Setting Up & Optimising a PPC Campaign - Day 4

Hey, so we're at the last of the current Case Study series :o)

Today's session will aim at giving you a general overall idea as to how to go about optimising your campaigns.

There are, I am pretty sure, a million and one ways to go about it, but this is how I do it and it tends to work very well for me. I'd pull the stats for a week or a month at a time. You need to decide if you want to do monthly or weekly - I'd do weekly at least, maybe even more often if you have more traffic. In the gaming industry you get 6 figure impressions very quickly, so I had a look at the campaigns in detail on daily basis. So all I'm saying is - depending on how much traffic and money a campaign is turning you need to put in the time…

So let's say you pull weekly stats, broken into keyword-wise stats (ideally). You need the same stats I gave you in the screenshot (at least):

What to test/optimise first?

Once you have your stats in front of you, in terms of what do I do first and what second and so on?

Well, I usually look at the stats, keeping the industry average expected performance rates, and if I see something under performing, I will tackle that first. So for e.g. if my CTR is too low, I will resolve to look at my keywords (choice, grouping, negatives), and maybe change my ads to something more appealing/relevant so as to attract more of the right clicks.

If my CTR is good compared to the industry average, but my conversion rate is sad, then I'd look at how well related my landing page content is to my keywords and ads, and I'll test new stuff there.

Once you've managed to get all your stats above average (it would take you some time), then you can start thinking of beating your bests, and squeezing even more out of your pennies :o) - that's what I call 'fun times', because that's when you can start being really 'creative' with your campaigns.

Another very important note to make here is that you need to keep in mind the Search Engine's requirements, and the way they score your campaigns.

Generally though, the more visible the part you're testing - the higher the impact of any change you make.

• Test/change/optimise one thing at a time on any one page, or ad. If you go and change the title of your ad and the display URL on the same ad, how do you know that the one or the other had a positive effect on your CTR?




• For landing pages:
  • Your headline carries a lot of punch
  • Your call to action carries a lot of punch too
  • Pictures are great, but it depends on where you put them




• For ads:
  • Your title holds the biggest attention
  • Benefits are a good pulling factor
  • Knowing your target market/prospect WILL help you choose the best things to say
  • Ads get tired out too - sometimes there's nothing wrong with your ad, just that it's a bit worn out. So just changing it around freshens it up and renews attention.

How to go about optimising

I've kind of given you all this info in between the other bits really. Main thing is to change one thing at a time. When optimising base your analysis on similar time periods, i.e. compare stats for Monday to Sunday with another set of data for the next Monday to Sunday period (not Tuesday to Monday).

If you have the technology and savvy to split test versions simultaneously, then you should do that rather than test something one week and something else the next week, as the later method suffices for general info, but is not the most accurate.

Keep track of what you've tried, what worked, and why you think it did… oh, and how well it worked. If this is too much work for you :o) - then just keep track of the winning formulas you find. You can refer to them and use the principle findings on other campaigns.

If you notice how your campaign goes through its life - you will be able to know exactly how to fix it if something goes wrong, or if you had to create a similar one later.

Extra info on what, how and why to optimise

Right, this one is a short one really. When it comes to landing page optimisation, I have a lot of respect in the abilities of two guys - the Conversion Rate Experts… That's why I really wanted to give you the link to their famous and very useful PDF. I've mentioned this before, so it's nothing new, but I thought that this is such good and free material, that it's imperative I mention it again!

So here it is:

101 Ways to Improve Your Conversion Rate >>

OK, this is all I've got for this case study and for the series. I hope it's at least started you thinking of optimising. I thought that this unorthodox approach to a case study may be more beneficial, as the basics and fundamental about PPC has already been said on many occasions, so this will hopefully give you another angle to the same ole' story :o)

Feedback is always welcome, and also suggestions. If you have any results you've got using the techniques in the entire Case Study series, and you'd like to share them with the rest of us, please feel free to do so.

Happy PPC-ing…

Anita

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