Google recently released information on the economic impact of its efforts on countries like the US. Its report estimates that businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Google Ads.

Reaching this target shows that your paid searches are bringing in a good ROI and that you are taking the right approach. So, how can you ensure that you perform a paid search analysis that helps you identify any PPC inefficiencies?

The following article will outline some actionable techniques to master paid search analysis and improve your PPC search engine marketing. Keep reading to learn insights related to:

• Aligning PPC strategies with business goals
• Segmenting audiences and improving targeting
• Leveraging real-time data to adjust PPC campaigns
• Optimize PPC costs long-term

Overall, you should be able to secure a higher conversion rate and start seeing sustained success for your business’s online visibility.

Aligning PPC Campaign Strategies with Your Business

PPC campaigns need to align with your business objectives. If they do not, you will waste significant analysis time by not paying attention to your business’s target audience. By having more precise data about your preferred leads and customers, you can take clearer and more strategic steps to allocate your budget, focusing only on campaigns with the highest ROI.

To help pivot your strategy in this way, start by clearly defining your PPC success metrics, whether they be:

• Increasing sales
• Generating leads
• Boosting brand awareness
• Growing a social media audience
• Promoting engagement

Use tools like Google Analytics to connect your PPC efforts to your desired outcomes. Watch for peaks and troughs that indicate how well each campaign is running. When you see clear patterns in your results, respond to them, leveraging both good and bad results to help focus your efforts.

As the average CTR for Search Ads is only 3.17% and Display Ads is 0.46%, use this data as a benchmark when you start your campaign to ensure you have realistic expectations. Also, ensure you understand how seasonal trends or shifts in your broader industry may significantly impact any ads you generate.

Successful Paid Search Analysis Techniques

After you have launched your PPC ad campaign, you can start to identify any inefficiencies in your process. Look at KPIs such as:

• Click-through rates (CTR)
• Click quality score
• Conversion rates
• Cost-per-acquisition (CPA)
• Impression share compared to competitors
• Bounce rates on landing pages
• Lifetime customer value (LCV)

Each of these gives you clear indications of where you start to lose customers, allowing you to consider how you communicate what you offer through your PPC ads and if you need to alter the expectations you set with your messaging.

Further Segmenting Audiences to Improve Targeting

As your PPC brings you more data, you will see more detail about your target audiences and how your ads affect them. Consider dividing your successful audiences by concepts such as:

• Demographics
• Location
• Education
• Job
• Behavior

You can use all this data to ensure more precise targeting. You may also find overlapping interests, allowing you to create niche PPCs based on, for example, sports team affiliation or media consumption.

Alternatively, you can create separate campaigns for mobile and desktop users to optimize each method of engagement differently. Similarly, WSI has successfully targeted separate ads for a client’s different services in the past.

Leverage Real-Time Data for Better Insights

The tools that Google, Microsoft, and other ad platforms provide you can often offer near-real-time data on any aspect of your advert. As such, you can respond to current events, track long-term changes, and alter your campaigns to match the conclusions you draw.

If you, for example, see more engagement during specific times of the day, you may want to alter the time you provide the ads to ensure they go up when you are most likely to get a high level of engagement and conversion. Such scheduling is crucial around national holidays, when ads may have the biggest impact on your visibility.

Real-time data also allows you to react to competitor ads. If you track their campaigns, you can update your copy to ensure customers understand how your offering is superior to theirs. To do this, you may need to implement automated alerts, which can inform you if they detect significant changes in your KPIs, allowing you to respond as quickly as possible if, for example, your conversion tracking shows a sudden dip.

Evaluate Keyword Performance to Ensure Long-Term Results

Analyze search term reports related to your site to discover keyword opportunities and how people find what you offer. Then, you can target your ads using those search terms to have a good chance of attracting more people interested in what you offer.

However, you should also look for new, unique keywords with high CTR and low CPC. These will offer a cost-effective method of bringing people to your site. You may even find it beneficial to analyze your competition to see what they already aim for and discover if you can snipe the search terms.

Also, consider targeting long-tail keywords. These terms have a low (albeit significant) number of monthly searches but are also very easy to rank for. If you focus on several of these, you can often build up a solid base of views that others are not leveraging over a longer period. These will often benefit you for far longer, offering equal, if not greater, ROI compared to shorter-tail options.

If you find that there are keywords that have a significantly low ROI when it comes to conversions, you may also want to consider defining them as negative keywords. Doing so allows a search engine to understand you do not wish to be associated with the term.

Achieve Business Goals Faster with Better PPC Campaigns

Paid search analysis is a critical tool for optimizing your PPC campaigns as you gather leads and customers. It can help target the right audience segments with the right keywords and PPC ads, empowering you to achieve your business goals and drive success.

If regularly monitoring KPIs and adjusting strategies to align with your business objectives sounds like too much work, we can help. WSI can offer expert guidance in creating a data-driven PPC campaign that delivers your desired results. Contact us today to learn why so many global businesses already trust our insights.

Learn more about WSI Proven Results. Contact us for a consultation.