Recently, my colleague, John, discussed some quick fixes for your PPC account. His article focused on low conversions, low quality conversions, and low quality score. Today, I will focus on three additional issues that can arise when managing a PPC account: low click-through rate, low traffic and low ad position.
Low Click-through Rate
Before you can worry about your conversion rate, or the quality of your conversions, you first need to get users to click on your ad! The realty on SERPs is getting more crowded each quarter, and drawing a user’s attention to your ad, and inspiring them to take action (i.e. click on your PPC ad), is one of the core challenges of pay-per-click management. If your CTR isn’t soaring like it should, here some quick fixes:
- Write new ad texts! I know that may seem obvious, but it needs to be said. Take your best performing ad text, pause the rest, and use this remaining ad as your control ad. Ask yourself a few questions: what made your best ad successful; why did the the other ads fail? Also, don’t forget to review your competition to see how you can differentiate your message, and call-to-action. Determine which phrases, benefits and headlines work best, then write those new ad texts.
- Once you’ve inserted your new ad texts – get to testing! For successful split testing you need to set your ad serving option within AdWords to Rotate (show ads more evenly). Within Yahoo you need to set your match to ‘Advance’ rather than ‘Standard.’ If you do not choose these setting, AdWords and Yahoo will determine and display your best performing ad texts.
Low Ad Position
Let’s face it: you can write the most amazing ads and your landing page can be wonderful and marvelous, but if your ad isn’t getting noticed, then the rest doesn’t matter. A sure-fire way to gain more attention is by increasing your ad position. Here are some quick fixes to get you ranked higher:
- Raise your bids! Again, that may seem rudimentary, but let’s just get that out of the way. You need to keep your CPC and ROI in mind. Don’t raise your bids beyond your comfort level, but could a slightly higher ad position increase your clicks, and conversions? It might pay off!
- AdWords has a very handy tool to help regulate your ad position: Position Preference. This tool does exactly what it’s name says; you can choose your preferred position. This is helpful when determining your “sweet spot”: the ad position where you get the right amount of clicks and conversions.
Low Amount of Traffic
One way to increase the traffic to your site is by increasing your click-through rate: see the list above! And another way to increase your traffic is to enhance your ad position: see the other list above! However, there are other ways to squeeze more click juice out of your keywords and campaign; here are some quick fixes:
- Accelerate your budget! If you need to boost your traffic in a hurry you should alter your delivery option in AdWords. You have two options: Standard and Accelerated. Change your delivery method to Accelerated instead of allowing AdWords to decide how quickly you spend your daily budget. In Yahoo, you can raise your individual campaign budgets, and your daily account budget to gain more traffic.
- Dip your toes into the AdWords content network, if you haven’t already. The content network can be a source of expanded traffic, and conversions.
- Expand your geo-targeting. Are you casting the widest net possible?
There are many additional fixes for each of the problems (or challenges) but these are some tactics you can execute quickly.
If you are facing other problems with your PPC account, let us know! We’re always happy to provide some tips and quick fixes!
