Account strategy and tactics are items that should be evolving around the current state of competition, client needs, and available tools/technology. Since these aspects change quickly, it’s important to regularly check in with your goals, strategy, and tactics.
Implement New Features Or Tools
New features and tools are constantly becoming available in the PPC industry. Stay up to date by frequently checking sites such as:
- Search Engine Land
- AdWords Blog
- Bing Ads Blog
- PPC Hero (look at you, you’re already here!)
- Facebook Blog
Do your research here to find new opportunities that are a good fit for your account. The newest thing may seem great, but it might not always be appropriate for your goals or strategy.
Audit The Account
Have someone on your team do an audit of the account. Have them be brutally honest about what is working / set up well, and what isn’t. Let’s face it, when you’re in the account day in and day out, it’s easy to miss things.
Some items to look for include:
- Structural inefficiencies
- Quick wins
- New opportunities (e.g., RLSA, Google Smart Lists, etc.)
This doesn’t have to be an incredibly in-depth audit, just take a look through the account and pull out any quick wins or findings. Once the audit has been completed, create an action plan to implement any findings.
Review Your Strategy
How long has it been since you’ve really thought about your strategy? What are your goals? Should it be updated? These are questions that you should regularly ask yourself and your client.
A change in strategy could mean restructuring your remarketing efforts to capture more lead forms, targeting different audiences, expanding into other platforms, etc. etc.
Review Your Tactics
Revisit how you are making tactical changes within the account. This can include:
- Bids
- Budgeting
- Keyword expansion
- Negative keywords
This is a great time to review any automated bidding you have running. PPC accounts are dynamic, and a lot can be changing simultaneously. Some of these things will be examined in the audit process described above, but it’s a good practice to take a look for yourself.
Schedule A Check-in
Designate a time when you’ll sit down and think about the strategy of the account, and review performance. This might be the most important item on this list as it ensures that you’re setting aside time to think.
How often this occurs is up to you, and the nature of the account you’re managing. If the industry is quickly growing or changing, you might want to schedule these check-ins more frequently.
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully, this post has sparked some ideas as to how to refresh your PPC strategy or prompted you to set aside some time to think about the above-mentioned action items. Clients (or bosses!) will appreciate that you are taking the time to make sure the account is up to speed and remaining competitive, and not allowing things to grow stagnant.
