Updated September 5, 2023
When you are running a paid online advertising campaign in Google Ads, sometimes it can feel like a gamble with your budget. However, as you learn more and more about the platform you will see there are various ways to refine your account, ad groups, and more to ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck.
So you may ask yourself, is there an easy way to improve my PPC campaign? Keep reading to learn a quick and easy tip to boost your paid strategy.
But First, What is PPC?
Before we dive into our simple tip for improving your campaigns, let’s take a step back and define what PPC means. Pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising is a form of digital marketing that is used to send users directly to a specific website. In PPC, you are literally paying per click, meaning you pay for each individual click your ads receives. In other words, it is a way to “buy” visits instead of attracting them organically.
PPC ads are often seen on search engines and in social platforms, with popular ad platforms including Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Now The Answer to Improving Campaigns: Negative Keywords
If you didn’t already know, you can actually denote certain terms you wish not to show up during a search. These are called negative keywords and can be excluded for your campaigns. Negative keywords give you the opportunity to weed out queries of users who are not interested in your product or service. When you use these in your campaigns, you’re able to place a larger focus on users who are interested in what you offer.
We often evaluate our search terms to see what types of queries lead to clicks, and analyze if they lead to a conversion, if they are relevant to our services, and how much they cost per click.
Where You Can Apply Negative Keywords
There are three different areas you can add negative keywords, depending on the specificity of the terms. These include:
- Ad group level – To get specific in your paid marketing, at this level you can decide whether you want or don’t want specific keywords to apply to your individual ad groups in your campaigns.
- Campaign level – If you have campaigns that are relatively similar, you may be getting terms in one campaign that are more relevant to another campaign. Adding negative keywords here can help refine your list even more.
- Account level – You can also have a specified negative keyword list that allows you to add terms you do not wish to show at any time for any campaign.
Terms to Consider Adding
Depending on the type of products or services you are marketing, there are some broad terms that you can consider applying to your account-wide negative keywords list, especially if you are using broad match or broad match modifier keywords:
- Jobs
- Training
- Courses
- Free
- Tools
- Cheap
- News
- Freelancer
- YouTube
- And more
A lot of these terms will likely not bring in relevant or quality clicks, which can help you save some money to help produce better results in the long run.
And if you want to get extremely specific, you could remove terms that are more relevant to someone in a research phase versus a buying mode. So question-like terms such as “how,” “what,” “when,” “why,” or “who” can all probably go.
Pro Tip: It might be a good idea to negative out some of your competitors’ names as well, since when people are searching for a specific brand they are likely not interested in exploring other options.
Different Ways to Add Negative Terms
Just like you can add various keyword types to your ads, you can also do the same to your negatives:
- Broad (keyword)
- Broad match modifier (+keyword)
- Exact match ([keyword])
- Phase match (“keyword”)
5 Advantages of Adding Negative Keywords to Your PPC Campaigns
We’ve already emphasized how negative keywords are a simple and effective way to improve your PPC campaigns. Creating a negative list is easy to do and can provide a handful of benefits to your PPC marketing. These advantages include:
-
- Boosted Conversion Rate
- Increased Click-Through Rate
- Eliminating Unwanted Searches
- Improved Quality of Leads
- Reduced Costs
Additional Tips for Building an Effective PPC Campaign
With proper set up and management, PPC can drive qualified leads and sales for your business. Like we mentioned before, negative keywords are a great way to help increase your campaign performance.
If you want to improve your campaigns even further, we can help with that. Here are some tips that will take your campaigns to the next level.
- Creative and Captivating Ad Copy – Your headlines and descriptions are what drive users to click on your ad and potentially convert. Be sure to use unique details about your company and clear messaging to capture qualified users.
- Curated Landing Page Design – Increase your conversion rate and lower cost per lead with unique landing page copy and design. Don’t forget to align the landing page message with that of the ads.
- Keyword Analysis and Optimization – Use highly-relevant terms associated with your business or service to reach your target audience. To determine which terms will attract the most qualified users, use keyword research to determine average search volume and CPC.
- Refined Audience – Use the exclusive tools provided on PPC platforms to narrow down the targeting of your campaigns. You can refine by location, interest, language, demographics, and more. Doing so will help to drive more qualified leads.
- Google Analytics Lead Tracking – Track your campaign progress and performance with Google Analytics. Knowing which keywords are generating leads and clicks is vital in the upkeep of your campaigns.
- Ongoing Maintenance – Regular management is important to make sure your account is running smoothly and efficiently. Keep a close eye on budgets, keyword bids, search terms, and overall performance.
More Ways to Improve Your Paid Advertising
We have plenty of other helpful blog posts much like this one that you can read to help you along the way:
