If you’ve been working with the same brand on their paid ad campaigns since you can remember, or if you’re an e-commerce retailer who has used paid search for a long time, it could be time to refresh your PPC account.
Over the years you will have build up a huge number of keywords which highlighted your newest stock – products that may no longer be key lines. PPC managers will have come and gone, your business strategies will have evolved and in all the excitement, you may have overlooked your PPC account until you’re now left with a stale mess. You might even be advertising products you don’t sell anymore, disappointing your potential customers, and spending money unnecessarily
But how can you sort out your PPC account and clean up the cobwebs of non-inventory keywords and old campaigns? This post will look at a few techniques which will help.
When should you restructure your PPC Account?
It’s not only a long history that signals it’s time for a refresh. Here are some other key indicators it is time for a good spring clean:
- Your campaigns are too complex.
- Your campaigns aren’t doing well.
- Your taxonomies aren’t aligned with your campaigns.
- Your business needs have changed.
- You have a low click-through-rate because the ad groups are too generic.
- Money is being wasted on irrelevant keywords.
- You have high costs per click.
So what can you do about it? Follow our checklist to restructure your PPC account and clear the fog!
- Examine product themes.
Look at all the products that you are advertising and set them into themes. This will give you a top-level view which will help you to identify the categories you need to be targeting.
- Use relevant keywords.
Look at every single keyword and only keep those ones that are relevant to the campaign and to the products which you are focusing on. If you are using branded or generic terms, you need to make sure that you run separate campaigns as these will differ in performance, cost and volume. Add relevant negative keywords as well that are appropriate for your new campaign.
Don’t turn off your old campaigns until you have set up the new ones correctly. Once you’re ready with the new, pause or remove the old ones so that you are only bidding on keywords from one place on your account.
- Use relevant ad groups.
Analyse the campaign to set up closely linked ad groups with appropriate keywords relevant to the theme, intent or goals. To illustrate this, take the key phrase ‘puppy clothes for sale’ and ‘puppy clothes sale’. These would go into different ad groups as the intent behind each phrase could be different – with one searching for a puppy clothing store and the other looking for bargains on puppy clothes. If it looks like one keyword or phrase will perform differently, make sure you separate them.
It might seem like a hard task, but refreshing your PPC can revitalise your paid traffic.