Behind every successful PPC campaign is a strong strategy.

First, there’s what I call the pre-click planning – all the things you need to do to set up your PPC campaign so it’s optimized for maximum exposure and clicks.

Then there’s what I think of as the post-click planning, which is your strategy of what you want people to see and do once they click on your ad.

I’ve broken the pre-click and post-click planning into two blog posts. In this first post, I’ll go over the pre-click, which is everything you do to set up your ad before people see it: setting the goals, doing keyword research and specifying ad extensions with Google Adwords.

Here are 6 things you should do to ensure your PPC campaign is set up correctly.

1.  Identify your objective 

If you don’t have a goal in mind when you’re planning your PPC campaign, it’s like driving without a destination. You need to understand and clearly define your goals and objectives so your campaign is effective and measurable.

Ask yourself: Are you wanting to build brand awareness? Gain conversions? Generate leads?

If you’re just starting out with PPC, knowing how to determine your goals can be daunting. You can begin with a broad objective, such as: “I want to increase revenue by 10% over the next quarter,” and drill it down further:  “To increase revenue we need 20 new clients,” and finally: “To get 20 new clients we need 100 qualified leads.”

When you know your objectives,  you’re ready to get started with the next phase of setting up your campaign.

2. Research keywords for PPC

Keyword research is essential for setting up a successful PPC campaign. With keyword research, you can target your ads based on what your audience is searching for online.

For example, if you discover that your target audience for your online 1980s toy store is searching for “vintage Cabbage Patch dolls,” you can create an ad with that specific keyword phrase so that your ad shows up in search engine results pages (SERPs).

There are various tools for keyword research. Two tools I find invaluable are Google Adwords Keyword Planner and SpyFu.

Google Keyword Planner
With Google’s Keyword Planner you can learn how to generate search traffic. Keyword planner allows you to enter your own keywords to see how well they will perform in searches.

Using the Google Keyword Planner you can research:

• Keyword ideas 
• Average monthly search volume for a specific period
• Search volume trends for a single keyword or group of keywords over time

Spy on Competitors with SpyFu
SpyFu allows you to “spy” on your competitors to learn what keywords they’re using in their campaigns. SpyFu gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how businesses like yours are running their campaigns. You can learn exactly which keywords other businesses in your industry are targeting.

You’ll also see which keywords they’re actually ranking for and approximately how much money they’re investing in each one.

When you know what your audience is searching for, how relevant your selected keywords are, and what your competitor is doing, you’re on your way to an effective PPC campaign.

3. Set up keyword matching

Keyword matching is based on certain parameters you choose so that your ad will appear when people enter specific search terms.

The options you can choose from are:

• broad match
• modified broad match
• phrase match
• exact match

As I’ve talked about in a recent video, I recommend not using broad match keywords unless you’re very familiar with keyword matching. Incorrect matching can be the difference between success and failure in your campaign and a reasonable CPL.

• Modified broad matches are more narrow than standard broad match. A modified broad match keyword might be something like “pancake recipe” which matches to “recipe for pancakes.”

• Phrase match allows your ad to show for the exact phrase entered and other keywords before or after the phrase. For example: “gluten-free pancake recipe,” or “pancake recipe with blueberries.”

• Exact match must match the user’s search in the exact order determined and with nearly the exact same keywords. So for example, a user would need to search for “pancake recipe” or “pancake recipes” specifically for your ads to show in this scenario.

4. Eliminate negative keywords

Negative keywords improve the relevancy of your ad. Including negative keywords in your AdWords campaign ensures that certain search terms don’t trigger your ad to show.

For example, if your ad is for a pancake house, and someone is searching for “pancake makeup,” you can set “makeup” as a negative keyword so your ad doesn’t show for people looking for this Old-Hollywood style of makeup. 

Keyword matching with negatives works differently than keyword matching with regular keywords.  Broad match keywords and negative broad match keywords don’t behave the same. For example, if you enter in a broad match keyword as a negative, it isn’t nearly as broadly-matching as a normal keyword.

Negative broad match actually works more like modified broad match. All words in a negative broad keyword must be present in a search for the search to be blocked.

I recommend cleansing negatives at least a few times a week for new campaigns. This helps ensure that irrelevant searches are excluded from your account as quickly as possible.

5. Target by location (Geotargeting)

It’s a common mistake to have your geography too broad or too narrow, thus limiting the relevancy of your ad. There are a lot of different targeting methods so it’s important to be precise in where you want to target your ads.

With Geotargeting, you can target your ads so they only appear to customers in a certain location or set of locations that you specify.

Geotargeting with AdWords allows you to not waste ad dollars on clicks from people who are outside of your geographical reach. You can also exclude locations you don’t want to target.

There are also location targeting features that show ads based on whether someone has shown an interest in a location where they don’t live. You can do this by specifying:

• If a person includes a location name in a search
• When a person is searching on Google Maps
• When a person uses a country-specific domain

6. Include Google AdWords extensions

Ad Extensions are extra snippets of relevant information about your business that can be added to your AdWords text ads. These can include your business’ location, phone number, business ratings, and so on. There are many Google AdWords extensions.

• Call extensions allow you to display your business phone number directly in the SERP so people don’t have to go to your website to find your phone number.
• Sitelink extensions are additional links that you can add to your search ad. These allow searchers to see all your various offerings up front so their click is more relevant to their needs.
• Price extensions are mobile-only ad extensions and highlight your products and services with transparent pricing directly on the ad.
• Location extensions allow your your local ads to appear to customers so they can find and contact you more easily.
• Review extensions showcase your customers’ reviews.

Having a clear beginning objective followed by strong tactics makes for a strategic PPC campaign that gets results. 

Stay tuned for the next post about how to create your post-click strategy for optimal clicks and leads.

Have questions? Ask away in the comments below.