You can make a lot of money with eCommerce PPC. You can waste a lot of money with eCommerce PPC.
The operative word in both sentences is “can.” You want to make money, not waste it, and waste is possible even with an eCommerce PPC services provider.
Here are some ways to avoid the waste.
Understand Your Audience
What gender is your audience? Are they shopping on phones or laptops? When are they shopping? Where do they live in the country? Are they married or single? What do they like?
All these and more are questions you should answer before launching a campaign, as you can target according to all of these – and other – criteria.
Understand Keyword Targeting
You can get an ad to show up for a relevant keyword. Great. But not all relevant keywords are money makers. Some will result in clicks but no conversions.
You need to understand this every bit as much as what keywords to go after, because you can set negative keywords to exclude from the campaign.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Slightly Aggressive with Bid Targeting
You know the expression, you need to spend money to make money? There is truth in it. If you aren’t aggressive enough in your bid strategy, you’ll never even get impressions for the keywords you selected.
If you know what keywords you do want to go after, don’t be afraid of spending a little more to get some impressions for those keywords.
Make Sure Your Landing Page Makes Sense
A bad landing page experience can easily sink a PPC campaign. You need to make sure that the landing page served clearly shows how the user can take the desired action.
There should be no doubt about what the landing page offers. If the user wants to buy a pair of shoes, that pair of shoes had better be front and center on the landing page.
Invest a Bit in Ad Copy
Ad copy is one of the lesser elements of an eCommerce PPC campaign, but it is a moving piece nonetheless and it does impact performance.
First and foremost, it should be accurate as to what’s represented or advertised, and it should be intelligible. At the very minimum.
But it should also catch the attention, if at all possible. So if your campaign is really not performing and all else checks out, remember that it could be the copy.
Utilize Other Targeting Criteria
You can get really deep with targeting in a PPC campaign, and targeting is what constitutes much of the difference between a campaign that performs and one that doesn’t.
Go deeper than your basic customer profile and make sure you’re closely defining your target buyer so you know whom to look for.
Remember That You Need to Pay for Clicks
A campaign may be getting impressions, but you should remember that if you’re getting impressions, you could be getting clicks.
This is good only if those clicks convert. Ideally you would eliminate clicks that didn’t convert. Remember, you need to pay for every click.
So if you’re getting clicks on impressions that routinely don’t produce, turn that around.
Don’t Be Deceived by ROAS If You’ve Hired an eCommerce PPC Services Provider
Lastly, remember that any ROAS of more than 1 is technically turning a profit – but don’t forget that the ROAS has to not only be positive, but to cover the management fee of an eCommerce SEO services provider.
So remember that ROAS can be deceptive. Once you see what the actual profitability is, subtract the management fee from that to make sure you actually are making money.
