Optimization and testing of PPC campaigns

Optimization and testing of PPC campaigns 

By registering in the PPC system («Pay per click»), you have made the first step on the way to increase the volume of your site traffic. To achieve truly impressive results you have to test and optimize the mechanism of attracting potential customers regularly.



Campaign Performance / Management metric tree


Just note that a deep understanding of campaign metrics, their interdependence and the ability to positively influence the end result is imperative.


In the process of analyzing campaign performance usually it becomes clear which of the metrics needs to be improved. The measures, taken to improve these or other indicators, is the basis for competent management.


Target CPA of the campaign («Cost Per Action») is a measure of the effectiveness of the many metrics. However, you must realize that you can not directly affect on all metrics by managing an advertising campaign. Though the following 4 indicators are still be completely up to you:


• Ad displays

• The average cost per click

• Clickable or not

• Conversion


You can increase productivity of these metrics by working in various ways on them.



How to influence the number of displays


There are lots of ways to influence this factor. We advise to focus on the following ones:



Adding negative keywords


By adding a number of negative keywords, we will only increase the number of displays for our advertising campaign. At the same time, these negative keywords reduce the likelihood that the ad will be shown to outsiders keywords, thereby increasing the quality of site traffic. The displays therefore will be more productive if they are able to distinguish a high level of relevance to user needs.



Increasing / decreasing the average cost per click



The number of displays that receives a key word or the whole campaign depends on which page of the search results your ad is displayed. The best result for any -  without exception - keywords will ensure of course, the first page. So by increasing or decreasing cost-per-click, you will be able to directly influence the position and even the placement of your ad.


Using keywords that have become inactive in the understanding of the search engine, you will once again make them active by raising the maximum rate of the price of clicks. As a result, new displays are guaranteed.



Adding networks


In most cases, the advertising campaign is reviewed for its effectiveness in the international  search networks: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex and Baidu. After your campaign proves that it is effective enough to achieve the desired CPA, you need to pay attention to other areas. In particular, on the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. And also you have to create customized campaigns designed to untwist the resource by means of innovative features in key networks (such as remarketing, adaptation to mobile phones and tablets, etc.).



Work with Display Networks


Placing and removing of advertisements, increasing and decreasing your presence in the Display Network (DN) is also an important point.


One of the quickest and effective ways to increasing the number of impressions is changing the DN settings. Update your search campaign by media networks by displaying PPC ads next to relevant content partner sites will become an auxiliary channel for displays.



Delete poorly performing ads


Google Tools for testing the performance of different ad copies within an ad group, simply can result in the loss of displays if you do not keep track of their work.


Since the text of the announcement is directly linked to the indicators of CTR, «click-through rate»,  quality factor for each individual keyword can be significantly reduced because of the different copies of the same advertising message. As a result, it may happen that one of the ads will have a significantly lower CTR factor that will lead to further downgrade in Google.

Moreover, in some cases, when you use the same domain name as a partner or client, your ad may altogether vanish from the display.


Therefore, it is important to analyze the effectiveness of several advertisements in the ad group and delete the ones that show the inconsistency.



Adding or removing a broad matching


Broad match ensures that your ads will appear for all the keywords requested by the search engines that contain the specified keywords. Regardless of the order of words or the presence of additional words in it. Your ads will also be automatically show for expanded criteria, including queries with plural nouns, relevant variants and synonyms.



Increasing / decreasing of your daily budget


The daily advertising budget may also be used as a tool to influence the number of displays. Networks will predict the level of daily expenses, taking into account the history of displays, average CTR and average CPC. If the predicted costs are higher than your daily budget, the ads will appear not constantly during the day but at specified intervals, allowing you to stay in the frames of planned costs.



Affecting the average cost per click


There are many ways again, but we propose to focus your efforts on these ones.



Adding keywords


This method will expand the network of keywords and will help you to get more displays later. For best results, it’s enough to use the following seven ways of adding relevant words in your ad campaign.


1. Add content to the site, thereby producing new keywords. This may be some new content, new products; archive contents; registered information provided by the client; marketing or media packages and so on.


2. Use keywords with long "tails", subsequently forming a new complex keys.


3. Look through the contents of your site in search of new keywords.


4. Discover new tools of generating keywords, not used in the process of setting up the advertising campaign before.


5. Use Jellyfish Keyword Mining Tool to create a broad match keyword phrases.


6. Use Jellyfish Generic Keyword Tool to make sure that all combinations of key terms were used.


7. Keep in touch with the customer to be aware of new hot topics, as well as new terms and acronyms of events related to your business. This information can then be used for generating the list of keywords.



Decreasing / increasing rates


You should be aware that the maximum price you are willing to pay will affect the rate of the average price per click, but not the price that you will eventually pay. The latter depends entirely on the indicators generally accepted in the industry, the quality of keywords and their history.


As a rule, the rate is directly proportional to the CTR and overall traffic. This, in turn, suggests that the rate increase invariably entail an exponential effect on the cost of the campaign. And the point is not only in increasing the value of each click. After all, due to the rate increase the position of advertising display will be higher, which means that the number of clicks is greater, and thus you will have to spend more money on the ads.



Using existing keywords as the basis for new


It is an indirect way in which you can reduce the average cost-per-click advertising campaign. Moreover, this method is effective only if the majority of the keys in the campaign are broad match.


Using the principle of keywords with long tails (the longer the tail is, the cheaper is traffic), you will be able to reduce the average cost per click. At the same such keywords will attract a lot of traffic.



Adding negative keywords


As mentioned earlier, by adding negative keywords we can reduce the likelihood that the ad will be shown to outsiders keywords. Due to the fact that all the major search networks operate in costs-per-click system, it is CTR indicator is quite important. By removing unwanted impressions, we automatically increase the relevance of the campaign, which subsequently increases the CTR rate and reduces the average cost per click.



Improving the relevance of your landing page and ad text


As well as the CTR, relevance of your landing page and the advertising messages are part of a network of the formula used to calculate the Quality Score of each keyword. The more relevant the content, the higher is the quality evaluation, and hence lower is the average cost per click.



Affecting clicks


We suggest primarily focus on these problems.



Decreasing / increasing rates


As a rule, the rate is directly proportional to the CTR. The more we offer, the better position we can afford. The higher the position is, the higher CTR rate is.



Qualification / disqualification of ads


After your ad is lifted up in the search results, your ad text becomes the last chance to influence the users and motivate them clicking on the ad. Sometimes it is a good idea to make the text of the advertisement captivating and interesting to everyone, in order to attract maximum people to your site. This usually happens when the site is converted very well.


Nevertheless, in some cases, when, for example, the site conducting the advertising campaign, is not converted really good, it makes sense to filter browsers and unconverted traffic. In such circumstances, it is better to make you ad text qualified. Then, despite the lower the CTR, the conversion may be higher.



Dynamic keys in the ads


Sometimes, even the most compelling ad text may be useless. This is because some users focus attention only on the keywords that stand out in the list of search results. Even after reading the text of advertisements, they will choose to view only those options that meet their desired keywords.



Thus, another point of a successful marketing strategy, whose goal is to increase the number of clicks, are keywords in your ad. Dynamic introduction of key entries will give you a hand in it..



Adding negative keywords


Again, the negative keywords will reduce the possibility that your ad will appear in the search results with irrelevant keywords. This means that the ads will be more relevant, and therefore, it the CTR will be higher.



Affecting conversion


Again, we give recommendations and offer to try out a few specific techniques.


Improving landing page relevance


The more relevant the landing page content is in relation to the keyword and the advertisement text, the higher is the possibility that a user will read this content. We offer five best ways to enhance this rate:


1. Personally (without using of any software) explore all articles, products, services, and in each case pick keywords that fit the target pages better.

2. Regroup keywords and change the ad text to reflect the content on the landing page. Make sure that the ad text reflects accurately the content of your landing page. Users will appreciate that your site does match with your advertisement, and that makes a positive impact on conversion.

3. Update the content. While the overall theme may be relevant, the correlated articles with specific information may lose their relevance. As a result, the content of the pages will automatically lose its appeal and utility for users. Regular content updates allow the conversion to keep a good position.

4. Test the alternative landing pages. If a particular landing page is converted not as good as you would have liked (this can even happen if it has entirely relevant content), the reasonable solution is to test the capabilities of the other landing pages or even selected as the destination URL normal start page. This method works by trials and errors and requires careful analysis of performance metrics.

5. Use the search box on your site, check to see whether the resource responds to certain requests by displaying of relevant pages.



Qualification / disqualification of ads


Careful selection of advertising messages will reduce the possibility of attracting nonconvertible traffic.


It is also important to understand that, through your text ads, you can influence the behavior of the user, who clicked the link leading to your website. Managing user expectations, you have a softening effect, covering the strong recommendations for the purchase of goods / services that the visitor sees on your site. With the help of that your active marketing campaign stops seem unexpected and intrusive, because already at the advertising stage you warn guests about your intention to sell his product / service.



Reducing the number of failures


As has been mentioned, it is always important to be sure that you are trying to get the qualified traffic to your site. Indeed, one of the main features of the site, speaking in favor of its effectiveness, it is a good conversion. It steadily and stable growth is a desirable result. In matters of the maximization of the conversion would be logical to refer to the performance site and its mechanics. To have a great success in your well-planned site management, you should use the following methods:


  • Registration on the funnel site. Why would the visitors choose to register? It depends on many factors. In particular, from: demographic factors, attractive offers, the availability of additional suggestions (bonuses), the complexity of the registration process and so on. Results of numerous studies have shown that there is no universal and 100% effective rule that would tell us how to encourage visitors to register. The only real way to reduce the level of failures - a method of trials and errors. Of course, in the creation of such sites basic marketing techniques  are always taken into account. However, once the site starts working, experts should immediately study the possibilities for optimizing performance through testing and analysis.


  • Call-to-action strategic placement on the site. The main site challenge is to convince users that you offer products / services / information that are worth their attention (now or later), and provide them a convenient way for the implementation of the action (purchase, subscription to a newsletter, participate in the event, etc.). It is essential that at every point where the visitor could conceivably be tempted to perform the required action, there was a call to this action. This object may be represented in the form of banners, images, buttons or text - and is always active. To avoid imposing, use different types of active elements. Calls to action placing should be organic, user-friendly, but in any case not intrusive!


  • Minimizing the potential customer commitments. One of the popular methods - free trial of something. As part of a PPC campaign, we tend to offer the customer a certain product for the first time. Therefore, to encourage the visitor to give you even a small amount of money is quite difficult. As a result, this proposal, which does not require much effort or expense of customers, gets more chances for good conversion.


  • Monitoring of e-mail. If the campaign does not have a secondary income opportunities by receiving e-mail or postal address of the client, it makes sense to use HTML-control of e-mail address for all visitors passing registration. This email address will strengthens the proposal and provide your potential client a link directly to the registration page of the website.



Decreasing the rate


As a rule, the lower is the rate, the less favorable position of your ad has in the SERPs. This, in turn, means that users will have to make some efforts to search ads. This means that visitors referred by it with high probability will bring you not only qualified traffic but also conversions. At the same time, users that do not need specifically your proposal will go to the link because of interest only. This rarely leads to the desired actions.


Adding negative keywords


And again - negative keywords will give you a hand. Reducing the possibility of displays for irrelevant keywords, they increase the matching advertising to user needs, increase the amount of qualified traffic. As a result, the conversion increases again.



Keyword Performance / Bid management


The effectiveness of keywords and bid management is a fundamental component of PPC campaign management. One of the most effective tools in managing millions of keywords is the JUMP platform. While analyzing the performance of an advertising campaign, JUMP Keyword Performance Management allocates all of the keywords in two main categories and then into seven subcategories.


The category of the keyword allows us to judge about the general points of further advertising campaign control.



Non-convertible keywords


Non-convertible keywords are the ones that did not contribute to the conversion during the reporting period.


All non-convertible keys are applied to the matrix. Depending on their location, the further action on strategic planning will be evaluated.


The upper left quadrant contains all the keywords that have not brought enough money to exceed a target CPA, and did not reach the desired CTR indicators, required to obtain the desired conversion. However, within this quadrant there is the category of "Research and Control», which is a buffer zone, warning that keyword may soon exceed one of the metric indicators.


The purpose of strategic planning are the keywords that fall into this category and perform a single action or a whole group of actions that affect the metric.


JUMP gives you will the access to the list of keywords, separated by category, as well as all the necessary metrics and functions, so you can take the necessary steps to normalize the situation.



Convertible keywords


As well as all non-convertible keywords, all convertible key entries are also located in the matrix. And in the same way, depending on their position in the matrix, specialists may decide on further action of strategic planning.


  • Alert: Bid Manage.


Keywords that fall into this quadrant exceeded the target CPA and have a low overall conversion. This combination brings such a negative impact on the campaign, that the only and the very first action should be lowering rates. How significant reduction will be - is determined by a specialist depending on the metric data provided by JUMP.


By lowering the rate to a certain level, keywords of this quadrant are usually moved or into the sector of «low priority», or to the sector «investigate», where they will then be subjected to certain administrative actions.


  • Investigate: Campaign Manage


Keywords contained in this square have some conversion rates and search volumes exceeding planned. However, the cost of traffic is usually overestimated because of the competitive nature of the environment, which in turn encourages CPA to exceed targets.


When working with these keywords you should try to maintain the level of traffic while reducing the average CPC. This requires, first of all, managing the campaign rather than bidding.

With proper implementation of these strategies, the keywords will move to the quadrant «opportunity - bid manage», where the rate increase will cause an even a greater increase in traffic.


  • Opportunity - bid manage.


The keywords in this sector are  the most effective ones.

They are in the frames of the target CPA and have a conversion rate that meets the targets. These keywords are so powerful and promising tool, that you will need to focus all efforts on maximizing traffic by raising rates.


After raising rates, keywords from this quadrant generally turn into the "investigate" sector, where they become the object of management campaign impact.


  • Low Priority: Campaign Manage.


Key words in this quadrant have a very low search volume and do not reach the target CPA or (even worse) do not have a high conversion, making it impossible to raise rates for increasing search volume afterwards.


One option for dealing with such keywords is to increase the level of traffic, while maintaining or increasing the conversion rate. This again requires to focus not just on managing interest rates, but on campaign management.


With effective management of the campaign, these keywords will move safely to the quadrant "opportunity: Bid Management", where the rates may be increased to attract more traffic.



All convertible words


The aim of the campaign is to bring all the keywords to the central part of the matrix.


It should be understood that the situation when all the keywords will be located at the central part to give the desired amount of CPA and conversion is, in fact, impossible. However, it is realistic to achieve a balance, where keywords from "opportunities" and "low priority" will be compensated by the words from "warning" and "investigate". This, in turn, will allow you to achieve the desired CPA for the whole campaign.



Conclusion: Testing Ad Text


In order to keep the situation under control, it is quile useful to conduct small invariant tests of the advertisements Just choose a couple of ads, and two options for each of them .


Taking into account all of the tips and tricks above, you can get 16 ad texts by mixing the available options. To help you cope the task, here is a ready-made pattern for the sentences order:



1. AAAA 5. BAAA 9. BABB 13. ABAB

2. AAAB 6. BBBB 10. ABBB 14. BABA

3. AABA 7. BBBA 11. BAAB 15. BBAA

4. ABAA 8. BBAB 12. ABBA 16. AABB


When you have the texts, you will need to compare each of them with the specified parameters (in most cases this will be CTR and conversion rate). After the most efficient, productive version of the message will be defined, you can use it as a reference.


The described “A: B testing”, is simple and effective, it may become your permanent way to optimize the performance of advertising messages. Add to this method a couple of others, and the results surely will surpass even your wildest expectations!