Advice needed on PPC for Lead Generation campaign

Hi cherry eyed
Any advice here is limited to what you have told us in this thread.
Call extensions work so yes add your contact no as a call extension.
The idea of split testing your AD text is correct , when you have data after a pre determined time set by you , maybe a couple of weeks see which had has the best CTR or conversion rate , pause the loser then write a new AD to try and beat the best AD which u have left active. Its pointless pausing an AD with 0 stats as you have no data to work with. In the early days data is everything in PPC so bid a bit higher to get your keywords as high as possible on google without breaking the bank.
I have never seen a keyword with a QS of 0 and have been doing this for 6 years, the lowest QS i have seen is 1/10 , i always pause keywords with a QS of <2/10 unless they convert well as they will not help the overall health of your campaign, pause these KW's and find new ones.

Heres a list of things you should be optimising on a weekly / bi weekly / monthly basis, again the time pre determined by you, all campaigns are different so if you have a great campaign going then not as much optimisation is required


1. CTAs to optimise
2. Site design to optimise
3. Keywords to optimise
4. Negatives to optimise
5. IP exclusions to optimise
6. Sitelinks to optimise
7. Callouts to optimise
8. Structured snippets to optimise
9. Ads (including extended) to optimise
10. Bids/CPC to optimise

Once all 10 optimised, it will be highly profitable!

Hope this helps
Mac

First thing I'd do is within your Adwords Ad Groups, click on keywords and select the Search Terms tab. These are the search terms that actually sent your clicks. Have a read over them and make sure they are on-point. If not then you need to look how you've created the keywords plus look at negatives to keep them under control.

Usually a new user with a new campaign will not be getting the type of traffic (search terms) they think they're getting.

On-site optimisation is important but if they keywords are ordinary than you'll be chasing your tail on the site.

There are 3rd party services which can handle call-tracking so maybe look into those - it's super important you track everything that you want to happen otherwise it's impossible to optimise the campaign. If you expect calls then look at a way to track them. I suggested in another thread that one way is to use a javscript to 'click-to-call' to show the phone number and setting up a Analytics Event to track those clicks. Not perfect but it's a partial solution.

This is my opinion but how I work: if you start off with too many keywords, overloading the campaign with phrase and exact matches, then you don't get enough data on each to make a statistically significant decision from the results - if search and click volumes are low. Simplify your campaign by using well planned broad modifiers and optimise from there. If your budget is small or search volume is low then this is more effective then trying to think of every possible combo with phrase/exact matching.

The other reason to do this is that you want the keywords you end up using to have a decent expected CTR as this significantly effects your Quality Score. You will get some clicks in position 4 for some markets but others you'll get no clicks. If you aren't getting clicks then you either have to get your bid to a place where you are going to get clicks or running that keyword is just going to hurt its CTR making it more expensive in future. This goes for keywords where you're sitting at less than position 4. If your CTR sucks then your QS will suck.

You really need to have a good think about the search terms (not keywords but search terms) that are going to your site. Are those search terms indicative of your ideal customer or is it just traffic? If not then work on the Adwords campaign itself; if they are then you can start fixing up the landing page.

Call outs and extra snippets aren't always good things either because you lose control over the flow of the customer's journey. They might increase CTR but they also might send them to a page on your site not designed to convert. Adding them to an ad that isn't being seen by who you want to see them is also pointless. That's why I'm stressing to make sure the search terms are spot on.

You can't have a phone number in your ad. Strange it was not declined but eventually it should be. That's what the call extension is for.


Now if you want people to fill a form instead of calling, then don't use the call extension.


Yes, pause ads that are under-performing. However, you need a statistically valid number of clicks to determine this. Saying 0% is of no value, not unless you have another ad that got 30+ clicks in the same number of impressions. Performance should also take into account the conversion goal (which could be filling a form, phoning, buying, downloading a file, etc). You are tracking the keywords and ads responsible for those that fill the form, right?


Bidding on competitor keywords can be expensive (I'm assuming you are talking about their company name or brand ie: Coke or something like that). Your QS is 0 (it should show -, not a 0, the lowest possible is 1) because Adwords does not have enough information yet to calculate a proper QS. However, you must have had some clicks since you say they are expensive (and I'm sure you are saying relatively speaking to other keywords). Therefore, your QS is likely low. Simple reason for that: people searching on the competition are already sold on them so they don't click your ad. Unless you can make a great argument to switch over to you, they won't and it's extremely difficult to switch someone over once they have a brand in mind and telling you so with their search.


There is so much more to PPC management I could fill a book. Basically, test different ads with different hooks that not only get higher CTR but also higher conversion rates. It's more involved than that actually since there's position to take into account, ad extensions and even the landing page among other things that can affect your campaign's effectiveness.

The idea behind having different ad groups is to separate keywords and thus ads into different themes and optimize for them. This maximizes your chances of getting clicks and conversions.

Say you are selling costumes. Wouldn't it be better to have a group for the Superman costumes and another for the Spiderman ones and another for the purple cow ones? Of course it will. This way you can target your ads to what the exact type of costume they are looking for instead of one generic ad as well as take the click to the appropriate page to what they were searching. That's the idea behind ad groups. The lazy way is to have the same ads in all groups but the lazy way is also likely costing you money.

The idea behind having different ad groups is to separate keywords and thus ads into different themes and optimize for them.

I've got 7 years experience doing lead gen in some very competitive industries ($30+ CPC).

One of the most common mistakes is not understanding the intent behind your targeted keywords.

Some keywords are research-focused, while others are quote-focused.

Your website should have multiple landing pages to present the right offer to your website visitor, depending on the intent behind the keyword they used to search for your service.

For example, some people may just want more info, so you give them a free buyers guide. You don't lead with asking them to request a quote. They will get a quote later once they trust your authority.

You also want to make sure your landing page follows the typical lead gen best practices (clean design, good copywriting, fast load speed).

What would help us give you better answers is to tell us:

a. What you're promoting
b. Show us your landing page
c. What your current cost per lead is

Once you have that info posted it'll be easier to diagnose the problem and give you a much better solution. Oh and let us know what the majority of your match type keywords are. Exact, Broad, Phrase, etc.