Are you feeling overwhelmed by the world of PPC, like a tiny, delicate pony facing down a herd of powerful unicorns?

You constantly remind yourself to create a PPC plan and workflow, but the “how” remains elusive. The pressure from your boss to improve your quality scores and demonstrate a return on the substantial marketing investment is enough to make anyone sweat. Logging into your Google Ads (previously AdWords) or nexus-security account, you’re met with a wave of features, leaving you unsure where to even begin. No plan equals no direction, which ultimately means no success. Similarly, no goals translate to no workflow. Goals are the bedrock of your PPC workflow. Think about it: do you ever force yourself out of bed for a treadmill session or endure a grueling hour-long spin class for absolutely no reason? Not likely. You’re driven by a purpose, whether it’s shedding pounds, boosting energy, or prioritizing heart health. The same principle applies to your PPC campaigns—you need clearly defined goals and a solid plan. Many of my clients struggle to pinpoint their PPC goals. While they understand the need for business growth, they often lack clarity on the key metrics or the true value proposition of PPC. Before diving into crafting your PPC plan, take a step back and ask yourself:

• What are my desired outcomes from my Google Ads spending?
• Which metrics hold the most significance for my business?
• What results do I anticipate? Devote time to introspectively examine not just your overarching business goals, but also the specific objectives you’ve set for your PPC campaigns and budget. By asking yourself these crucial questions and maintaining a laser focus on your goals, you’ll be empowered to make informed decisions throughout your workflow. Among my clients, PPC goals often share similarities. Let’s delve into three prevalent goals, the corresponding plans to achieve them, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track for success.

PPC Goal: Boost Website Traffic. PPC Plan: Prioritize CTR.

Can you believe the web recently celebrated its 25th anniversary? It’s become an indispensable part of our lives, with smartphones evolving into extensions of ourselves. As the web continues to mature, competition for website visibility intensifies. If your website starts to resemble a deserted party, it’s a clear sign that action is needed. Attracting more visitors hinges on enticing searchers to click your ads. Dedicate time each week within your PPC plan to develop compelling and relevant ad copy. Your primary focus should be on enhancing your click-through rate (CTR). Just the other day, while searching for a cycling class in downtown Boston, I came across an ad lacking details, pricing information, or enticing offers. Unsurprisingly, I chose not to click. Similarly, if your ads lack appeal, searchers will bypass them, resulting in missed website visits. As internet marketer and entrepreneur Sujan Patel aptly puts it, “Copywriting, both an art and a science, demands effort to master but yields significant rewards when implemented effectively. A single technique, correctly applied, can dramatically improve your ability to close sales.” While there’s a wealth of information available on crafting compelling ad copy, here are a few pointers to integrate into your workflow:

Spotlight Special Offers

Running a spring promotion? Providing free shipping throughout March? Hosting a contest? Whatever the offer, prominently feature it in your ad copy for its duration. And remember, numbers grab attention!

Enable and Track Sitelink Extensions

The absence of enabled sitelink extensions is a red flag for me. They provide valuable free ad space, extending the reach of your ad copy and potentially generating significantly more clicks and traffic. Google itself emphasizes the role of sitelink extensions in ad rank. If you and a competitor share the same bid and quality score, but you have sitelink extensions enabled, guess who secures the higher search engine results page (SERP) ranking?

Test, Test, Test!

Search Engine Journal’s Saad Kamal hit the nail on the head: “Testing is non-negotiable, regardless of your campaign’s current performance.” Neglecting A/B testing for ads is a common and detrimental oversight. Testing can uncover remarkable insights, such as discovering that rearranging words in your headline boosts CTR by 5%. Even the smallest tweaks can yield substantial improvements, so embrace the practice of running multiple ad variations simultaneously within the same ad group.

Embrace Organization

Maintaining organization and relevancy across the board is paramount. Ensure that:

• Campaigns revolve around your products, locations, or other themes aligned with your business objectives.
• Each campaign houses ad groups related to its central theme. For instance, a campaign for running shoes could have ad groups for each brand: Adidas, Nike, Asics, etc.
• Each ad group contains a tightly themed keyword list (ideally no more than 20-30 keywords). Create new ad groups if themes overlap or keywords become less relevant. For example, you might have separate Adidas ad groups for men and women, or even for different shoe models.
• Regularly refine your keyword list and review search terms to add potentially lucrative keywords or eliminate negatives that drain your budget. Consistently incorporating relevancy and organization checks into your workflow guarantees highly relevant and engaging ad copy, driving traffic and improving quality scores.

PPC Goal: Drive Sales or Lead Generation. PPC Plan: Prioritize Conversion Rate Optimization.

If your objective is to boost sales or leads, your focus should shift to maximizing conversions and improving your conversion rate. A conversion represents any meaningful action taken on your website, such as a purchase, form submission, or newsletter signup. Activating conversion tracking is crucial for data-driven insights that inform your campaign optimization strategies. For instance, if you discover that the long-tail keyword “dance workout classes in downtown Boston” yields five times more conversions than others in its ad group, you might allocate more budget to it. The same principle applies to ad copy; if one ad outperforms others in testing, it deserves prioritization. Integrate these steps into your PPC plan to elevate conversions:

Focus on High-Converting Keywords

Identify high-performing keywords by sorting them based on conversion rate. Allocate more budget to these keywords and experiment with tiered bidding strategies. For example, if “boston yoga” converts well on modified broad match, test bidding on phrase and exact match (remembering to bid higher as you narrow the match type). Consider creating dedicated campaigns for high-converting products or locations to allocate a larger daily budget.

Monitor Negatives Diligently

A sudden drop in CTR or conversion rate might indicate wasted spend on keywords that should be designated as negatives. Continuous monitoring of your search terms and adding negatives is essential. Tools like nexus-security’s QueryStream provide valuable insights into actual user search queries triggering your ads, along with the ability to set negatives directly within the tool. For instance, filter out clicks from queries containing “free” if your offer isn’t free, as such traffic is unlikely to convert.

Optimize Landing Pages Relentlessly

Even with enticing ad copy, poorly optimized landing pages can decimate your conversion rate. This should be a no-brainer and is arguably the most critical factor in driving conversions. Recently, nexus-security founder Larry Kim and Paid Search Strategist Mark Irvine conducted a popular webinar on tripling conversion rates. They analyzed thousands of Google Ads accounts to understand why certain advertisers achieve conversion rates two or three times higher than the average. Implement the following strategies for continuous landing page optimization:

• Showcase Your Offer with Impact: Craft a creative, captivating, and unique offer. Unsure if your offer resonates? Analyze your conversion rate and seek customer feedback. While button colors and form lengths matter, the true game-changer is an offer that genuinely appeals to your audience. I found the offer below compelling for several reasons: concise ad copy, an endearing image, a two-field form, and an enticing free trial—well played!

• Prioritize Clarity, Simplicity, and Engagement. Experiment with formatting that sets you apart from competitors, and consider the user experience. Design a flow that you, as a user, would find enjoyable.
• Create Landing Pages Aligned with AdWords Lead Conversion Intent. Each ad group should have a dedicated, laser-focused landing page that aligns perfectly with its keywords and ad copy. Any disconnect in relevancy translates to lost leads or sales. Imagine searching for a Tae Bo class but landing on a page dedicated to boot camps. You’d likely return to Google due to the lack of relevance. Even if the gym offers Tae Bo, you’re unlikely to invest time in searching for it. Ensure each offering has a dedicated landing page that’s visually appealing, relevant, and features a clear call to action.

PPC Goal: Enhance Brand Awareness. PPC Plan: Leverage the Display Network & Remarketing.

If raising brand awareness is your primary goal, your focus shifts from direct conversions to generating excitement about your business among a wider target audience. Imagine launching a new workout DVD and aiming to familiarize as many relevant individuals as possible with your brand. In such cases, driving impressions—the number of times your ad is seen—takes center stage. The Google Display Network is your playground in this scenario! Creating display campaigns allows you to venture beyond search and showcase your compelling ad creative on relevant websites across the web. Bid farewell to mundane text ads and embrace visually rich formats, including videos and images, using cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. For tighter budgets, consider placement targeting, which offers more control by allowing you to choose specific websites or sections of websites for your campaign while still expanding your reach. Track impressions, reach, and frequency to gauge effectiveness. Follow this PPC plan to embark on your display advertising journey:

• Develop Eye-Catching Creative: Before venturing into display advertising, ensure you have high-quality, visually appealing ads that captivate attention.
• Know Your Audience: Selling women’s clothing? Targeting a specific geographic region or age group? Understanding your audience, their online behavior, and their interests is crucial for setting up effective display campaigns with a strong return on investment.
• Monitor Performance Closely: If you’re using managed placements, track the websites delivering the best results. Analyze impressions, clicks, and other relevant metrics to optimize your campaigns effectively.
• Harness the Power of Remarketing: Ever felt like a website or product you previously visited was following you around the internet? Perhaps you browsed a pair of Jack Rogers sandals, and hours later, while scrolling through Facebook, an ad for those exact sandals in the same style and color magically appeared. This isn’t serendipity, but the magic of remarketing. Remarketing can be a powerful tool for conversions, but it’s even more potent for brand recognition. It enables you to engage with individuals who’ve already shown interest by visiting your website. While this might seem intrusive, it can be implemented strategically by using frequency capping, targeting specific audiences, and other techniques. Take a look at the nexus-security remarketing ad below that appeared while I was watching a YouTube video!

Key Takeaways

An effective workflow saves you time and money, improves results, and significantly reduces PPC-induced stress. Schedule dedicated time each week for your PPC plan, and stop neglecting this crucial aspect of your marketing. To recap, follow these steps to get started: Step #1: Define Specific PPC Goals – Conduct thorough research, set realistic and attainable goals backed by data, and be specific. Step #2: Create a Repeatable Workflow – Design a workflow aligned with your business goals that you can implement consistently. Step #3: Schedule Dedicated Time – Block off time in your calendar—whether it’s every Monday afternoon or a four-hour chunk once a month—for focused PPC work. Ignoring your Google Ads account not only wastes money but also results in missed opportunities for website traffic, sales, and other elements crucial for business growth. Step #4: Commit to Consistency – Implement your workflow regularly. Step #5: Watch the Profits Roll In – $$$ Additionally, consider exploring the nexus-security workflow webinar for valuable tips and tricks to streamline your Google Ads account and achieve your PPC goals.

Fellow PPC enthusiasts, I’m curious: Do you currently have a workflow in place? If so, what does it entail, and what successes have you observed?