Your PPC campaign is useless if it doesn’t provide you with quality, converting leads. You can spend any amount of money on ads, but if your campaign isn’t optimized, it will certainly fail you in the end.
After managing PPC accounts for over 8 years, there are certain tips I find help everyone optimize their campaigns for lead generation. While optimization is a unique process for every account, take these first steps to jumpstart lead generation and bring quality leads into your sales funnel.
Leave no stone unturned
Your PPC campaign will only do as well as its worst-performing part. If your keywords, ads, and network are optimized and effective but your landing page is a disaster, your lead generation will suffer.
This is why you need to focus on every aspect of your campaign. Check and double-check your ads, keywords, landing pages, CTAs, copywriting—everything. Failure to keep on top of any one of these pieces could create a bottleneck in your PPC campaign.
In addition to this, make sure you focus on your existing bottlenecks. Spending time optimizing your ad copy won’t help you much if your issues lie on your landing page.
Bonus tip: Have a chat with your PPC account manager. They can often help you identify bottlenecks in your PPC process and give you tips on how to manage them based on their past experiences. Your account manager wants you to succeed and they usually have valuable insights that can help you in the testing phase.
Test, test, test everything
Once you identify those bottlenecks, it’s time to come up with a solution. But I mentioned before, optimization is different for each and every campaign. So what is your solution?
The only way for you to know is to test.
Test different combinations of keywords, test different landing pages, test different colors. Test anything and everything. You may never know what works best for you, but the only way to find your best setup is to test each component of your campaign.
After you’ve run tests on every aspect of your PPC campaign, you’ll have a better idea as to what will generate leads the best. Because this is unique to you, the only way you’ll find out is by testing.
Bonus tip: Test just one component, optimize it, and move on to your next test. That’s why most marketers refer to it as split testing orA/B testing. You always want to be testing something side by side, one piece at a time.
Cast a wide net
Long-tail keywords are a powerful tool in targeting your PPC ads. They allow you to find niche areas with less competition, where you can snatch up leads. Now what I’m going to say may be a little counter-intuitive.
Don’t use long-tail keywords. At least, not at first.
Too many people jump the gun and fill their campaigns with these keywords. However, in doing so you could be foregoing some high-performing long-tail alternatives.
Imagine you’re selling auto insurance. You use the long-tail keyword “affordable auto insurance in New York City.” This might be ideal for you. But you could also be missing out on golden opportunities in “auto insurance coverage in Staten Island.”
Rather than jumping straight to long-tail keywords, start broad. Use “auto insurance in New York” to start. Start to narrow down your keywords from this point. You may find new long-tail options that reach more quality leads, or keywords you haven’t even thought of before.
Bonus tip: Talk to your customers and find out what they’re searching for. Maybe your potential leads are primarily searching for auto insurance comparison sites. These insights can point you in the right direction when setting up A/B tests.
Cater to your customers
Your ideal PPC strategy will cater to your customer. Once you’re able to find what they’re searching and where they’re searching for it, you can put together better campaigns and attract more quality leads.
Use geotargeting, dayparting, and device targeting to pick and choose where your PPC ads appear and to whom. Once you segment your ads, they’ll naturally cater to higher quality leads for your business.
Bonus tip: Test these targeting tools, too! You want to figure out what time, location, and device settings work best for your clientele. Optimizing your PPC campaign for lead generation is a never-ending cycle. If you want the best leads to come out of your clicks, follow these tips over and over again to stay on top of any changes.
Eli Martin is the Director of Sales for eZanga and a frequent writer on all things advertising, marketing, and sales. www.eZanga.com
