How to Scale a PPC Campaign Without Wasting Budget
Scaling a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign is an exhilarating way to scale your business, but it is also a delicate balancing act. As you would want to drive more traffic, but you don’t also want to waste money on doing it. At Orion Digital, we realize that scaling is not as simple as adding more ad spend – it is about making each rupee, you’re spending on the campaign brings returns.
So, how do you successfully scale a PPC campaign without flushing money down the drain? Let’s look closer at some strategies, with examples, that will ensure you get the most out of your ad budget.
- Identify Your Target Audience
As soon as you begin scaling, there’s a desire to throw as wide of a net as possible and see what happens, but this can all too easily lead to unnecessary clicks. Although broad targeting may generate a zillion of visitors, that isn’t always the way and give you the right customers, who are a great match for your company.
For instance, imagine that Orion Digital is conducting a PPC campaign for a digital marketing service. If you’re advertising broad keywords such as “marketing” or “digital marketing services,” you could end up with clicks from those who are only beginning or are not even yet ready to make a purchase. However, if you refine your target to specific terms such as “PPC management for e-commerce companies,” you will get more qualified leads.
Tip: Use the data from your analytics tools to fine-tune your audience. Notice the demographics, places, and behaviors of individuals who actually convert and target your ad spend towards those segments.
- Ensure Your Landing Pages and Ads Convert
Traffic is wonderful, but conversions are better. As you scale your PPC campaign, the aim is not only to drive more visitors, but to convert those visitors into customers. This is where ad copy, landing pages, and clean calls to action (CTAs) enter the picture.
Let’s say that your Digital company has a campaign for an SEO software product, and the landing page is receiving a lot of traffic, but the conversion rates are low. Why? Possibly the form is too long, or the CTA isn’t enticing enough. After shortening the form and adding a clear, action-oriented CTA, the conversions increase considerably.
Tip: Test and optimize your landing pages regularly. Even minor tweaks – such as changing the CTA or simplifying the form – can significantly improve your conversion rate.
- Utilize Negative Keywords to Prevent Wasting Spend
Negative keywords are your worst enemy when expanding a PPC campaign. They’re keywords that you don’t wish your ads to appear for. Without them, you may get your ads appearing for irrelevant or low-quality search queries, causing wasted clicks.
Suppose, your brand may have an ad running promoting high-end website design services, but ads are still popping up for queries like “free website design” or “cheap website design.” Such clicks are unlikely to convert, since the people searching don’t want to pay for top-level services. With the use of “free” and “cheap” as negative keywords, your brand may avoid its ads shown to people who are more likely converting searchers.
Tip: Monitor your search term reports to detect unrelated keywords. Make it a routine to add them as negative keywords to avoid wasting your budget.
- Double Down on What’s Working
Not every keyword or ad group is going to perform well once you start scaling. The trick is identifying the high-performing keywords and dedicate more of your budget to them while backing off on the lower-performing ones.
Suppose you see, the keyword “SEO for small businesses” is generating a high number of conversions, but “SEO for blogs” is not doing as well. By allocating more budget to “SEO for small businesses” and less to the other, you can ensure their budget is being spent where it will be most effective.
Tip: Utilize resources such as Google Ads’ search term reports to determine top-performing keywords. Once you understand what is working for your business, direct more of your budget towards those high-converting keywords.
- Take Advantage of Smart Bidding and Automation
Scaling doesn’t require you to manually adjust your bids. PPC platforms such as Google Ads have intelligent bidding strategies that utilize machine learning to automatically optimize your bids, depending on the objectives you’ve established.
Suppose, your Digital brand shifts from manual bidding to Google’s Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) approach. This enables Google to automatically raise or lower bids to reach those most likely to convert. Rather than wasting time manually adjusting bids, Your digital’s team can devote their energy to strategy, with the confidence that the system is optimizing their spend.
Tip: Try using automated bidding strategies such as Target CPA or Maximize Conversions. These features can assist you in scaling without having to constantly monitor and adjust bids.
- Scale Gradually, Not All at Once
When scaling a PPC campaign, it’s best to grow your budget incrementally. Attempting to go all-in with a massive budget increase can lead to inefficiencies and increased costs. Instead, approach incrementally and keep a close eye on performance.
Example, you are already paying $1,000 per month for PPC advertising. Rather than raising the budget to $3,000 overnight, they raise it 20% every other week. That way, they can track how the additional budget is affecting performance, making changes as needed to make sure they’re still getting good returns.
Tip: Scale a plan and adhere to it. Scaling small, controlled jumps at a time enables you to keep a tight eye on performance and make a change if needed.
- Keep an Eye on Your Campaigns
Even after you scale, it’s important to monitor your campaigns. Keep track of your KPIs such as cost per conversion, click-through rate (CTR), and return on ad spend (ROAS). Regular checking allows you to detect any problems early on and make necessary changes to your strategy.
Your brand may realize that, having ramped up their budget, they’ve seen CTR decrease. Upon a closer look at ad copy, they realize the message doesn’t connect as strongly to the new demographic. Some modifications to ad copy later, and their CTR increases, averting wastage.
Tip: Keep a close eye on your campaign reports and analytics to view how things are going. Be prepared to make changes fast if something isn’t working.
Conclusion
Scaling a PPC campaign doesn’t necessarily mean burning through your budget. Targeting the right audience, prioritizing high-converting keywords, leveraging automation, and optimizing for greater performance will help you scale your campaign effectively. Take it step by step, continue testing, and always keep a close eye on your performance data.
At Orion Digital, we understand that scaling is not just about making quality decisions but doing so smartly and using data to guide your way. By having the proper strategy in place, you can scale your PPC campaigns and experience fantastic results without worrying about wasted spend.
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