Joy Gendusa: How four key methods can maximize your PPC performance

Joy Gendusa, founder and CEO, PostcardMania
Joy Gendusa, founder and CEO, PostcardMania

Google Pay Per Click advertising is a great tool for building brand awareness and generating leads online. It can be a bit of a complicated process for some, so it’s important to have a good foundation in the fundamentals of maximizing your PPC performance. 
There are four things you should be doing for your PPC to reach its full potential.
1.) Organize keywords to target niche prospect groups
The difference between an ignored ad and an effective ad is its relevance. An ad for jewelry gets ignored when in the search results of someone searching for remodeling services. The way you can make your ad the most relevant to prospects is by separating them according to the keywords they target and organizing them into groups.
The more thoroughly you organize your keywords, the more specificity you can use when creating your ad. That means your ads appear as if they are made specifically for the prospect, because they are.
Organizing your keywords does two things for your PPC:
1.) It makes your ads more relevant to prospects.
2.) It increases your click-through rate.
These are the exact factors that also give you a high quality score for your ads. A high quality score gets you better ad locations on websites and better ranking for search ads. It also gives you a lower cost per click for your ads. Google is rating your ad on how helpful it is to your prospect, based on its relevance and click-through rate.
2.) Create consistency throughout your PPC process
The PPC process is three steps: 1) Grab prospects’ attention with a relevant ad. 2) Direct them to a landing page that elaborates on what the ad offers. 3) Present a special offer as an incentive for prospects to fill out a contact form.
From your ad to your offer, your PPC marketing message and design should feel continuous and cohesive. It shouldn’t feel like three steps. If your landing page looks different than the image ad that attracted the prospect, the user will experience a disconnect.
You should simply build upon each step to build trust throughout the process, ultimately leading to the prospect filling out your contact form. That’s how you turn them into a lead for you to follow up with using your ongoing marketing methods.
3.) Optimize ads for phone responses
For most businesses, phone responses are a more valuable lead than the kind you get from contact forms, so it’s a great idea to optimize your ads to generate these calls. There are two ways to do this:
1) Make sure your number is displayed in all images and text ads.
2) Adjust your display times to only show ads when you’re in the office. This gives you the opportunity to get those calls and make the most of them when you’re open for business. Your phone responses don’t cost you anything. You only pay for clicks.
4.) Use ad extensions
PPC ads have a small character limit, but luckily Google offers Ad Extensions. These give you the ability to present important marketing information without adding to your character limit.
Six extensions they offer:
1.) Location Extension: Helps prospects find your office.
2.) Product Extension: Shows pictures and prices of your products.
3.) SiteLink Extension: Presents multiple pages from your website simultaneously.
4.) Phone Number Extension: Adds a click-to-call number beneath your ad.
5.) Social Media Extension: Shows how many +1s your Google Plus page has.
6.) Seller Rating Extension: Shows the rating your customers have given your company. Google only shows it if it’s four or fivestars.
Make sure you are taking advantage of every opportunity to improve your PPC efficacy. You’ll see the difference in your sales numbers.
Get Pay-Per-Click targeting options that get you more quality leads by going to www.postcardmania.com/google-adwords-targeting-options