February 19, 2021

PPC Campaign Management: Are You Properly Using Your Ad Budget?

Dot The i Creative

Are you looking to improve your PPC campaign management?

Sure, we’ve all heard Google’s claim. Every dollar you spend on Google AdWords earns you $2 in revenue. Unfortunately, if you’ve already set up a PPC campaign, you learned firsthand that those numbers don’t apply to you. They’re a statistic derived from a large sample of expert advertisers with big budgets.

Does that mean that PPC doesn’t work? No, quite the opposite. PPC can have huge rewards if know where to funnel your money.

If you don’t know, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. That’s what this entire article is about, so grab your PPC budget and take a seat. When you’re ready to build a lucrative ad campaign and forever change your business, read on.

PPC Campaign Management

You’ve got to spend money to make money. You may have heard this motto before, but with pay-per-click advertising, it’s true. It’s the way the system was designed.

The problem for most of us is deciding how much we should spend. Too much and you may be blowing your budget. Too little and you might not reach enough people to make it worthwhile.

Your annual budget is an enormous part of your PPC strategy. So, whether you’re a novice or you’ve been building PPC campaigns for years, let’s take a step back. We’ll figure out how to make the most from the money you want to spend.

Your leads are the most important consideration when building your budget. Take a seat and figure out the characteristics of your leads:

Cost-per-lead
Lead quality
Buying cycle
Geographic location
Visitor frequency

If you’re unsure what your target lead should look like, begin instead with the following questions:

How many leads do I need to hit my goal?
What’s my current conversion rate?
What can I afford to spend?

In the next section, we’ll take a closer look at the exact numbers you need to get started with your PPC.

Your Starting PPC Budget

Now it’s time to do some basic calculations, so grab the list you made in the sections above and your nearest calculator app. The formula will look like this:

cost-per-lead x (number of new leads per month / conversion rate) = total budget

Now let’s assume the following:

Cost-per-lead = $0.10
Number of new leads per month = 1000
Conversion rate = 2%

When we plug those numbers into the formula, it looks like this:

$0.10 x (1000 / .02) = $5000

That means you’d need a budget of $5000 each month to reach your goal of 1000 new leads. These numbers will change according to your goals. So, what about you, what is your budget?

Play with this formula a little to get a better grasp of the elements. It’ll make the rest of the process easier. Also, recognize that free cost per click calculators are available from many popular online sites.

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Elements that Affect the Value of a Lead

The value of your leads isn’t always straightforward. Sometimes your lead will pay off, but only in a roundabout way. When you evaluate your leads, pay close attention to the following elements:

Bounce rate/dwell time: How does your visitor act once they land on your site? Do they leave immediately upon arrival? Or do they hang out and inspect your content?

Precedence: what’s their buying history?

Interaction frequency: Do these buyers need more handholding to make a purchase? If so, how often will you need to interact before they convert?

Geography: Is your prospects location a factor in their buying behavior? Are you willing to pay a higher amount for leads from certain areas?

AdWords and Facebook include segmentation strategy filters to help you increase your quality of leads.

You can use negative keywords to filter out terms that don’t convert. You can exclude sites that don’t include your intended target audience. You can even adjust the amount you’re willing to spend during different parts of the day.

Here’s an example. Dig into your data from your past campaign. Were your ads performing better during the day or the evening? What about weekends vs. weekdays?

Take this information and ask yourself if the quality of leads you bring in on the weekends is worth the extra cost. Can you dial it back a bit? If so, adjust your bid accordingly. You can also change your ad schedule to maximize the bang for your buck.

Hunt for Growth Opportunities

The Google Ads Traffic Estimator is part of the Google Keyword Planner. It’s an invaluable tool that will help you define your growth opportunities. In other words, if you were to increase your budget by X amount, what would be the likely results?

Google uses the data it derives from your present AdWords campaign to calculate the likely outcome. If you don’t have much experience working with different budgets, this tool is invaluable. It’ll give you a good idea of the traffic and revenue you may be missing out on.

How will doubling your budget affect your results? What about tripling your budget? Now how about reducing your budget by 50%? These numbers will help you get a better grasp of what’s possible.

As you use the tool, you’ll see how you can adjust your allocations over time. It’ll help you better define your daily, weekly, and monthly spend.

Also, take into account free marketing avenues. Know the difference between SEO vs. PPC. It doesn’t make sense to spend thousands of dollars on your campaign when you could get the same results by implementing SEO changes to your website. Other strategies, such as content marketing, can be even more useful for creating long term revenue.

Know the marketing landscape before you start spending.

What’s Next?

PPC Campaign Management is all about knowing where to spend your dollars. But without proper market research, you might be throwing your money away. You must first research your target audience and competitors to determine whether there’s a market for your products.

If you want to learn more about PPC and SEO, jump over to our library full of other incredible marketing articles. So long and good luck!

Dot The i Creative

Dot The i Creative (DTi Creative for short) is a full service digital marketing agency offering Search Engine Optimization, PPC & Digital Advertising, Social Media Management, Website Design & Development, Marketing Automation, and Content Creation Services in the Dublin, Ohio and Columbus, Ohio area.

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