly add to. its as important or even more important than your Keyword list, the negative list saves you money

If you study your results every day for a few weeks and build up the negative list you soon cut the waste and then can relax a bit to weekly or monthly

Use googles help in a good selection of Keywords

 

[Stas Lawicki]

@Stas Lawicki - the problem isn't PPC, it's the site.

1. It's Wix
2. It's not set up for PPC
3. It's Wix
4. It's not a lead generator.
5. It's Wix

The right keywords with the right adverts with the right landing page can be very lucrative. I've had up to 60% conversions on a highly targeted advert campaign.

P. S. Feel free to ping me a quote and some references for a WP site.... I fully intend on going down that route for the finished site...

 

[fisicx]

OK. But most of the problems with PPC is the landing page not the advert.

You have to build landing pages for PPC. These will be structured differently to a 'normal' page.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

Use ispionage to spy on your top competitors adverts on Google see how much they have spent, how long they have run the advert, see their landing page copy and benefits, call to actions, usp ..

 

[fisicx]

At best this will give you an estimate. At worst it will be wildly wrong.

A well run PPC campaign will be constantly adjusting keywords, advert and landing page. So using this tool could be very misleading.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

fisicx "A well run PPC campaign will be constantly adjusting keywords, advert and landing page."

Yes we agree.

"So using this tool could be very misleading." Use it first step then constantly adjust keywords, advert and landing page. ispionage is a tool first step on your journey to find out how long your competitors have used the advert and how much spent, the more they spent then chances are their keywords, landing page, advert making them good money

 

[fisicx]

ispionage will not know how much they spent.

 

[Alan]

P. S. Feel free to ping me a quote and some references for a WP site.... I fully intend on going down that route for the finished site...

As @fisicx says - for PPC specific landing pages are essential and need to be constantly tweaked. Whilst a WP site may be a good foundation for business site, especially for SEO, you may find that specific landing page tools like Unbounce or Landingii would suit as it give you more ability to quickly tweak / test -and at the same time these tools can be integrated to a WP site.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

@fisicx ispionage give following keyword cpc and other info

example Bark.com
Ad:


Find Freelancing Jobs | Let Us Do The Legwork For You
bark dot com
Grow Your Business With Bark Today. Let Us Find Clients For You Now In Birmingham

AEI (Ads effectiveness index) 94.3

54 keywordstriggered the advert

keyword av vol cpc
freelance sites 390 $8.8
best freelance jobs 320 $1.51
freelance programming jobs 260 $3.03
freelance it jobs 210 $3.64 ..

average rank 3.3

days that advert seen 290 (longer the advert seen generally means its making bark money)

note: Bark have poor reputation on this forum

 

[fisicx]

The CPS is an estimate. It can only ever be an estimate.

Try is yourself. Set up a campaign, spend some cash and see how their report matches the real thing.

 

[Nick Walsh Studios]

yes estimate agreed

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

There are many tips and several of them are useful. Just one question, how does Google Ads identify location?
Seems, this information can help us https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453995?hl=en&ref_topic=3119074 But it can't in fact. So, it is possible to get traffic from Bangladesh and Pakistan. I faced the case when the client got traffic from physical location Iran (as we all know it impossible because Iran is banned by Google Ads). But it is possible because...

Why I wrote that PPC is expensive way to attract customers?
If we open Google Ads support or to create Ads account, we will see that it's easy to use.
But...
But professional agencies use special strategies which help "manipulate" bids, keywords matching options, etc. How much strategies do you know? How much strategies did you use successfuly?Also, you need to understand your audiency, to parse competitors' data etc. To get this experience I spent my money, $50-700 for each campaign.
As you can see it can't be cheap. So, you need to pay for keywords and moreover for many additional services. Without additional services my clients from Ukraine paid $5,000-6,000 per month for clicks. Does it expensive? No, it doesn't. There are local family businesses.
Also you need to improve landing pages, to set up analytics.
You need time and budget to learn your "model" and only then you will get relevant traffic.

So, that is why you need to hire a professional marketer who be abble to create a marketing plan. PPC isn't easy or cheap.

P.S. I absolutely love Google Ads and I have been using it for years. I'm very impressed by Google Shopping. But these tools not for all cases.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

@fisicx ispionage give following keyword cpc and other info

example Bark.com
Ad:


Find Freelancing Jobs | Let Us Do The Legwork For You
bark dot com
Grow Your Business With Bark Today. Let Us Find Clients For You Now In Birmingham

AEI (Ads effectiveness index) 94.3

54 keywordstriggered the advert

keyword av vol cpc
freelance sites 390 $8.8
best freelance jobs 320 $1.51
freelance programming jobs 260 $3.03
freelance it jobs 210 $3.64 ..

average rank 3.3

days that advert seen 290 (longer the advert seen generally means its making bark money)

note: Bark have poor reputation on this forum

I prefer SpyFu for PPC competitors research (US/UK). Also it is possible to use parsers (Serpstat) or to find on GitHub or to write it yourself.

 

[Talay]

I bought a business where one sales channel was online and using Google Ads to generate traffic to a pretty poorly designed website.

The PPC campaign was home grown and I was forced to try and maintain it as Google kept changing the goalposts and in the end, we were burning 200% of the original budget and rising.

There is a build to replace the website ongoing but it took a while to come to realise that PPC isn't simply a case of setting it up and then sitting back and waiting for Google to drain your budget.

You need to mentally consider management of your PC as another business cost and to separate it from your PPC spending in terms of thinking.

It isn't easy and it costs significantly but you get the job done and you can concentrate on your main job, not on trying to learn PPC from scratch.

I reached out to a guy on here, Paul Carmen and his company insiteweb.co.uk and his team manage the PPC and the new websites build.

 

[bode]

I think if it is not your game it is better to get a good company to manage both the SEO and the PPC . This stuff changes so much that you need people that know what they are on about .
I use Pixus in Liverpool and have done for the last 15 years .
If you DIY it you might spend less money but you may only end up with 30 per cent of the sales that you would of had if you used a professional company . ! So it is a completely false economy .

I have always been suspicious of marketing companies in the past, who perhaps create false inquiries (usually around direct debit renewal time) to give an impression that they are doing a good job. Competitors are also keen to click on your ads.

My cynical nature aside, what kind of ballpark budget per month works for you?