9 PPC Best Practices to Increase ROI

If you’re in the business of selling goods online, then it’s important to know what your Return on Investment (ROI) is for each campaign. If you don’t know how much revenue a given campaign generated, then it’s impossible to tell whether or not that campaign was successful. This blog post will discuss 9 best practices for increasing your ROI using PPC advertising campaigns.


Tips for Increasing ROI from Your Ads

1.) Setup tracking

First and foremost, you’ll want to set up tracking for your eCommerce store. Without this step, it will be impossible to know how many conversions are coming from PPC ads that lead to purchases on the site.

If you’re using Google Analytics (and if not, why?), then make sure you’ve got conversion tracking enabled at all levels – product page views, shopping carts, as well as checkouts.

If you don’t track your PPC campaigns, then there’s no way to calculate ROI. Furthermore, if you aren’t tracking conversions for each campaign separately, it’ll be hard to tell which campaign is truly more successful than another.

Google Analytics offers an easy solution that allows advertisers to track the number of transactions and revenue generated by various campaigns with just a few clicks of the mouse. You can set up Google Analytics for free using this link.

Make sure that every ad has its own conversion goal set up to prevent confusion about whether or not any given sales are due solely to past advertisements. For example: If I run three different ads that all drive sales to my website, I can’t tell if any given sale was due to one ad Vs the other until I set up separate conversion goals for each.

If you’d like to learn more on what to track, check out our recommended Key Performance Indicators for Marketing Services!

2.) Set a goal for each campaign

Second of all, determine what success looks like before beginning any new campaigns or making changes to existing ones. It’s important that goals are specific so that they can easily be measured once implemented into PPC advertising efforts.

A good rule of thumb is setting a goal of two to three times the number of new customers acquired, but this can vary depending on your business. For example, a brand-new eCommerce store may want to focus more heavily on increasing traffic and building awareness, while an already established site may just want more sales.

3.) Maximize relevancy & minimize ad spend

Ad relevance is one of the most important factors in any Adwords campaign because it directly impacts Quality Score. Relevance is determined by how well each keyword phrase matches up with its corresponding ad copy/landing page combination.

The best way you can ensure optimal relevancy scores between keywords and ads/ landing pages is through proper account structuring.

Quick Wins for Your Campaigns

4.) A/B test everything

An often overlooked step in increasing ROI is by A/B testing various aspects of existing or new PPC efforts. This involves using analytics data from Google Analytics and Adwords Conversion Tracking (covered above) to determine how well different variables perform within a single PPC campaign.

By testing various variables within a single PPC effort, advertisers can determine which specific keywords are most effective at generating clicks and leads, as well as determining the optimal ad copy/landing page combinations to maximize ROI for each individual campaign. The more you test, the better your knowledge of how users interact with ads & landing pages will become – resulting in increased conversion rates over time!

5.) Look at competitors

Many advertisers make the mistake of only looking at their own PPC campaigns and ignoring what other companies in similar industries are doing. The best way to determine which keywords/bids, etc. work well is by comparing your numbers with others.

You can do this by using Google’s Keyword Planner Tool for researching keywords, along with the Adwords Auction Insights tool to research bids & Quality Scores of your competitors.

6.) Create a targeted landing pages for each ad

Every PPC advertiser wants more clicks and leads, but not everyone follows through on creating landing pages that entice users to convert. Creating a good landing page is much harder than simply uploading a single webpage or blog post because it requires an in-depth understanding of user intent, as well as what factors influence conversions the most.

In other words, you need to know exactly why each individual visitor decided to click your ad, so that they can be guided toward converting (whether it be subscribing to your newsletter, making a purchase, etc).

7.) Optimize ad copy

Optimizing your ads means making slight adjustments to the copy/design of each ad in order to increase conversion rates. Many advertisers mistakenly boost bids and/or change keywords but ignore the actual ad copy.

The truth is that ads with better headlines, descriptions & display URLs tend to perform much better than those without – so don’t neglect this important aspect of PPC!

8.) Use negative keywords, properly

Negative keywords are simply words or phrases that tell Google not to show specific ads when they appear on search results pages or within Gmail content (depending on how it’s set up).

They’re extremely useful because they allow advertisers with smaller budgets to avoid wasting money showing ads for irrelevant queries while still being able to capture all users who are likely to convert.

9.) Add CTAs on your landing pages

Call-to-action (CTA) buttons can help increase conversion rates by telling users exactly what you want them to do when they arrive on your landing page. This is typically something like “submit” or “buy now”.

However, as with everything else in PPC optimization, testing CTA’s is necessary because different ads & offers require unique calls to action that will not only generate more conversions but also improve user experience along the way.

If an ad with a specific offer works well, then try adding a CTA button for it just below where the ad appears, so that users know right away what sort of deal they’re getting if they click through quickly enough.


What Kind of ROI Will You See with a PPC Campaign?

Successfully implemented PPC campaigns can generate ROI in the form of revenue, leads, signups, and more. The exact return on investment for a PPC campaign is difficult to calculate due to the many variables. Looking at industry averages can help give us a sense of the baseline numbers we should look for when evaluating how well we’re doing.

Looking at the statistics, eCommerce is the second-lowest industry for CPC with an average of $0.88 per click. This is great because it means that if you’re set up properly, your ads should be more likely to show a better ROI by having more conversions for less money.

Alongside calculating your ROI, you may want to figure out your return on ad spend (ROAS), which is the ratio of revenue generated from your ads for how much you spend on them. You see, ROI takes into account a number of different costs, whereas ROAS is calculated by subtracting the cost of advertising from your total revenue.

This gives a much better idea of how efficient your campaigns are because it focuses only on what matters most, which is whether you’re making more money from ads than you spend to run them!

One avenue you might be interested in looking into is revenue sharing. Check out our post on Intro To Revenue Share Digital Marketing to learn more!

How to Boost Your Website Conversions


Final Thoughts on Increasing ROI from PPC Ads

In conclusion, successfully implemented PPC campaigns can generate ROI in the form of revenue, leads, signups, etc. through a wide variety of ways including increased site traffic & brand awareness which increases organic search results over time.

In conclusion, PPC campaigns can be very beneficial for eCommerce sites. If done correctly, they can generate a positive ROI by increasing traffic and conversions for less money compared to other forms of online marketing.

Make sure that you’re following the best practices mentioned above in order to see as much success as possible from your campaigns!


Disclaimer: WebCitz, LLC does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the information found on this page or on any web sites linked to from this page. This blog article was written by David W in his or her personal capacity. The opinion(s) expressed in this article are the author's own and may not reflect the opinion(s) of WebCitz, LLC.