But marketers often ignore one critical part of PPC campaigns – the PPC audit. Done right,  it can expose inefficiencies in your ad groups or individual Google ads, save you money, and highlight missing opportunities.

And if you don’t conduct a PPC audit regularly, you may struggle to find great, consistent results.

In this post, we’ll explain why a PPC audit is essential and offer a PPC audit template that you can use.

If you’re still setting up a PPC strategy, check out our guide

What is a PPC audit?

A PPC audit is a complete analysis of all the PPC ads in your campaign, and the goal is to uncover optimization opportunities and improve ROI.

PPC audits aren’t as straightforward as glancing at your Google Analytics chart. If they were, more people would do them! However, they are essential because every campaign can be optimized, no matter how meticulous you were during setup.

Keep in mind that a PPC ad is very dynamic; things will most likely start to change the second you launch it. Ad strategies that yielded conversions yesterday may fall flat today and require you to change directions and try something new. 

Amid all that chaos, you’re guaranteed to miss more than a few things. But don’t worry; a PPC audit is just what you need to get back on track.

Why are PPC audits important?

Find new ways to optimize

Optimization opportunities are the biggest selling points for any PPC audit because you’ll see, quite glaringly, how you can improve your Google Ads and overall campaign. Tiny details that you might have omitted become impossible to miss, thanks to the bird’s eye view of a PPC audit.

Optimization means greater conversions and a higher return on investment. What could be better?

Monitor your performance over time

When you sink resources into a campaign, it’s only reasonable to check in on its performance, and reviewing your Google ads account will only do so much. A PPC audit, on the other hand, allows you to see your strategy’s results over time.

You’ll see exactly where your change in approach induced results, which ad groups you need to replicate, and, more importantly, strategies to use moving forward.

Identify performance issues

Marketers often turn to their PPC audit checklist when some strategies no longer work as they should. Other times, you can’t just seem to catch a break despite pulling all the right levers. You may also be seeing results, but it’s coming at a significant and unexpected cost.

The PPC audit can allow you to identify where performance issues are not. If you get remarkable CTRs, but your conversions keep falling flat, you can assume with some certainty that the problem lies with your landing pages, not your PPC ad campaign.

You can then start to find ways to make things better.

Scope out the competition

You can also take insights from your PPC audits to see how your ads perform compared to your competition. Is it time to try new ad extensions and reorganize your ad group? Or do you need a radically different strategy? By measuring how your PPC strategy does, compared to your competition, the PPC account audit can provide some answers.

How long does a PPC audit take?

To prepare and conduct a full PPC audit should take a few hours. This includes downloading the data, spending time analyzing your campaign performance and the details of your PPC ads.

However, you can perform a simple PPC audit in an hour or so just by taking a look at some of the features in this guide. We do advise that you take the time to properly inspect your data and make the necessary adjustments without rushing things, for best results.

The PPC audit checklist – 8 things to do

1. Prepare your data

The first step in your PPC audit will be to prepare your data. You’ll first need to choose a date range to pull data from. You shouldn’t pick a week or another absurdly short duration because the more data you have, the more information you’ll have to work with.

It’s also critical to ensure that you have the right data to work with. That includes checking your Google analytics linking and ensuring that your conversion tracking is on point. As Disruptive Advertising found, only half of all marketer accounts register a conversion. That means that a sizable chunk of marketers in the survey wasn’t even tracking anything.

Ensure you have the right metrics tracked, pick a reasonable time frame – 3 months is great – and download your data.

2. Highlight your budget

A perk of Google ads and other PPC campaigns is that you only pay for potential conversions. As a result, you need to document how much you spent on each campaign to see how much the results really cost you.

This will also help you separate the high-performing ad groups from those that are watering down the results of your PPC campaigns.

Some other key questions to ask include:

• How many clicks do you get for your budget?
• Do similar ad groups with the same budget perform differently?

Even before you get to the audit proper, you can already see some key insights.

3. Review your ad copy

Even though ad copy is a non-metric aspect of your campaign — Google analytics can’t explicitly tell you if your ad copy is terrible — it’s critical to review it and ensure it’s aimed at your target audience. 

A great place to start is ensuring that your ads are targeted at a specific group of people. They should read the copy and think, “this is speaking to me.” Your ads should also contain a clear calls to action that alludes to the benefits users can expect.

After perfecting your copy, the next step on the PPC audit checklist is ensuring that it’s aimed at the right people. Dive into your target locations to make sure it’s aligned with the group you’re looking for. 

Finally, consider reviewing Google’s PPC ads best practices to ensure that you have everything dialed in.

4. Log your quality score

The quality score is one of the most important aspects of your PPC campaign. Combined with your maximum bid, it determines your ad’s placement and overall performance. If you’re looking to improve your PPC ads, the quality score is a great place to start.

Some of the things that determine your quality score include your ad relevance, user experience on your landing pages, and click-through rates (CTR). 

Some excellent strategies to improve your quality score include:

• Write relevant ads that suit your target audience
• Diversify your ad groups with expanded text ads and responsive search ads
• Include relevant ad extensions
• Pay attention to negative keywords

Find out more about optimizing your Google Ads quality score in our blog.

5. Review your bids

Your bids are closely tied to your business’ profitability because the more you pay for your leads, the less profit you’ll make. If you’re paying $5 each time someone clicks on an ad in your ad group and they buy $10 products on average, you could be making a profit. That’s granted you account for all the other clicks that don’t lead to a purchase.

Ideally, you want to analyze your bid and see if there’s a way to lower your bid amount without reducing the number of leads you get. That way, you can maximize profit or, better, get more leads for your money.

6. Create a list of wasted spend

This is one of the most painful items on the PPC audit checklist because it forces you to face all the failed attempts at optimizing your campaign. But it’s necessary because you want to identify these areas of wasted spending in your PPC account and plug them up ASAP.

Wasted spend is the amount of money you lose from your Google Ads campaign. It shows you the different ways you spent too much on leads or missed out on conversions.

One of the biggest culprits here is irrelevant keywords. You optimize for a keyword and place a bid, but your ads appear in the wrong searches and get displayed to the wrong audience.

In this scenario, you’ll record impressive CTRs, but your conversions will be in the gutter. One solution to this problem is negative keywords. They can help you excuse specific phrases and keep your ads focused on the right audience

Analyzing your wasted spending will help you uncover other areas, and then you can create a plan to fix them in your PPC campaign.

7. Review your click-through and conversion rate

These metrics have a significant influence on one another, so it’s important to look at them together. Your CTR will affect your conversions, and a good place to start is to see if people are even interested in your ad. 

If an ad group has a low CTR compared to your others, it may be time to review your copy. You want the highest possible CTR because that means your ads are reaching the right audience and generating the right interest.

Once you have that dialed in, it’s time to switch gears and look at your conversion rates. A high CTR but low conversions could mean that your landing pages and ad copy don’t match, and audiences aren’t finding what they expected to find. As a result, you spend a lot on leads that don’t convert.

It’s also a good idea to do a Google search network ad group analysis. Think about which ad group has too few keywords, which ones have “no below first page” bids, and the match types you have on your keywords.

8. Purge invalid traffic

Once you’ve taken a good look at your ad groups, you should also consider the possibility that your PPC campaign is the victim of advertising click fraud.

Every year marketers lose an average of 20% of their budgets to click fraud. This is the process of fake engagement on your ads, which drives up the CTR but yields zero conversions. This fake traffic can come in form of:

• Competitors or brand haters intentionally clicking your ads
• Organized ad fraud campaigns
• Fraudulent ad placement or malware apps
• Automated clicks from web scrapers and click farms

You can actually view your invalid traffic rate in Google Analytics – although the rate declared by Google is often much lower than that picked up by software such as ClickCease.

If you want to run a comprehensive PPC audit, including checking your invalid traffic rate, you can use a ClickCease free trial.

Sign up for 7 days and integrate your Google Ads to see how much fake traffic affects your ads in this time. You’ll also get insight into the keywords most affected by fraud, the types of fraud affecting your ads, and how bots and competitors behave on your site.

Final thoughts

All these ad optimization tips and data reviews won’t mean a thing if you can’t keep invalid traffic away from your ads. It won’t matter if you dial in your relevant keywords and audience targeting because bots will click on any ads you have active and competitors are happy to click you off the search results.

But the good news is that ClickCease can help you protect your PPC ads. Our service protects your campaigns from bot clicks, competitor clicks, brand haters, and even click farms. 

Complete your PPC audit by signing up for ClickCease’s ad protection and ensure that you only spend on high-quality, real leads that can convert.

ClickCease also offers protection on Meta/Facebook Ads and Bing Ads, as well as blocking direct bot traffic on WordPress sites with our Bot Zapping feature.

Improve your ad campaigns ROI with ClickCease’s FREE 7 day trial.

The post How to Do a PPC Audit appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

If we consider traditional media formats such as text ads, video ads, or display ads, rich media uses all of these to create a nifty package (and one that people are more likely to engage with too).

You have probably seen and even engaged with rich media before.

But what is rich media? How can you use it? And does it even work that well?

What is rich media?

Rich media is a form of advertising that uses dynamic or interactive elements to draw the viewer’s engagement.  

Often by using eye-catching visuals (usually video or animation), the viewer is encouraged to click on the ad to expand the experience. There may also be features such as polls, live video streams, or social media feeds.

The ad is embedded in a site, much like any other banner. But rather than a simple animation or static image, there might be a video playing or other form of more dynamic content.

And, as you roll over the banner, it expands to take up more screen space or allows you to expand, interact or share with a friend.

By nature of being more interactive, this more ‘fun’ form of advertising hopes to capture our attention and engage us. At least more than we might do for a standard ad…

Native, in-feed, interactive

Putting it all together, these forms of rich media advertising tend to be embedded within the publisher feed to feel as unobtrusive as possible.

The idea is that the ad doesn’t feel like an ad. 

But…

As you scroll past, something about it catches your eye. It might be the fact that the image jumps out at you or that the ad reacts to your touch, even if you aren’t directly interacting with it.

Take a look at Google’s rich media formats as a great example.

As we become more familiar and jaded with advertising, the methods employed by rich media spark curiosity in the viewer. Or that’s the theory, at least.

Of course, it also depends on the ad and the targeting. The best ad will still not spark interest in someone with zero interest in the service.

Why use rich media ads?

Although creating rich media ad campaigns is more technical and (usually) more expensive, there are several benefits that make it worthwhile.

1. Improved engagement

For most advertisers, getting the attention of their target audience is the main struggle. Improving those click-through rates and conversions is the name of the game, and this is where rich media can be useful.

In fact, one study found that rich media ads outperform standard banner ads by up to 267%. (source) 

Although you will also need quality creative content too, the features of rich media make it more likely that your audience will engage.

And, with reduced tracking and targeting for advertisers, using features such as embedded social media or the option to share could even help your ads be seen more widely. 

2. Quality publishers

Another appealing factor of rich media is that it’s usually quality publishers that can host these enhanced ads. Banners and simple box-style ads can be crammed into any site that has been approved, which can include sites with low-quality content.

So to increase the chances of your ads being hosted on a more high-profile publishing site, consider using rich media.

This also has the benefits of a higher volume of views and (hopefully) more reliable traffic quality. We’ll take a look at more about site traffic later in this article…

3. Stand out from your competitors

Are your competitors running rich media ads? Probably not… 

Due to the cost of both producing and running rich media ads, most businesses will lean toward the standard end of the spectrum. For potential customers, this means they probably see banner ads or pre-roll video as standard and (let’s be honest here) see it as an annoyance.

Because rich media ad campaigns demand a creative approach, this means you’ll stand out simply due to the presentation of the ad.

And by using additional interactive elements, customers are more likely to remember your brand vs. the same old ads from your rivals.

4. More data = good

When you run a standard display campaign, such as a banner or a video ad, you get some useful metrics. But, thanks to the way tracking is changing in 2022, much of this is going to change in the coming months and years.

Using rich media ads gives you some useful additional metrics. For example:

• Video display time (or percentage of video viewed)
• Content expanded time (or how long the content is viewed in expanded form)
• Number of expansions (how often your expandable content is viewed in full)
• Interaction rate
• Interaction time

In short, you can get useful insights into how your audience uses your interactive content.

5. Multiple click links

With a banner ad, you’re usually limited to one clickable link. But rich media ads allow you to add other clickable elements to improve your chances of a higher CTR.

For example, you might still have your standard CTA ‘Click Here to Find Out More.’ But you could also add a social sharing button, a selection of products, or links to specific categories within the ad.

Which platforms offer rich media ads?

Most ad platforms offer rich media campaigns, including Google Ads, Meta/Facebook, and Microsoft Advertising.

Rich media on Google is called Studio. (Read the Google Studio help here)

On Facebook, rich media ads used to be known as Canvas – but are now called Instant Experience. 

Several rich media formats also come as part of their general Meta for Business suite. For example, advertisers can run slideshow ads, carousel ads, playable ads, and popular formats such as Stories on both Facebook and Instagram. 

Microsoft Ads offers Multimedia ads for their business users, which is effectively rich media advertising.

And other platforms, such as AdRoll and Taboola, also offer rich media advertising campaigns.

Rich media formats

As you might imagine, the world of rich media advertising offers a huge range of creative advertising opportunities.

These highly interactive ads also vary between sites. For example, a YouTube rich media campaign will differ from a similar campaign on Facebook Ads.

Rich media ads can be displayed as:

• On-page ads – Usually banners, fitting the standard display ad dimensions, but with added features such as embedded video or a browsable catalog of items
• Out-of-page ads – This normally refers to pop-up ads but can also refer to expandable ads
• Interstitial (app) ads – Ads that display while an app is loading or between pages are known as interstitial ads. 
• In-stream ads – Displayed before videos (pre-roll) or during (post-roll), especially on sites like YouTube

Banner ads

Perhaps the most obvious way to embed an interactive ad, banners offer opportunities across most standard websites.

With the option to run a masthead style/top-of-the-page banner, an in-feed banner, or a sidebar box, banner ads are a flexible, rich media format. They can also be expanded easily, either using a hover-over or click-to-expand option.

As most of us are familiar with banner advertising online, this is a relatively unobtrusive way to venture into rich media ads.

Native content

Making the ad content appear as if it’s an extension of the site, native media blends into the feed. An example of this is Facebook Ads or Instagram Ads, which fit the look and feel of the user feed, but with ‘sponsored’ content.

This can also be created to blend into popular publisher sites or video platforms like YouTube without being too intrusive. 

Slider ads

Usually found in the bottom corner of a webpage, slider ads can be a video or a form of interactive media. Also, they usually stay in place as the user scrolls until either closed or engaged with where they usually then expand.

A typical slider ad might include a video that expands to the full page, perhaps with a frame too.

In-app/Interstitial

Full-screen ads that display within an app, usually between page loads, are referred to as interstitial ads. A rich media approach to these ads can embed playable content, video, or other interactive elements.

With a CTR of 4% on interstitial ads, this compares well to display ads such as banners.

Examples of rich media ads

These are some good examples of how rich media can look, with some useful interactive elements. 

Benadryl

This expanded rich media ad contains an interactive symptoms diagnosis tool. By clicking the symptoms you’re experiencing, the ad then takes you to the page to buy the correct product. 

You can also click on the ‘shop now’ icon to go straight to the landing page for the campaign.

Marvel/Doctor Strange

This masthead rich media campaign wraps around a premium website and includes autoplay video – which is silent by default.  

The video can be clicked to maximise the viewing area, and two other clickable sections take you to the Marvel/Disney site to book tickets and view other trailers.  

Fish4Jobs

Why search for a job when the job search can come to you? This job search site embeds its latest openings into a local news site. A click on one of the roles takes you straight to the listing, or by clicking the ‘send me jobs by email,’ you’re taken to a landing page to input your details.

How to make rich media ads

If you’re considering doing a rich media campaign, you’ll probably need to hire an agency specializing in creative ads. Or, if you have access to a creative team within your company, you might be able to create one in-house.

Rich media ads take a level of expertise, and there currently isn’t an easy-to-use rich media campaign builder. 

Each platform has its own requirements and formats for creating rich media ads, so it’s best to check the details with your ad platform of choice. 

Here are some easy links to help you…

Google Studio

Facebook Ads Instant Experiences

Microsoft Multimedia Ads

Keep control of your ad traffic

Putting together a rich media campaign is more costly on multiple fronts.  

Firstly, creating a rich media ad is more expensive than simply creating a text ad or display ad.

And secondly, the CPM and CPC are more expensive for these ad campaigns too. So, getting value for your ad spend is even more important than usual.

In the age of reduced tracking and targeting, keeping control of your clicks and ad views is challenging. Click fraud and ad fraud are also responsible for wasting huge sums of advertisers’ money, with an estimated $40 billion wasted on invalid traffic in 2021.

Find out more about click fraud here.

Marketers are increasingly relying on third-party solutions to avoid bots or competitors clicking their ads and to maximise both their ad reach and ROAS.

As the industry leader in click fraud prevention, ClickCease is used by 90% of fraud-blocking marketers. 

Find out why with a FREE traffic audit. Sign up for ClickCease’s 7-day trial to find out who clicks your Google, Facebook, or Bing Ads and block those bad clicks.

The post Rich Media: The Ad Campaign You Should Be Using appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

This is where the Google Ads Manager Account, previously known as MCC, comes into play.

MCC stands for My Client Centre, although it has been renamed Google Ads Manager. It’s Google’s ads management suite for people who run multiple PPC accounts, and it might just save your sanity. 

So how does Google Ads Manager work, and how can you use it?

What is Google MCC or Ads Manager?

Google Ads Manager Account, previously called My Client Center (MCC), is a simplified Google Ads dashboard that links multiple accounts. If you run a business with multiple ad accounts, or you manage Google Ads for others, it gives an overview of the different campaigns in your portfolio, without the need to log in and out to move between them. 

With a Manager Account, you can do all the things you would normally do but from one dashboard, such as set up new campaigns for each client; or view performance metrics and edit settings.

It’s important to realize that this isn’t an upgrade or add-on to your current Google Ads setup. It’s a specialist account that you will need to sign up for. You can then import your existing client accounts and even other Google Ads manager accounts. 

You can sign up for your Manager Account through Google.

What can you do with Google Ads Manager Accounts?

Once you’re all set up with your Ads Manager or MCC account, you can then:

• Import multiple Google Ads accounts and access them via one single sign-on
• Create new Google ad campaigns on any of these clients’ accounts from your Ad Manager dashboard
• Edit existing Google Ads campaigns on behalf of your client accounts from the dashboard
• Easily create new Ads accounts for clients
• Manage daily budgets for each account from your dashboard
• Give account access (and edit their access level) to employees or whoever you need to work on the accounts
• Manage and view data from all of your client’s accounts within Google Ads Manager
• Generate reports for individual clients, or for all campaigns as required
• Set-up alerts and generate specific rules for individual accounts, or all accounts as required
• Consolidate your billing so you can manage payment for all accounts in one

If you’re managing multiple accounts, you can probably already see how much the MCC or Google Ads Manager account can help.

So how do you get started?

How to create a Google Ads Manager account

It’s incredibly simple to open a Google Ads Manager account. You can easily be set up in just a few minutes.

Simply follow the steps below:

• Go to the Ads Manager page and click ‘Create a Google Ads Manager Account’
• Enter your details as prompted

Et voila! You’re ready to go.

Yup, it’s that simple.

When you’re creating a Google Ads manager account, bear in mind that you can only manage accounts using one currency. So at this stage, it’s best to choose the main currency you deal with – so if most of your clients are in Europe, choose Euros. If you have multinational clients but most of them pay in USD, choose dollars.

We’ll look in more depth at the currency issue later in this article.

Once your Ads Manager account is set up, you can very easily add client accounts to your dashboard. 

• Login to Google Ads Manager 
• On the left-hand menu bar, click ‘Settings’
• Go to the ‘Sub-Account Settings’ at the top of the page
• Click the blue ‘+’ icon
• Enter the customer account ID number to import
• You can also add multiple client accounts by adding each ID number to a different line
• Click ‘Send Invitation’

You will need to wait for the account owner, your client, for example, to validate your invite. Once this is done, you’ll be able to manage your clients’ Google Ads from within your Ads Manager dashboard. 

Who, what, and how many?

Now that you’re up and running with your Google Ads MCC account, you might be wondering how many clients accounts you can manage. Or if you can manage ads in different currencies? Or what permissions you’ll have? 

How many accounts can I manage?

The Google Ads Manager Account allows you to manage up to 85,000 Google Ads accounts. This also includes other Manager accounts, which is invaluable if you’re running an agency or overseeing ad portfolios that already have manager accounts.

For example, if a business owner asks you to run their Google Ads for them, they can link their account to yours. You just need to invite them, they verify the connection and you’re good to go.

Administrators of linked accounts can un-link their account at any time if they wish to. 

Setting access levels and delegation 

You can also invite other users, such as your employees, to manage campaigns within your Ads Manager accounts. There are different levels of access you can set – allowing you to give certain people permission within the entire portfolio.

The highest level is ‘Administrator’. 

This allows full control over the accounts and allows linking and removal of users, setting of access levels, and more.

‘Standard access’ gives ad campaign management capabilities, but doesn’t allow for the administration duties.

Below this level of access, we have ‘Read only’ access and ‘Billing access’. The second of which is obviously useful if you have a dedicated finance department that needs to generate invoices.

Finally, there is ‘Email only’ access which allows the account to receive notifications and reports related to the accounts.

Analyze and update data across accounts

One of the fabulous benefits of the Google Ads Manager is that you can view, at-a-glance, performance across campaigns and ad groups. 

This makes it very useful to compare successful or underperforming campaigns. But you can also use this insight to help optimize other campaigns in your portfolio. For example, you might have one campaign performing particularly well, which might have data that can be applied to your other accounts.

You’ll also be able to track conversions, generate automated reports, manage retargeting, and consolidate billing.

Updating existing campaigns is simple, and of course, you can add new campaigns easily too.

Manage IVT blocking across multiple accounts

With Google Ads, blocking invalid traffic is crucial to maximizing ad performance and minimizing budget wastage. Most agencies these days need to use click fraud prevention software and ClickCease is the industry leader, blocking bots and bad traffic in real time.

If you’re using Google Ads Manager, it’s easy to block click fraud across all your managed accounts. 

With ClickCease, you can also use one subscription to monitor invalid traffic across each PPC campaign that you manage. As an agency, for example, you might have 100 clients with different campaign settings.

Simply link your ClickCease account to your Google Ads Manager and our software will use the insight from across your campaigns to block bots, competitors, malicious clicks, and click farms.

If you do run an agency, and you don’t already have click fraud prevention, get in touch for a quote.

Find out more about click fraud in our complete guide

How to manage currencies in MCC

As mentioned, Google Ads Manager Account only allows you to manage your account portfolio in one currency.

So what if you have your account set to US Dollars, but you have clients running ads in Canadian Dollars, and another in Euros?

Within Google Ads Manager, you have options to set secondary currencies, which then allows you to manage ads in those currencies. Yes, you can have more than one secondary currency.

You can set up new lines in these secondary currencies but… It’s not possible to edit existing line items in the secondary currency.

Also, the bids you’re setting in the secondary currency will be converted to your primary account currency. Google tries to keep the exchange rates fresh, with updates multiple times a day. So you should be paying an accurate rate for your clicks  – in theory.

You can also generate reports and charts in the secondary currency, or your primary currency. 

Who should use Google Ads Manager?

Anyone who needs to link Google Ads accounts or manage multiple accounts will find the Google Ads manager a welcome relief. 

In general, it’s made for large advertisers or any PPC account manager such as an agency. It’s a powerful tool that will be invaluable for keeping track of diverse accounts or campaigns – not to mention helping you save time.

MCC or Google Ads Manager is simple to set up and use and is designed to make your life easier. 

Don’t forget to add click fraud protection from ClickCease to your arsenal too. By monitoring and blocking invalid traffic, you’ll offer your business an extra layer of protection and deliver more effective Google Ads campaigns. 

Join the thousands of digital marketers who already trust ClickCease to block the bad guys.

The post What You Need To Know About Google Ads Manager (MCC) appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) are two sides of the same coin; getting your business noticed online. In this article we’ll take a look at each in detail and then explain the pros and cons of both. 

SEO vs PPC: What is the difference?

The clue is in the name of both of these acronyms. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is optimising your website content to improve its ranking in the search engine results, or SERPs. (Another acronym for you there. Sorry.) This is often referred to as ‘organic’ search results.

PPC, or pay per click, as the name suggests involves promoting your content or website via the paid options of your chosen advertising platform. The most popular platforms for PPC campaigns include:

• Google
• Bing
• Facebook
• Amazon

Typically, when you pay per click, you’ll see your ad nearer that coveted top spot of the search engine results page. Optimised content might also feature near the top, but will almost always show beneath the paid content.

Like all things in life, there are exceptions and a lot of caveats to both of these preceding statements.

As a savvy digital marketer, it pays to know how to use both of these tools effectively.

What is SEO (Search engine optimisation)?

We’re all digital natives here aren’t we? So you know that when you go to Google, Bing or any other search platform you type in what you want (or increasingly, use voice search) and, hey presto! The first page usually yields what you were looking for.

By a combination of clever strategy and content creation, the website owner has successfully employed some SEO to make sure that their content is the first thing you see. But how? And what techniques really work when it comes to search engine optimisation?

Idan Ben Or, SEO expert explains, SEO is based around search terms, or keywords, and doing your research first is going to be crucial. After all, you don’t want to target keywords that no-one is searching for, do you?

Once you’ve identified your target keywords, the tried and tested ways to boost your search engine rankings with organic SEO is:

• Create useful content that is packed full of useful keywords (for example, “what is SEO and PPC?”)
• Use online tools to check that the quality of the content and correct density of keywords (such as Yoast or SEM Rush)
• Ensure your content is shareable and a useful reference tool
• Build backlinks from external websites to your most useful content, so that the search engines recognise it as an authority on its subject
• Use social media and press releases to maximise the natural exposure of your content

One of the main advantages of SEO vs PPC is that it is, in theory, free. You just need to create well written and researched content, with a good use of target keywords that appeals to your target audience. Simple, hey?

In fact, that isn’t even all of it. You also need to monitor your search results, update content when it needs updating and even manage your schedule to post regularly on your own site, externals sites and social media.

If this sounds like a lot of work, you’d be right. Successful organic SEO goes way beyond just writing the content and hoping it gets found, and this is why there are marketing agencies who will manage it for you. 

But, an effective SEO strategy can reap dividends… Eventually. And this is one of the issues with organic SEO vs PPC. It takes time to design, build and manage. Which brings us neatly to…

What is PPC (Pay per click)?

When you see the word ‘ad’ or ‘sponsored’ next to a search engine result or a link on a website, that is the result of someone’s PPC efforts. And, if you click on that ad, the advertiser pays a set amount for your click, which is based on a ‘bid’ amount.

The advertiser has identified a set of search terms and, using Google Ads, Bing, or Facebook, makes a bid of how much they are willing to pay to appear in the search results. For a competitive industry with lots of businesses looking to get the top result, this bid can be quite high…

Much like with SEO, an effective pay per click campaign rests on your research.

For an effective PPC campaign, you’ll need to:

• Identify your target keywords and keyphrases
• Set up your campaign to target the correct geographic area and demographic
• Identify a reasonable bid amount and set your daily budget
• Make sure your ad is well designed and worded
• Ensure your landing page (the site the visitor will see after clicking) is easy to navigate and simple to understand
• Monitor your results daily to see how your cost per click (CPC) and return on ad spend (ROAS) are stacking up against your expectations

Again, simple right? 

The main advantage of PPC vs SEO is that you can set up a PPC campaign today and be showing right at the top of the search results. With the right research and a decent budget, you could be seeing a flow of clicks and, hopefully, customers before you go home for your dinner.

If you’re launching a new business or product, PPC will probably be your preferred choice over the relatively slow movements with SEO. After all, you want people to engage with your site now, not in six months time.

This is all very well, but it can be expensive. Even if you set a daily budget, you’ll likely find that your actual costs go slightly beyond this. And, to be truly effective in a competitive market, you will probably need to spend big.

Another issue with PPC is the potential for click fraud, a growing problem that is estimated to cost PPC advertisers around $60 billion a year. What is click fraud? Put very simply, it is the practice of advertisers placing paid ads on their site and then directing fake traffic though those ads to collect the advertising payout.

Yup, you pay out for a click on your ad that has no chance of becoming a customer. And with around half of internet traffic estimated to be fake or automated, it is a real problem.

PPC vs SEO – Which is better?

Is there a better choice between PPC and SEO? Well… It depends entirely on what you want your end results to be. Both have their own uses, and can be more beneficial at certain points in your business journey.

SEO costs less money, excluding costs for the creation of content and the time spent managing it.

PPC has the potential to bring in customers TODAY. Or at least, in the very short term.

For most website owners and business managers, investing in your SEO in the long run is a wise decision. It’s widely documented about how important the decision and research process is for the average consumer, so having your content out there to answer questions and be available in this phase is definitely going to be crucial. 

Successful organic SEO vs PPC also means you could save money on those paid clicks… But, for certain marketing goals, an effective PPC campaign can more than pay for itself, if done correctly. 

Here is a very simple cheat sheet to sum up when to use PPC vs SEO.

Use PPC for when:

• You have a time sensitive promotion such as live event or a discounted or sale period for your product or service
• When launching a new product or service and you want maximum exposure
• To profile your brand in a competitive market
• If you need to target a specific demographic or audience
• If your site isn’t designed for SEO, i.e: it doesn’t have a blog or,
• When you don’t have time to manage the SEO of your website

Use SEO for when:

• You want to build a foundation for a steady flow of traffic that isn’t paid for
• Building your domain authority (DA), Trust Flow or other ranking metrics
• You’re building your brand as a thought leadership or information portal

After reading all this, you might still be wondering which is better, SEO or PPC?

Most website owners will always be working on their SEO, as its a long term goal that needs consistent input. But using a PPC campaign might also help boost your SEO… How?

With that brand exposure, people might be more likely to click your organic SERP link. And, if you offer a particularly useful piece of content on your site, it could be shared on social media and other websites. Those backlinks are priceless for your SEO.

Remember to make sure that your PPC campaign is being seen by the people you want to see it. By some estimates, fake traffic makes up around half of all internet activity; with bots, crawlers and click farms all potentially taking their share of your marketing budget. 

ClickCease actively defends against these shady practices, and can make sure your paid ad is only seen by real humans. If you’re planning a PPC campaign, or already running one, you might be shocked by how much of a difference ClickCease can make. Sign up for your free trial to see for yourself…

The post SEO vs PPC: What’s the Difference? appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

So, in these upcoming summer months, your business will need to put it’s best foot forward so your advertising budget won’t melt in the hot summer sun. What this means is that you’ll need to make sure your campaigns are fully optimized and ready to maximise your ROI.

So, these are our best tips and tricks to help you plan your summer ad campaigns.

1. Go Mobile!

More than ever (and especially in the summer) it’s all about mobile advertising.

Think about it, it’s summer, the weather is amazing so naturally you’re spending more time outside. When you’re outside and enjoying the hot summer sun you’re using your mobile device more for your daily searches instead of your desktop.

So this means that the mobile aspect of your summer ad campaigns needs some summer lovin’.

But how?

To handle this rise in summer traffic increase your mobile specific bids by 25%.

Test this strategy out for a couple weeks in order to get some real data to decide whether it’s working or not. If mobile traffic/conversions are up then you’ll know it’s a hit.

2. Timing Is Everything

Like everything in life, it’s all about timing. The timing of your ads is no different in order to optimize your PPC campaign for summer.

One of the best parts of summer are the longer days and this should be reflected in your ad scheduling. Since the days are longer and the nights are shorter, we recommend adding two hours to the beginning and end of your ad schedule.

This way you can now compensate for the longer days and not lose out on potential business.

But do proceed with caution… don’t burn in the summer heat.

Like with mobile, keep an eye on the analytics to make sure this adjustment is indeed effective.

3. Freshen Up Your Campaigns

Not only does your wardrobe need a new summer look but so do your PPC campaigns.

Time to put the Mother’s Day ads on the back burner and focus on more summer related products such as BBQ equipment, sunglasses, sunscreen, and the list goes on.

Especially for summer related products or services, this is your time to shine.

Even if your product or service isn’t directly summer related doesn’t mean you can’t give your ad copy a fresh new look. Add bright summer colors to your ads themselves and using words like “summer discount” or “stay cool for summer” to give them that fresh summer look and feel.

4. Keep Out The Fraudsters

Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean the fraudsters are too busy tanning by the pool to click on your ads.

What exactly do we mean by fraudsters?

• Your competitors – yes, there’s nothing stopping them from clicking on your ads while hosting their annual summer BBQ..
• Click farms – a large scale operation dedicated click fraud, usually hired by your competition to remove your PPC ads from search engine results.
• Bots – 50% of all internet traffic is from bots. These bots can easily be used to click on your ads…

Bots and click farms never sleep so either should the protection on of your pay per click campaigns.

It’s a small price to pay to ensure that each and every click is coming from real potential customers.

ClickCease blocks click fraud on your Google and Bing Ads (including GDN and YouTube) in real time using our sophistcated algorthims. Known sources of fraud are blocked instantly, and behaviour that we flag as suspicious is highlighted for your attention so you can choose to block or not.

The ClickCease dashboard also provides comprehensive detailed reports that give you a 360 degree view of each and every click on your paid ads. This also includes our unique visitor session recordings for each ad click.

For clicks flagged as fraudulent but not blocked, our Automatic Refund Claims Agent even files reports for you every two months for Adwords credit. Some of our customers receive refunds of hundreds of dollars.

Not only will this prevent your advertising budget from melting in the hot summer sun but will save you immense time and money so that you can focus on enjoying your summer.

Final Thoughts

Summer is coming, it’s time to optimize your PPC campaign by following these tips and tricks to help improve ROI.

By focusing more on mobile, adjusting your timing, and freshening up your campaigns will help to ensure your summer ppc marketing is in tip top shape for this summer season.

Remember to keep an eye on your adjustments by checking the analytics to make sure these new tactics are working.

After you’ve spent all this hard earned time and money to freshen up your campaigns take the final step and protect your ppc campaigns from fraudsters with third party anti click fraud detection softwares like ClickCease.

The post 4 Tips to Optimize Your PPC Ad Campaigns for Summer appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

Is the market saturated? Well, there are a lot of agencies for sure. But you’ll be pleased to hear there is plenty of work to go around. It’s just a case of knowing where and how to find clients for your PPC agency…

I’ve had plenty of experience sourcing clients for my own digital marketing business. And when it comes to finding clients looking for pay per click (PPC) management, many of these same techniques apply. 

So, let’s start right at the beginning.

1. Optimise your brand

First things first. How does your shop front look? And by that, I mean your website and your social media profiles.

If you’re setting up as an agency and you want to attract business, you will need:

• A nice simple website explaining what you do, with your contact details easy to find
• Your Linkedin profile updated and optimized for your target market

You should also ensure you are set up as a legal entity in whichever country you operate from. Whether this is an LLC, limited company, sole trader, or other form of local enterprise, don’t skip this step.

Why are these steps so important?

Firstly, a good web presence shows potential clients that you are two things.

1. You’re real
2. You can be held accountable

No one wants to hand over money to a faceless non-geo-specific profile they found on Facebook. 

And your website and social media are going to be like your calling cards moving forward. You’ll link to them in your email signature or when you’re pitching for work – so make sure they reflect your professionalism and experience well.

2. Get your certifications in order

If you’re going to be pitching for new clients as a search engine marketer, it is highly advisable that you get your certs from Google and Bing.

It takes a couple of hours of study and answering questions, and you do need to update annually. But once you’ve earned that badge and you wear it with pride on your website, you will have a solid advantage when it comes to winning new business.

Links here:

Google Ads certifications

Bing Ads certifications

Facebook Ads certifications

Do you need all of them? Well, of course, that depends entirely on the service you’re going to offer.  

Startup digital marketing agencies might want to build on their experience and qualifications over time. Pitching for new clients and doing the actual work of managing PPC ads is time-consuming stuff, so it can be your strategy for the long term.

Talking of which…

3. Define your offer and your strategy

When setting up a new business, outlining exactly what you can offer and how you will build it is key to your success.

And this understanding is also key to helping you find new clients for your fledgling agency.

• What services do you offer
• What services are you aiming to offer in the near future
• Is there a package you can include that might be tempting to potential clients
• Do you aim to target a specific industry, i.e., finance, e-commerce, legal, etc?

There is nothing worse than trying to be everything to everyone but then falling short across the board.

And second worse to that scenario is offering everything and only getting the work in an area you’re not that confident in.

So before you pitch anyone, build a good strategy and a solid offer.  

4. Define your contract and your pricing

Now that you have defined your strategy and your business offering, this is where you come to the nitty gritty. Price lists are essential to help you offer your service consistently (of course, you can be flexible and open to negotiation). And contracts can make things much easier for you and your new clients.

PPC marketer pricing

All agencies are different, and you might have your own preference.  

Do you charge per hour, per campaign, on a percentage basis, or on a monthly retainer?

Are you going to charge setup fees? 

This will likely depend on several factors, such as your previous experience with managing pay per click, your location in the world, and even the industry you’re targeting.

For the amount of work that goes into managing a PPC campaign, it’s a good idea to charge a monthly fee or percentage of ad spend – for example, at least 10%.

PPC contract

As well as your price list, it’s also a good idea to create a sound contract for your potential PPC clients.

As well as looking more professional, it also allows you to define things such as: 

• Service provisions
• Delivery time frames
• Billing cycles
• Contract lengths
• Pricing for additional services
• Non-disclosure agreements

This is just an overview of what your contract will include, but you can always refer to readily available PPC contracts online.  

5. Who are your clients?

As a freelance PPC marketer or a small digital agency, you will often take whatever you can find. Especially at the start.

But, even if this is the case, having an ideal target customer in mind is always a good idea. This can help you with your own targeted marketing and makes your job of sourcing clients much easier.

For example, you might have worked with a real estate firm in the past, handling their marketing in-house. Now, you decide to take your marketing expertise and manage PPC ads for… Well… Anyone.

But you probably already know what works for real estate companies with regard to search marketing. But you know very little about how legal firms run effective PPC campaigns.

Start with what you know, and aim to build your client list as you go on.  

This will allow you to build your own confidence, a good testimonials list, and maybe even start getting recommendations. 

Sourcing new clients from a broader industry set is a good goal in the long term. 

6. Craft your pitch

Whichever channel you’re targeting to find your clients, you’ll need to have a good pitch.  

Yes, a blanket proposal is very useful when approaching multiple potential clients.  

Keep that pitch short and sweet, and prepare to follow it up again next week (or within a few weeks at most).

If you want to up your hit rate, make a customised pitch. 

You’ll need to already have a dialogue open with the marketing manager and an understanding of the pain points they’re experiencing. With this info, you can draw up a personalised strategy, highlighting optimisation potential, estimated delivery, and even personalised pricing.

7. Where are your clients?

Now we’re getting down to the business end of finding new paying clients for your PPC agency.

As you’ve focused on a specific industry (right?), you can work out how to target those clients directly.

Social media 

For many industries, Linkedin is a great place to find clients. There is a whole world of potential for those prepared to put in the time, build a network and create regular content designed to attract your potential clients.

It’s not just Linkedin, of course. People find clients also on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. 

But Linkedin is where business people network, and pitches are part of the deal here. There is a whole world of information about pitching on Linkedin, but put simply:

• Don’t connect and pitch – build your list and be useful with regular informative content
• Search for hashtags related to your industry, for example, #marketing, #startupbusiness, etc
• Build relationships and offer assistance when relevant

Pay per click (PPC)

Let’s be honest, you’re in paid search marketing. Running a PPC campaign to find new clients is what you do…

Is it the best way to find yourself new clients? Again, that depends.

If you’re targeting SMEs, especially those with small decision-making hierarchies, the answer is probably yes.

But, if you’re aiming for larger corporate accounts or brands, you will most likely need to focus on direct selling or accounts-based marketing techniques.  

As a digital marketing agency, it’s important to be aware of the issue of click fraud on programmatic marketing channels. The problem of fake clicks on your paid ads is a growing problem and one that can be fixed easily by using fraud prevention software such as ClickCease.

If you’re targeting your own clients using PPC, try the free trial of ClickCease to see for yourself the volume of invalid clicks out there. 

Read more about click fraud here.

Email marketing

Ah, email marketing. It’s a fine art, and it relies very much on the quality of the data you have on your prospects.

Without going into too much detail, you’ll need to build a good database of potential clients, including names, job titles, email addresses (obviously), and even contact phone numbers.

Craft your pitch and use automated email scheduling software to get your message out there. MailChimp is a popular option, although I like to use SendPulse, which has a good free package with options for customisation.

Direct outreach

What better way to find PPC clients than by approaching people who are advertising on Google? There’s no harm done by asking people how their ads are performing or if they have the time to optimise them.

You might find someone who knows their ads could do better or feels like they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.

Another way to do direct outreach is to find a directory of local businesses and approach them via email or phone call. This can be time-consuming, as you’ll need to build a list of names and contact details.

But done right, this can be an effective source of new clients.

Referrals

If you’re already working with a client who digs your work, why not ask for a referral? By letting an existing client know that you are open to additional work and, if they can recommend anyone, you might just find another gem.

Thought leadership

Creating content designed to help your target audience is a solid long-term method to win clients. This is where having your own website comes into play, as you’ll be hoping to attract traffic to your site.

Offering reports, advice, guides, and how-to’s is all tried and tested.

The problem is that this doesn’t yield instant results. But, alongside a more quick win strategy, it’s a good idea to work on creating a regular blog or publishing somewhere like Medium. 

8. Drop the jargon

Marketing, like all modern industries, comes with its own language. You might be entirely conversant, but it pays to be aware that not everyone speaks that language.

Of course, this will depend on who you’re talking to. The marketing manager for a large local business may well be up to speed on terms like ROAS, CTR, and conversion tracking.

But if you’re trying to seal the deal with mom’s local handmade pottery biz, you will likely need to dumb it down a little. 

Speaking plain English (or whatever your language is) will minimise the chances of losing a client because they don’t know what you’re talking about.

Or, if you are a heavy jargon user, be sure to explain it and help your client to get up to speed. 

9. Added extras

Some extras should come as standard, and some you can charge for.

Those that should come as standard include:

• Campaign audit: Taking a look at the current campaigns and fixing any errors should be part of the onboarding process
• Weekly reports: Showing the client how the campaign is progressing and highlighting areas that need addressing
• Fraud prevention: Stopping invalid clicks on paid ads will improve both conversions and ROAS. ClickCease offers the industry-leading fraud prevention package – and you can try it for free too.

Services you can charge extra for include:

• Keyword research: The bread and butter of any search campaign. It can take a while to build a good keyword list. If your client hasn’t done their research, you might need to dig into the search terms and keywords for them
• Ad copywriting: Should you charge extra for writing the ad copy? This is a tricky one as the copy does make a big difference to the final result and may be considered an essential part of PPC ad management. If writing copy isn’t your specialty and you need to hire a writer, this is definitely an optional extra you can charge for
• Additional services: If you’re offering things like search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, or other content management services, then these will all be optional extras. Focusing on your specialty should still be your focus, especially at the start

10. Be consistent with your pitching

If you’ve set up a strategy for pitching clients, stick to a regular pattern. For example:

• Take half an hour to approach potential connections on Linkedin
• Spend twenty minutes adding local businesses to your spreadsheet
• Send a monthly email with some news or information to subscribers or previous contracts, NOT selling your service
• Create a blog post for your site or a magazine
• Work on your targeted PPC ads

By putting aside a few hours a week, every week, you can build your client list for your business in no time.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that sometimes a client will go live months, sometimes even a year or so after the initial pitch. So consistency and maintaining visibility are key in the long term.

You will likely find that you adapt and change your approach as you find out what works. And as you get more experience with winning clients for your marketing agency, you’ll be able to optimise both your own campaigns and those of your clients.

The takeaway

There are plenty of companies out there looking for marketing help. Knowing where to find these businesses and make them your clients involves multiple strategies and lots of consistency.

If you’re wondering how to set up a pay per click business, or if it’s worth doing, then be aware that it will take time to build that client list. Celebrate the wins, but keep on building every day – even when you have a good client on board.

Remember to protect your PPC ads with ClickCease. Sign up today for free.

The post How To Get PPC Clients For Your Agency appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

PPC management software can be the difference between a successful and cost-effective campaign or blowing your budget on nothing. And as it’s a full-time job managing even a relatively small PPC campaign, these software packages can pay for themselves pretty quickly.

We’ve taken a look at software to manage your digital marketing recently, so if you’re looking at how to optimise your SEO or social media campaigns, take a look. 

In this post, we’ll be looking exclusively at the best software to manage PPC campaigns. We’re not going to make this an exhaustive list, as there are plenty of those out there. Instead, we’ll focus on which PPC management software packages we think are the best in class. 

If you’re looking at the best PPC tools to optimise your paid ad campaigns, you might be wondering how these packages can work for you and what are the main things they cover.

What does PPC management software cover?

You’ll probably already know how much planning and analysis are involved in PPC ad management. It might be switching up your bids, adjusting under-performing keywords, fixing your quality score, or compiling reports on performance. 

The PPC management software options on this list tackle a fairly comprehensive spread of issues that you might run into, with some of them being quite broad in their coverage. 

• Optimisation suggestions
• In-depth data insights and analysis
• Quality score tracking
• SEO and SERP rank tracking
• Workflow management
• Competitor analysis
• Click tracking and ad fraud prevention

That’s a lot of stuff to take into consideration for any given PPC campaign. But, you’re reading this so you’re obviously trying to work out which of these challenges can be solved in a cost-effective way…

Enough rambling. You’ve come here to find out which is the best PPC software tools, so let’s get to it.

The best PPC management software

1. Opteo

Prices: From US$97 per month

Free trial available? Yes, 1 month!

Opteo is built specifically for Google Adwords, and is designed to handle the fiddly tasks that eat up the majority of a marketers time. By monitoring your ads, it makes improvement suggestions and can handle optimising multiple campaigns making it essential for digital ad agencies.

For business users, Opteo is like having a PPC expert working in your office (although you don’t have to take it on team building weekends and it doesn’t doesn’t need heroic amounts of quality coffee to keep going).  

Using machine learning to optimise your PPC campaigns, Opteo takes the guesswork out of things such as managing your budget, adjusting bidding strategies, keyword opportunities and analysis and insight. 

As we’ll see, there are other more comprehensive PPC software options but they’re substantially more expensive. But if you’re looking for a PPC tool that will boost your Google Adwords results without breaking the bank, Opteo is a solid choice.

2. Google Analytics

Price: Free

Of course Google make one of the best PPC tools for managing your campaigns. After all, the more success you have with your PPC, the more money you’re likely to spend. So what makes Google Analytics such a valuable PPC management software package?

Simply, it offers an incredibly in-depth look at your site visitors, allowing you to understand where your traffic is coming from, and their behaviours during their visit. View things like bounce rates or the most viewed pages, location of visitors and even things like their demographics/interests.

If you want to understand how your site is performing, what is attracting visitors and what isn’t working, you’ll probably use Analytics. 

And best of all, it’s totally free as part of Google’s PPC management tools…

3. Optmyzr

Price: From $249 per month for up to 25 ad accounts

Free trial? Yes – 14 days

Offering comprehensive management of your PPC campaigns on multiple platforms, Optmyzr is excellent tool for digital marketers. There are few of these sorts of packages on the market, so why would you choose Optmyzr over the others?

Firstly, it’s created by a team of ex-Google employees, so you’re getting that little bit of insider knowhow. And with a full featured suite of PPC management tools, Optmyzr can fine tune your ads and give you insight to really max your ROAS. It also works on all the major PPC platforms including Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Amazon and Facebook Ads, making it a pretty crucial addition to any digital marketing agency.

However, one black mark against Optmyzr, compared to some competitors anyway, is the price.

With Optmyzr starting at $224 per month, it’s definitely more expensive than similar PPC management packages. Although it is undoubtedly one of the best PPC tools, it’s not aimed at SME’s in particular, but marketing agencies looking for a suite to handle their PPC ads across multiple campaigns and platforms.

There are essential features such as automated A/B testing for ads, which helps you manage a stack of campaigns and extract the best performing. There is also a historical quality score tracker, which is a unique feature that can be very useful.

The platform uses machine learning to optimise it’s recommendations and improve suggestions for your campaigns. There are also regular updates and new features rolled out, plus the all important analysis and insights. 

With Optmyzr you can also automate setting up multiple campaigns, doing your keyword research and fix issues with your campaigns with one click. If you’re an enterprise level PPC marketer, you’re probably wondering about getting Optmyzr or Adzooma. Between the two, there isn’t much difference. It might come down to the volume of clients you’re handling, with Optmyzr better suited to larger portfolios, with 25 accounts for starters.

4. Report Garden

Price: From $250 per month (10 clients, unlimited reports)

Free trial: Yes – 7 days

As any digital marketer worth their salt knows, insight and analysis is one of the most invaluable factors when running a PPC campaign. Report Garden is one of the most fully featured PPC tools, offering plenty of options for different data and displays.

With an easy to use UI, you can create reports for your clients or for your own consumption, with nice visual features such as charts and graphs. It’s also quite simple to set up an ongoing automated report to whomever needs to see it, so that the person paying for that PPC campaign can see at a glance what is going on.

When managing multiple PPC campaigns across multiple platforms, Report Garden can aggregate all of this data into one platform, minimising your chances for headaches. 

Get insights from Google Analytics, Facebook Insight, Mailchimp, Taboola, and Twitter or Linkedin Ads (among others) and see how effective your campaigns are at a glance. Report Garden also allows you to display your data as either a presentation (such as PowerPoint), or convert the information to a PDF or other easily shareable files.

If cutting the time it takes to put together a report is something you’d happily pay money for, then Report Garden is definitely going to be one of the best PPC tools for you…

5. SEM Rush

Price: From $99.95 per month, for one user and up to 500 keywords to track

Free trial: Yes, 7 days

One of the most fully featured digital marketing software tools, SEM Rush is a top choice for both PPC and SEO managers, with a ton of research analysis options. When it comes to things like keyword research or content ideas, it’s a solid tool that justifies it’s price tag.

As a competitor research tool, SEM Rush is a very solid option. Analyse your website content, research and find keywords, check on your competitors traffic and keyword bidding and understand how to build more traffic (both paid and organic).

As if that isn’t enough, SEM Rush offers a pretty nice PPC Advertising Toolkit, which is quite full featured. Offering pretty in depth market analysis, a funky keyword finding tool and some best in class keyword tracking, you can’t accuse SEM Rush of not providing value for money.

In fact, working for a digital marketing agency, or a large company, you’ll easily get your money’s worth with SEM Rush. SME’s might not see the value in it as a PPC tool, particularly in the early days, but make no mistake that this is a mighty piece of kit for all manner of online research and optimisation.

6. Ahrefs

Price: $99.95 per month, for annual contract.

Free trial?: No, but you can check it out for $7 for a week

Is Ahrefs better than SEM Rush? It’s a tough call, but there are a lot of things going for this increasingly popular search management tool.

First, Ahrefs is second only to Google for search crawlers online, meaning it has a lot of data and analysis.

And secondly, Ahrefs has a lot of nifty free keyword and backlink research tools, meaning it’s growing in popularity. In fact, more marketers are relying om Ahrefs for their content research.

With Ahrefs you can track backlinks, keyword rankings and do in depth competitor research too. It doesn’t have the keyword data that SEM Rush has (which apparently has more than double the data in it’s database)

Between Ahrefs and SEM Rush, it’s a tough one to call. Some prefer SEM Rush for it’s bigger keyword database, but Ahrefs is increasingly becoming one of the main SEO and PPC research tools for many.

The best way to work out which is best is sign up for their trial. Ahrefs offer a 1 week trial for $7.

7. iSpionage

Price: From $59 per month

Free trial? You can sign up for a free account, with 10 free reports per day and 3 free alerts

While we’re on the subject of competitor research tools, let’s take a look at iSpionage, which fits more specifically under the PPC management software heading. This is a more focused tool than SEM Rush, built specifically for competitor research and with some very useful features to help maximise your PPC campaign results.

If you’ve been wondering how your competitors can do that, iSpionage might have the answers. For example, it can identify the keywords used by your competitors, their monthly budget and even get an insight into how they manage their PPC campaigns. 

You’ll also be able to access competitor keywords, and sort them by most effective or profitable. And with iSpionage’s unique AIE metric (Ad Effectiveness Index), you can even work out which keywords you should be targeting yourself…

If that’s not enough, you’ll also be able to check a list of your competitors SEO search terms, get updates if your competitors change their strategy and analyse landing pages and funnel journeys. 

8. Leadpages

Price: $25 per month for one site and free hosting.

Free trial? 14 days 

There are a lot of options when it comes to landing page building software, but we think Leadpages just about shades the competition. And when it comes to building an effective PPC campaign, a good landing page is one of the most critical points.

So, why Leadpages? There are just a few little extras that make it slightly more worth the money. And as you’ve seen, almost all of these PPC management software packages cost a few pennies per month, so getting value for money is a deal breaker.

Like all the landing page builders, you can drag and drop and easily design your perfect landing page. Add CTA buttons, customise the colours and easily customise images and videos.

Leadpages goes one up over Unbounce with the extra templates available, offering 160 templates to Unbounce’s 125. Yes, not all of these are usuable (on both platforms) with some requiring an extra spend to access. 

Beyond landing pages, you can also create pop-ups and opt-in forms, and easily create A/B test versions of your landing pages. This last feature is an extra on Unbounce, so this could be your sweet deal maker. 

9. ClickCease

Price: From $50 for up to 5000 clicks on 1 domain

Free trial? Yes, 7 days

Running a PPC campaign is hard enough, without having to worry about whether or not your audience is actually a mafia run botnet or a competitor who is trying to manipulate your ad spend. But when you consider that around 25% of internet traffic is fraudulent, from bots to click farms, it is indeed something you need to worry about.

Yes, you read that right. Up to 25% of your PPC ad spend is being spent on non-genuine internet traffic. 

Click fraud prevention software such as ClickCease is designed to ensure you don’t miss out on your intended audience. By proactively preventing fraudulent clicks, using click fraud prevention software means there is little or no disruption to your PPC ad campaign, and no need to chase up Google for your invalid click refund.

As far as PPC management software goes, using click fraud prevention is becoming more important, with the amount of fraudulent traffic growing annually.

Using machine learning and a whole stack of algorithms, ClickCease detects suspicious IP addresses, VPNs, geo-locations and bot behaviour. We also collect data on keywords, campaigns and locations that are subject to fraudulent behaviour.

In 2020, if you’re running a PPC campaign, you shouldn’t be without click fraud prevention software too…

Best PPC tools for the job?

This is literally the tip of the iceberg when it comes to PPC tools, and you’ll find endless lists of the best PPC management software (with new additions every month!). Of course, it depends on your requirements, but we think that each of these is a worthy addition to your PPC tool kit. 

Choosing your PPC tools will depend mostly on the size of the job at hand and the budget you’re dealing with. As an agency or large business handling thousands of dollars a month in ad spend, almost all of the above will be essential purchases.

Those managing SMEs and startups may be wondering where their money is best spent for the best tools for the job. We’d highly recommend Optmyzr and Leadpages if nothing else when getting started. But we think Ahrefs is great, and of course our own service, ClickCease is an essential addition; both of these are tools that become more important as your business grows.

The post The best software for PPC success appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

Assuring your clients that you know how to manage their brand and their budget is crucial to building long term relationships. You might not get asked all of these questions in one sitting (that would be a very demanding client), but they’re definitely the type of tricky questions you will be asked eventually.

So, in the name of proper preparation, these are the big questions you should be prepared for as a PPC manager or digital marketing agency.

How will you make me stand out above my competitors?

Reason number one for hiring a PPC manager or agency is to raise a business’ profile. It might be bringing in extra traffic, or it might just be raising the visibility of an ad campaign on social or paid search.

As a PPC manager, you’ll be asked this question pretty much every other client pitch (or a variation of it). Other ways of asking this might be, ‘Can you get me on top of Google for $X per day/week?’, or ‘How much should I be spending to get my ads above X’s?’

Most pay per click marketers will use a mixture of different campaigns and bidding strategies, dayparting and some clever use of keywords, negative keywords and exclusions to ensure that ads are as effective as they can be. 

On top of this, a PPC marketer might suggest optimising landing pages or discuss how social media can tie into search campaigns for best results. 

And of course, standing out above your competitors is going to be industry specific. So, understanding the business goals, industry in general and budgetary constraints are key factors in ad success and the main responsibility of the ad manager.

What strategies do you use to manage keyword bidding?

The bare bones of any PPC campaign is keyword bidding. And, with so many options for bidding strategies, understanding which is best for the business goals can be a task in itself. 

Clients are mostly going to be interested in value for money and seeing results. Once again, this is going to be industry and product dependent, but being able to explain how you intend to use a variety of bidding strategies, or how each one might be of benefit to the clients end goals will help put their minds at ease.

Probably the main skill of any PPC manager is knowing how keyword bidding strategies affect everything from ad spend to return on investment.

Do you have a strategy for updating or optimising under performing ads?

Digital marketing is a results driven industry, and even the experts don’t get it right the first time. Having a strategy for keeping tabs on under performing campaigns and updating or optimising them usually comes down to a few key practices.

• A/B Testing
• KPI monitoring
• Budget/bidding tweaking

Of course, there are a multitude of factors that can have an impact on underperforming ads. 

But, having an answer and an understanding of what you need to be watching for, and how to build on that, is going to be key.

In general, a PPC manager will use A/B testing with both the ad copy and ad targeting to work out what’s hot and what’s not. Clients will mostly want to have a handle on how you’ll make sure they’re not losing too much money on poor targeting in the early days of your account management. 

How do you ensure a good CTR or ROAS for my business?

Clicking is the name of the game, but just getting clicks isn’t the whole story, of course. Getting those clicks to convert to genuine customers is a responsibility that lies with both the marketer and the business owner. So, this is where cooperation between the two parties on a regular basis is going to be crucial.

Getting that CTR up depends on the ad content and targeting, so PPC managers will need to be on top of their game here.

But, those conversions will come from a combination of a good product (or unique offering for a popular product). And also a well optimised landing page or site. 

Helping businesses understand the joint responsibility here is important, and their cooperation can be key to performance.  

Another factor to bear in mind with clicks and ROI is the prevalence of fraud in PPC marketing. Data shows that 1 in 4 clicks on paid ads are from fraudulent sources. This includes automated traffic and malicious human parties. 

Using fraud protection is a clever marketing hack that can boost your key metrics, including return on ad spend (ROAS). The way it works is, with fraudulent clicks blocked, your ads have a higher chance of clicks from genuine customers. So you have in the region of 25% more chances of making a sale. 

What is your strategy for retargeting?

Getting new customers is great, of course. But repeat custom, or targeting people who have bought a similar product before, is fast becoming a focal point for PPC campaign managers. 

Savvy business owners are most likely to ask how you’re targeting the bottom of the funnel to get them back into the funnel again. For most, retargeting means using display ads or native ads across a variety of platforms, including Google Display Network, Facebook/Instagram, Microsoft Ads, and some of the niche RTB platforms. 

Again, this is most likely going to be industry and campaign-specific, but having an overview of retargeting and remarketing tactics is going to put your clients’ minds at ease. Generally, though, it will involve a strategic chat with your client to understand how and where they want to do their retargeting and how much of their budget they have to spend on it. 

How do you protect against fraud on my ads?

Increasingly, business owners and digital marketers are becoming aware of the prevalence of fraud in programmatic marketing. Known as click fraud or ad fraud, the practice involves clicks on your paid ads that have no chance of converting and is estimated to impact around 90% of all PPC campaigns.

So, what do you do to protect ad campaigns from fraud?

The easiest way to automate fraud protection is by using ClickCease. As one of the original click fraud prevention solutions, ClickCease has a huge directory of known fraudulent sources and uses machine learning to stay ahead of the constant developments in fraud. 

As one of the best-known names in click fraud prevention, letting your clients know that their ads are protected by ClickCease will put their minds at ease.

Digital marketing in 2021

Programmatic marketing is constantly evolving and becoming more competitive. However, it still remains one of the most effective methods of promoting a business of any size to the whole world. 

The downside to this is the growth of fraudulent activity, which remains relatively unchecked. In 2020, it’s estimated that around $35 billion was lost to click fraud and ad fraud, with that figure predicted to rise into 2021 and beyond.

Professional PPC managers and digital marketing agencies looking to give their clients peace of mind are increasingly turning to companies like ClickCease. Give yourself the best chance of winning that next client pitch and sign up for a free trial of ClickCease today.

Find out more about click fraud and ad fraud in our complete guide.

The post 6 Questions PPC Managers WILL Get Asked appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

When it comes to getting the best results for your PPC campaign, understanding some clever tips can make a big difference. Our best practice tips for PPC campaigns in 2020 will include a few you might already know, but hopefully some clever hacks you might not be aware of.

We’ll assume you’re familiar with the basics of setting up a PPC campaign, but are looking for some effective hacks for the least amount of effort. All of our tips here will be black hat, that is, no shady techniques. And, we’ll also be looking at ways to beat those sneaky click fraudsters (after all, that’s what we’re all about here at ClickCease). 

1. Go Long (Tail Keywords)

This isn’t a new PPC campaign tip by any means, but focusing on long tail keywords is still one of the most effective ways to target a specific stage in the funnel. Reports suggest that targeting long tail keywords can result in boosting conversions by up to 30%.

Think about it: Going for generic attracts a bigger volume of clicks, but they might not all be interested in buying. The longer tail results tend to suggest people looking for a specific result, or those closer to a decision.

• Running shoes – 368,000 searches per month
• Best long distance running shoes – 6,600 searches per month
• Best running shoes for bad knees – 2,400 searches per month
• Best womens marathon shoes – 480 searches per month

Coming top of the SERPs for ‘running shoes’ is going to be hard work, with plenty of competition. And, to top that off you’ll also have a lot of browsing clicks on your ad, driving up your ad spend and lowering your return on investment.

Focus on a specialist or specific aspect of your service, and aim to entice those customers closer to a decision towards your business.

2. Negative Keywords 

We’ve spoken about negative keywords in a previous article. So if you haven’t read it we recommend checking that out after this one. Used together with your long tail keywords, adding negative keywords can be a very effective way to focus your marketing efforts, and is usually found in lists of top PPC campaign tips.

Sticking with our previous example of ‘running shoes’, you could eliminate unwanted clicks by adding terms such as:

• Cheapest/cheap/affordable running shoes
• Retro/novelty running shoes
• Nike (or other specific brand) running shoes

Google allows you to easily add negative keywords in specific campaigns, with up to 5000 words able to be added to each list.

3. Reward Your Top Performers

Have you got a few search terms that always perform well? One of the most simple tips for PPC success is to focus more efforts on these at the expense of less successful terms. This might sound super obvious, but cut back on the poor performers and give your top performing keywords room to breathe.

But, even if they’re doing well as they are, don’t be afraid to tinker with them. Adjust your bidding strategy and your budget regularly to see what works. You might find that even your top performers work better with some tweaks and customisation.

One way to understand which are your best performers is to keep an eye on the quality score on your Google Ads dashboard. Be aware that the quality score can be applied to the group, campaign or keyword, so if you have a campaign that is performing particularly well, you could channel your marketing energies to this broader selection.

However, the trick is to find those keywords which are good performers, but that aren’t super competitive or the most expensive option.  

The lessons you learn with your optimised campaigns and keywords can also be applied to other lower performing keywords as you adjust your ad campaigns.

4. Content is King

Your ad copy is crucial and really should be PPC best practice tip number one. If your ad content isn’t clear, if it doesn’t say the right things, or ignite the interest of your target audience, well… It just isn’t going to cut it.

Work out how to optimise your ad copy and say more with a lot less. You might need to hire a professional copywriter, especially if writing isn’t your thing. If you’re trying to cram in keywords, fluffy prose and outrageous claims, look at what others in your industry are doing.

Some of the most effective PPC ad campaigns use the most simple language. Remember, you have fractions of a second to get your message across, so if you’re explaining in your ad copy, you’ll lose people. 

5. It’s All in the… Timing

Do you run your PPC ads 24/7? Hopefully not, but if you do, be aware that you’re probably flushing quite a lot of money down the toilet. It is definitely best practice with PPC campaigns to work out the optimum time to display your ads and to either scale back your bids out of these hours, or switch it off completely.

As an example, you might be selling package holidays to families. But, would your target demographic be looking to make a purchase at 10am on a Tuesday, or at midnight on Sunday?

Your research based keywords, or lower cost search terms could be activated for some of the day. After all, plenty of people do their research in work hours (naughty). But, for those proven high volume and expensive keywords, it will be more effective if you identify the most likely time that your ad will be viewed. In this instance, possibly Saturday morning or a work day evening.

6. Bid Right

There are lots of different bidding strategies with all of the major PPC platforms, and choosing the right one for your end goals can be critical. On this blog we’ve looked at quite a few of the bidding strategies in depth, so we’ll just cover this in brief here.

Put simply, the different bidding strategies are best used for different for different end goals. 

• CPM (cost per mille/one thousand impressions): Is best for maximising impressions of your ad and boosting visibility
• CPC/CPV (cost per click/view): Ideal for optimising the cost you wish to pay per click or view on your ads or videos
• Maximise Clicks: A useful way to get the most out of a limited budget for individual clicks on an ad
• CPA (cost per acquisition): Designed for those looking to maximise their website conversions

Working with your marketing strategy, your budget and your advertising goals, you should optimise your bidding strategy so that it works best for you. 

7. Target Obscure Variations of Your KWs

A little bit of random doesn’t harm. In fact, with regards to PPC strategies, it can add a whole other dimension to your advertising campaign.

These obscure variations might be phrases or terms that only some people use, perhaps in specific locales or dialect. The trick here is that you’re targeting a market or a method that will probably yield a low search volume, but could be an interesting hook into a niche market.

For example:

Focus phrase or KW: Package holidays for families

Variations:

I need a holiday, where shall I go on holiday next, tell me where I should take my family in August, where can I go on a summer holiday that isn’t expensive

Focus phrase of KW: Running shoes

Variations:

Find me shoes that won’t break in six months, I need new trainers/sneakers for next week, shoes that are environmentally sustainable

You’ll notice in these that many of my suggested variations are optimised for voice search. In our marketing strategies for 2020 post, we looked at the fact that voice search is going to be a growing sector. 

Have fun with finding random search terms, experiment, see what works and what doesn’t. Ask your current customers how they use their voice search devices and what terms they use to find what they want and you might find some interesting results.

8. Use DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion)

Yes, we’ve got this far down the list before we come to a technical strategy. But, dynamic keyword insertion is a clever little feature, that is actually very easy to use and can be a useful way to switch up your ads. How does it work?

If you have a store that sells multiple products or services and you want to create an ad that adjusts to your customer search, you can add a snippet of code to your ad. This snippet will contain information that can be used to change the displayed keyword on your ad.

For example, if you run a store that sells coffee, you might want to switch your headline from:

Buy best quality {Keyword: Coffee}

To

Buy best quality {Java coffee}

Buy best quality {Italian coffee}

You can specify the keywords that get replaced and activated when setting up your ad. However, it is a feature that needs to be used with care as the copy needs to fit within the character limit and to also make sense when read. 

Using DKI is an interesting PPC campaign strategy, and one that could be a useful addition to your marketing in 2020.

9. Monitor Your Clicks

Whatever your industry or your marketing budget, it’s very likely that your ad will be affected by what Google calls invalid clicks. This catch all title refers to any click on your paid ad that isn’t from a genuine human, or multiple clicks from the same source.

As part of the best practice for any PPC campaign, keeping tabs on the sources of those clicks can save you a whole heap of money. In fact, with one in four clicks on paid ads (yup, 25%) estimated to be from automated sources, most marketers are paying out a sizeable chunk of their budget for no gain.

So, how can you protect against this?

The manual solution is to monitor the IP addresses, timestamps and user agents. This can help you to identify whether there has been automated or fraudulent activity from a specific source. However, this isn’t always the most effective solution, as things like VPNs or public networks can be a reason for multiple site visits. 

You can also specify your ad targeting to specific geographic areas, which can also limit your exposure to invalid clicks or click fraud. This isn’t 100% effective though as those sneaky bots can find ads targeting pretty much anywhere, regardless of their server’s geographic location.

Currently, the most effective method to safeguard against invalid clicks and click fraud is by using automated anti-click fraud software such as ClickCease. By incorporating this software into your PPC campaign strategy, you could find that you save anything up to 25% on fraudulent clicks. 

If you’re running a PPC ad campaign, especially one with a high budget, we strongly suggest seeing how much of a difference ClickCease can make. We offer a 14 day free trial, so you can see for yourself how effective a solution it can be.

The post 9 Best Practice Tips for PPC Campaigns appeared first on ClickCease Blog.

This occurrence is not uncommon. There are a lot of PPC/Search conferences annually but they are not all good. A good conference may just be what is needed to propel you and your website into the next level of success. This article has been created to give you a list of 8 of the best conferences to look forward to in 2019.

Converge 2019

This conference will be held from 19 Feb – 22 Feb, 2019. It will be held at Atlanta, Georgia. The whole conference will be sponsored by Converge consulting.

Converge 2019 will be a very special digital marketing conference to educate a lot of marketers and advertisers. The conference will last for three days. The conference will utilize the skills of different professions to inform attendees on different search and marketing techniques. The conference will comprise workshops, keynotes and breakout sessions

B2B Marketing Exchange

This conference will take place from 25 Feb – 27 Feb, 2019. It will be held at Scottsdale, Arizona. The conference will be sponsored by Demand Gen Report.

Anyone attending the B2B Marketing Exchange will expect to take part in different workshops and case studies. These will comprise about 85 sessions lasting six tracks. There will also be an award ceremony for the best marketers and campaigns.

The Revenue Summit

The specific date of this conference will be announced later. It is slated to be either in February/March 2019. It will be held in San Francisco California. It will be hosted by Sales Hacker.

Come learn how to improve sales by using the best marketing strategies which are available to you through technology. You will hear from the executives of different top marketing brands.

C3

This conference will be held in March 2019 but the specific date is yet to be announced. It will take place in New York. It will be sponsored by Conductor.

Conductor will provide you a very special conference. At this conference, you will be able to choose from different types of fields based on your preference. This will include strategic SEO, content marketing intelligence, and digital marketing. The secrets to better ad conversions will be revealed at this conference.

SMX West

This conference will be held sometime in March 2019. It will be hosted in San Jose, California and hosted by Search Engine Land.

This conference brings together the professionals in SEO and SEM. This conference is always fully-packed to educate the attendee on different things other than the basics.

Intelligent Content Conference (ICC)

This will be held on April 8-10, 2019. It will be held at San Diego, California and hosted by Content Marketing Institute.

This conference basically teaches how to integrate great marketing plans with technology. Attendees will have access to content from different marketing professionals.

LeadsCon 2019

It will be held from 4 Mar – 6 Mar 2019. It will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada and sponsored by Access Intelligence.

This conference is specially designed to teach how to find, nurture and convert qualified leads to grow the business. It is a great conference to educate SEOs, conversion optimizers, entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, and social media marketers.

Social Media Marketing World

This conference will be held on March 20-22, 2019. It will be held in San Diego, California and sponsored Social Media Examiner.

The conference is specially designed to educate different attendees on the best way to optimize the use of Social Media. Different businesses and websites utilise social media to reach more people and it is right to have the best knowledge about it.

Conferences can be great for you but you have to know the best ones to attend. That is what this article has provided you. Utilise the knowledge about these conferences and being to get better results.

The post 8 PPC/Search Conferences To Look Out For in 2019 appeared first on ClickCease Blog.