Increasing AdWords ROI with as Little Spend as Possible

While working in Search Engine Marketing, there is a constant need from clients wanting to maximize profits, increase goal conversions and lower spend. In other words, increase their ROI with as little spend as possible.   This has been a key factor when handling client paid search presence on search engines.  I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting a few key factors to focus and improve on, while doing this.

Here are a few factors to remember to improve PPC and Google AdWords campaigns:

Negative Keywords Important

Negative keywords are a crucial part in your AdWords campaigns. This allows for consumers who are searching for your product or service to not see any advertising that is not related to what the consumer is searching for, so if you are selling Old Navy Jeans, for example, it would be a good idea to add negative keywords like these to your AdWords campaign: navy training, navy seals, old navy veterans, etc.

Better Scheduling, Higher ROI

With all campaigns being display, pay per click, cost per acquisition buying models, it is a good idea to schedule times that you would like your ads to be run. In my experience, scheduling your ads will help to save on revenue spent and can improve ROI. If I know that my clients are spending most of their time buying or clicking during certain a time of the day, it’s best to optimize the campaign to those times and monetize ad revenue spend.

Mobile Customers

You are now able to search for businesses or services on your mobile phones. This allows advertisers to display their products or services to specific users within a certain radius of a business location. You can do this by adding in location extensions, this means that a user can search for a service in your area and your ad will display the location of your business within that particular area. Another good tool to use for mobile is call extensions, which give users the opportunity to call the business from the text ad and businesses that prefer to do business telephonically are able to monitor the call conversions for mobile campaigns. A good idea would be to separate mobile ad groups and web ad groups to determine which performs better.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a good way to determine what is working and what is not working. With bounce rate we are able to view if consumers searching for your service or product are directed to the correct channel and/or product page. If there is not much traction on the page they are landing on, changes may need to be done, maybe the layout, the buy now button or even the colour of the page could be unappealing.

Location Specific

Knowing the location of your target market and the regions they are situated in can help to optimize AdWords campaigns. If your product or service is located in a certain area and you know that most of your consumers are in and around that area, why not be more specific about your targeting. This will increase your conversion rate and reduce spend.

Quality Score – Optimize your Landing Page, Keyword and Ad copy

Quality score can be the beginning or end of any advertising. Quality score is directly related to optimal landing pages. Make sure you have tested the layouts and design of landing pages. Be sure that your content on your landing page is relevant to what you are selling or advertising! And be sure to have your consumers directed to the buy now (or your goal page) in the shortest amount of clicks as possible. You don’t want them to be distracted along the way to a purchase and then not complete the goal.

Important to remember, relevant content, relevant copy, great call to action.

Conclusion

More and more consumers are first doing research before buying products or services online. User intent coupled with best ways to optimize your campaigns for Increased ROI will be beneficial to the advertiser wanting less spend and Higher ROI. Measure campaigns success and failure and continuously optimize your keyword performance, ad copy and landing page.

About The Author

Vaughn Forbes

Vaughn is Head of Digital Advertising Operations & Search Engine Marketing at NAB - Caxton CP, where he provides marketing insights and advice.