Digital marketing agency is often tasked with reducing the cost per click in any campaign they run. While this can seem like an impossible task, understanding how each factor in a PPC campaign affects the CPC can give them the insight they need to control costs and bring down costs across the board. Here are five tips every digital marketing agency should be aware of when optimizing CPCs in their campaigns.
1) Efficient ad text
What’s ad text? Simply put, it’s everything on a Google AdWords or Bing Ads advertisement that isn’t an image. That includes headlines, descriptions, and call-to-action buttons. When writing your ad copy, keep these three rules in mind: Be relevant, be targeted and be brief. With relevance, think about what keyword you want to target; with targeting, think about who you want to see your ad; and with brevity, aim for 25 words or less.
The shorter your ad is, the more likely it is to show up higher in search results—and therefore at a lower cost per click. It also might get more clicks, as people are more likely to read short ads than long ones. So, if you have room to be creative with your ad title (which usually has 55 characters), try using some of those extra characters to make your headline punchy. If not, there’s no need to go over 25 words. And if you do go over 25 words, remember that each word after 25 will typically reduce your average position by one spot.
2) Ad extensions
Ad extensions are a great way to reduce your average CPCs, but you’ll need to use them strategically. If you don’t have a lot of experience with ad extensions, start by enabling all of them on one or two campaigns. Work with Google AdWords specialists to determine which extensions to use and when. Then add more and more as you gain confidence. Here are some examples:
Callout extensions:
These allow you to provide more information about your business and its services directly within an ad, including phone numbers and address information.
Location extensions:
These allow users searching within a specific geographic area to see your ads if they’re looking for businesses nearby.
Sitelink extensions:
These give advertisers more opportunities to connect with their customers through additional links that appear below an ad headline.
App promotion extensions:
These allow advertisers to promote their mobile apps in search results. Advertisers can also choose how much they want to spend on each app promotion extension (CPC, CPM, etc.).
Shopping feed extensions:
These let you include product images and prices from your online store within your ad text. This is particularly useful for e-commerce merchants who want to increase sales from existing customers or drive new traffic from search results.
3) Call-only ads
A call-only ad is an ad that only shows up on mobile devices, and will not show up on a desktop computer. This can save you big bucks on your digital marketing campaigns. Call-only ads are great because they allow your potential customers to reach you right away. Without having to type anything, your customers can call directly from their phones and ask questions or schedule an appointment immediately.
You’ll be able to capture these leads and convert them into paying customers much faster than if you had used other digital marketing strategies. With Facebook and Google continuing to lower their costs, it makes sense to use call-only ads as part of your digital marketing strategy. If you don’t have a digital marketing agency already working with you? Find one.
4) Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA)
Remarketing (or retargeting) lists are a great way to connect with users who have already visited your site. To establish an RLSA, first create a remarketing list in your ad tool—let’s use Google Ads as an example. Then you can create a new Search Network with Display Select, and select your RLSA as your audience. Then whenever someone visits your site, they will be retargeted to your display ads throughout their Google browsing experience.
This is one of my favorite strategies because it allows me to build a relationship with potential customers over time by reminding them of my brand through search ads. I like using it in conjunction with dynamic search ads so that I can bid on keywords that are more relevant to my business and then show them more targeted messaging on those searches.
5) Bidding options
There are several different bidding options when it comes to PPC campaigns. The first, and most basic, is automatic or dynamic bidding. In dynamic bidding, AdWords automatically adjusts your bids based on two factors: how much competition there is for a given keyword and how likely you are to win a spot based on that competition.
You can also bid manually. If you choose manual bidding, you enter specific prices for each keyword (or group of keywords) so that Google knows exactly what to charge whenever someone clicks on an ad. This allows you to set higher bids for more competitive keywords and lower bids for less competitive ones—which means higher profits! As with everything else in digital marketing, there’s no one right way to set up a PPC campaign; which option is best depends entirely on your business goals and budget.
If you want to keep costs low, automatic bidding will work well for you. But if you have limited time and resources but still want to run a successful campaign, manual bidding might be a better fit.
Although they both require some amount of strategy and forethought, digital marketing agencies use both automated and manual methods when creating campaigns. The best choice depends on your goals, budget, and time constraints.
I’m sure you’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of people: those who like to plan out every detail before they start a project (and those who don’t). If you fall into the former category—and if you’re running a PPC campaign—you might want to consider using a digital marketing agency to help set up your account.
Conclusion
If you are an online marketer, no doubt that you will have to deal with ads eventually. While it’s tempting to simply stop paying attention to your ad campaigns and just leave them to their own devices, there are certain things you can do to reduce your costs significantly. By following these simple steps and making some slight changes to your approach, you could find yourself saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month on Google AdWords! Try it out!