Gaining any sort of return on investment from PPC is not difficult but knowing how to go on and improve on that is!
So what can you do to achieve a higher ROI?
Firstly you need to understand which keywords bring you what exactly. Do you have certain keywords that have high volumes of traffic and lots of sales? Do you have keywords with high volumes of traffic and low sales? and vice versa.
Now if you have keywords with a high volume of traffic and lots of sales then happy days you are on the right path. How do you get more from these keywords I hear you asking. Simple;
Are your ad groups as organised as they possibly could be?
Are all the keywords in that ad group very similar or are they actually quite broad? Remember you want your ads as relevant as possible to the keywords in that ad group so that when any of those keywords in the ad group trigger the ad its relevant to the users search query. An example of this. Just for this example forget about keyword match types.
Bad keyword list:
hotel london
hotels london
hotel in london
hotels in london
london hotel
london hotels
5 star hotel london
5 star hotels in london
hotels in leicester square
canary wharf hotel
Remember what you can write in your ad is very limited and should someone search “hotels in canary wharf” and they are shown your ad with a headline of “Hotels In London” and 4 or 5 others with “Hotels In Canary Wharf” or “Canary Wharf Hotels” you are not going to be ranked favourably, you will pay a higher cost per click and face the possibility of being overlooked by that user. So only use a few keywords per ad group and ensure they are all very relevant to a users search query. This will ensure that your ad relevance is high meaning good quality score, lower cost per clicks with higher ranks and more likely to be clicked by the user.
Good keywords list (Again forget about keyword match types for the time being):
Hotels London:
hotel london
hotels london
hotels in london
hotel in london
london hotel
london hotels
Canary Wharf hotels:
hotel canary wharf
hotels canary wharf
hotel in canary wharf
hotels in canary wharf
canary wharf hotel
canary wharf hotels
Leicester Square hotels:
hotel leicester square
hotels leicester square
hotel in leicester square
hotels in leicester square
leicester square hotel
leicester square hotels
This is how you should be laying out ad groups so that the ads you write for these ad groups can be as specific as possible and help boost quality score which will in turn allow your ads to be displayed higher for a lower cost.
Achieving cheaper clicks should be a task that is carried out constantly as cheaper clicks are very achievable and should you be able to knock 5p off your average cost per click for any keyword over the course of 100 clicks you will save yourself £5 which can then be used to generate more clicks for profitable keywords which will obviously boost your bottom line and ultimately your ROI.
Know when to stop spending.
This can be hard sometimes when it comes down to pausing keywords with good volumes of traffic as you know there will be sales out there but how long should you wait and continue spending or throwing that money away. The answer from my experience is not very long. Margins can be fine line between profit and loss so if you have a keyword that is continually dragging you over that line don’t put up with it.
You have a grasp on your margins, your cost price, your selling price etc. So why compromise your margins for sales that are costing you money. Lets say you rent rooms out at £50 a night and just to keep things simple people can only stay one night. If its costing you £75 in clicks to get that room rented out you are essentially giving the room away for free and giving the guests £25 out of your own pocket now if you were literally doing that you wont be in business for long but as the money goes through your account its easy to miss the big picture.
The big picture being that you are losing money on the room. Now I have come across this scenario a lot with working with businesses on their PPC campaigns. The scenario being that people put far too much importance on return sales/bookings and on that person then telling friends and family what a great stay they had (These are very important but not in this context). So the initial £75 will be recouped in the long run and therefore paying £75 for a customer is acceptable. Rubbish!! Paying over the odds is never acceptable. ROI is the key to this exercise with sales being the main focus but sales are only sales if you are making from them otherwise they are know as freebies. Be prepared to shut down campaigns and ad groups immediately if they don’t convert at a profitable cost.
Know when to stop spending!
Maximise profitable clicks.
Now you have stopped spending on those unprofitable ad groups and campaigns quickly move money/budget that was being spent through those unprofitable keywords into those that are profitable and look for ways of creating more of those profitable keywords. It really is not as hard as it sounds.
For example lets go back to the hotel keywords from further up the page and lets imagine they are yours. You notice that keywords in the hotels london ad group are very profitable but those in the canary wharf ad group are not and are costing you money. Stop the canary wharf ad group and look for ways to expand on your most profitable keywords so some examples may well be, “cheap hotels in london” “luxury hotels in london” “boutique hotels in london” “5 star hotels in london” “four star hotels in london” obviously cheap and luxury are contradictory but you know your business and your target audience and will be able to suss that out.
Negativity pays.
Just as you should weed out unprofitable keywords/ad groups/campaigns its also important to look at what keywords you are actually being found for. Using broad and even phrase match keywords may present you with clicks that you simply do not want or need and remember you are paying for these unwanted keywords so take action immediately.
Hotel example again, you are a 5 star luxury hotel. Are people looking for cheap, budget, affordable, discount and low cost to name a few going to book a room with you? chances are the answers no. Make these negative keywords so that anyone searching for hotels in london, or any variation, with keywords like cheap, budget and affordable wont have your ad displayed to them therefore weeding out irrelevant clicks and saving more money that again can be put into those profitable areas of your account.
These are just brief easy to follow steps that can help you to increase your return on investment from your PPC efforts and are in no way a guarantee to more profits and higher ROI’s. This is also not a one size fits all solution so you will need to adapt these pointers to your own business and PPC account accordingly.
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