What a PPC Marketing Agency Should Really Be Doing for Your Business
Hiring a PPC marketing agency? Here’s what they should deliver: measurable growth, efficient ad spend, and campaigns aligned with your business goals. Many agencies focus on clicks and impressions, but the best ones go deeper – optimising ads, targeting the right audience, and improving conversions.
Here’s a quick overview of what to expect:
- PPC Audits: Identify underperforming areas, wasted spend, and opportunities for improvement.
- Targeted Strategies: Use market research and customer data to create focused campaigns.
- Ad Optimisation: Refine keywords, copy, and targeting to match user intent.
- Conversion Rate Focus: Ensure landing pages and user experience turn clicks into sales or leads.
- Clear Reporting: Provide actionable insights tied to your business objectives.
If your agency isn’t delivering on these, it’s time to reassess. A strong PPC campaign doesn’t just generate traffic – it drives meaningful results for your business.
PPC Agency, Questions to Ask PPC Agency in 2024
Running a Complete PPC Audit
Before a PPC campaign can truly succeed, a proper audit is essential. Think of it as a health check for your digital advertising efforts. It helps pinpoint what’s working, what’s wasting your budget, and where the biggest opportunities lie. Without this step, your advertising spend risks being directionless.
Many businesses in the UK run PPC campaigns for months – or even years – without conducting a thorough audit. The result? Thousands of pounds wasted on underperforming keywords, weak ad copy, and campaigns that don’t align with business objectives. A complete audit provides clarity and a roadmap for improvement. Let’s break down the critical elements of a comprehensive PPC audit.
What Goes into a PPC Audit
A proper PPC audit digs into every corner of your advertising efforts. The first step? Reviewing your account structure. This means evaluating how your campaigns are set up, whether ad groups are logically organised, and if your account’s hierarchy suits your business model.
Keyword analysis is another cornerstone of the process. It’s about identifying which keywords drive clicks versus conversions, spotting costly low-performing terms, and adding negative keywords to filter out irrelevant searches. It also uncovers keyword gaps – valuable terms your competitors may be targeting, but you’re not.
Ad copy evaluation is equally important. This involves reviewing headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action to determine what resonates with your audience. A good audit identifies which ads are performing well and which ones need improvement, often highlighting patterns in messaging that connect with your customers.
Landing page performance is another critical focus. There’s no point sending traffic to pages that don’t convert. The audit examines factors like load times, mobile responsiveness, message alignment between ads and landing pages, and conversion elements such as forms or contact details.
Competitive benchmarking adds valuable context. By analysing your competitors’ ad copy, keyword strategies, and positioning, you gain a better understanding of the market. While their exact spend and performance data remain hidden, you can spot opportunities they might be overlooking.
Finally, a review of budget allocation and bidding strategies rounds out the audit. This step looks at whether your budget is being spent effectively, if your bidding strategies align with your goals, and whether you’re missing out due to budget limitations.
Finding Quick Wins and Long-Term Opportunities
A well-executed audit reveals both immediate fixes and longer-term strategies for sustainable growth. Quick wins often deliver the most noticeable results right away, sometimes even covering the cost of the audit within a month.
For instance, pausing underperforming keywords that drain your budget without driving results can have an instant impact. Adding negative keywords – like “cheap” or “free” for a premium furniture retailer – can stop irrelevant traffic and save money. These small tweaks can make a big difference.
Adjusting ad schedules is another quick win. If the data shows that conversions mostly happen during business hours, but your ads run around the clock, shifting your budget to peak times can improve performance significantly.
Long-term opportunities, on the other hand, focus on strategic changes. This might mean restructuring campaigns to align better with your business goals, developing new keyword themes based on competitor insights, or enhancing landing pages to boost overall conversion rates.
Geographic targeting is often a fruitful area for long-term gains. An audit might reveal that certain regions consistently perform better, suggesting you reallocate your budget to focus on those areas.
The audit also highlights growth opportunities in your current approach. This could mean exploring untapped keyword areas, using ad extensions to improve click-through rates, or targeting audience segments you’ve overlooked.
Finally, a complete audit establishes baseline metrics and benchmarks. Knowing where you started is essential for measuring the impact of future optimisation efforts. These insights not only save costs in the short term but also create a solid foundation for ongoing improvements. With this groundwork in place, you can move forward with targeted strategies that make the most of your advertising budget.
Building Targeted Advertising Strategies
Once you’ve completed your audit, it’s time to create strategies that align with your business goals and market position. The key is to design a tailored approach that resonates with your audience and delivers the best return on investment.
A successful strategy goes beyond just picking keywords and creating ads. It requires deep market knowledge, precise audience targeting, and choosing the right platforms. The difference between a generic campaign and a well-targeted strategy can be the deciding factor in whether your PPC budget drives meaningful growth or simply racks up clicks without conversions. Let’s dive into how detailed market research can refine your audience targeting.
Market Research and Audience Targeting
Effective audience targeting starts with understanding what motivates your customers, what challenges they face, and how they make purchasing decisions – looking beyond just their basic demographics.
Start by examining your existing customer data. Identify which segments generate the highest lifetime value, spot seasonal trends in purchasing habits, and understand how your best customers find your business. This data lays the groundwork for creating detailed customer personas.
Customer personas are fictional profiles that represent your ideal buyers. These personas go beyond age and location to include behaviours like search habits, platform preferences, and decision-making processes. For instance, you might create a persona for a 35–45-year-old professional in Manchester who uses mobile devices during their commute and prioritises fast delivery over the lowest price.
Competitor analysis and regional insights can further refine your strategy. Look at who your competitors are targeting, which messages resonate in your industry, and where there might be untapped opportunities. This can help you craft a strategy that stands out.
Keyword and Ad Copy Optimisation
Choosing the right keywords is all about matching your ads to customer intent. This means understanding the purpose behind search terms and how they fit into different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Group your keywords by intent. For example, informational keywords like "how to choose office furniture" serve a different purpose than transactional ones like "buy ergonomic office chair London." Tailoring your ads, landing pages, and bidding strategies for each group ensures your messaging is more precise and improves your quality scores.
Long-tail keywords can be particularly valuable. While broad terms are often highly competitive, specific long-tail phrases attract users who know exactly what they’re looking for, which often leads to better conversion rates.
When it comes to ad copy, consider British language preferences and cultural nuances. Instead of generic claims like "best prices", focus on specifics, such as "next-day delivery across the UK" or highlighting your company’s long-standing reputation.
Using tools like dynamic keyword insertion and ad customisers can also make your ads feel more personal by automatically including details like the searcher’s location or the specific product they’re looking for.
Finally, test different ad variations to find the most effective headlines and calls-to-action. Small tweaks can lead to big improvements in performance.
Platform Selection and Budget Allocation
Your choice of platforms and how you allocate your budget can make or break your strategy. Focus on platforms that align with your audience and put your money where it delivers the best results.
Google Ads is often the backbone of UK PPC campaigns due to its wide reach and advanced targeting features. However, its popularity can make it more competitive and expensive in certain sectors. Decide which Google Ads campaigns – like Search for high-intent traffic, Display for brand awareness, or Shopping for e-commerce – best suit your goals.
Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) can also be a smart choice for some UK industries and demographics. Start by allocating your budget based on each platform’s audience and reach, then adjust spending to focus on the campaigns yielding the best returns.
Budget allocation should balance opportunity and performance. For example, businesses in competitive regions like London or the South East might need to invest more heavily there, while regional businesses might see better results by targeting specific local areas. Seasonal adjustments are also crucial – retailers may increase budgets before Christmas, while B2B companies might scale back during holiday periods. It’s also important to consider the role of each campaign type: Display campaigns may warrant a steady, modest budget for awareness and remarketing, while Search campaigns targeting high-intent keywords might require larger investments during peak times.
With these strategies in place, the next step is effective campaign management and optimisation to ensure your efforts translate into measurable business growth.
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Conversion Rate Optimisation and Campaign Management
A successful PPC campaign isn’t just about launching ads – it’s about ongoing conversion optimisation and hands-on management. This is where a skilled PPC agency can make all the difference, transforming clicks into paying customers through careful adjustments and strategic oversight.
What separates a campaign that merely generates traffic from one that drives real business growth is what happens after the ads go live. Effective PPC management means constantly monitoring, testing, and tweaking to ensure every pound spent brings the best possible return.
How Conversion Rate Optimisation Works
Once targeted ads are live, the next challenge is turning those clicks into conversions – whether that’s sales, sign-ups, or other desired actions. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) focuses on improving the percentage of visitors who take these actions, making the most of the traffic you’re already paying for.
The process starts by identifying and addressing barriers that prevent users from converting. These could include slow-loading landing pages, confusing site navigation, overly complicated forms, or unclear calls-to-action. To improve results:
- Align landing pages with ad messaging to ensure consistency.
- Simplify forms by reducing the number of fields.
- Add trust signals, like security badges or customer testimonials, near submission areas.
- Optimise mobile performance to cater to users on smartphones and tablets.
A/B testing is key to CRO. By experimenting with elements like headlines, button colours, layouts, or offers – one change at a time – you can identify what works best and make data-driven improvements.
Best Practices for Managing Campaigns
Launching a campaign is just the beginning. Effective management requires regular attention and adaptability, not a "set and forget" mindset. The digital advertising space is constantly evolving, and without active oversight, campaigns can lose their edge.
Key practices for successful management include:
- Daily Monitoring: Keep an eye on metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS). Sudden shifts in these numbers could indicate issues like increased competition or technical problems.
- Refining Bids and Budgets: Automated bidding tools are helpful but need human oversight. Adjust bids and budgets based on performance to align with your business goals.
- Negative Keywords: Regularly update your negative keyword list to minimise wasted spend on irrelevant searches.
- Quality Score Optimisation: Continuously improve ad relevance, expected click-through rates, and landing page experience to lower costs and achieve better ad placements.
Seasonal changes also require adjustments. For instance, retail campaigns in the UK might need a push before Christmas or during summer holidays, while B2B efforts may scale down when decision-makers are likely to be on holiday. Keeping an eye on competitors can also help you stay ahead in a shifting market.
Tracking and Measuring Results
Strong management relies on accurate tracking to turn campaign data into actionable insights. Without proper tracking, it’s impossible to know which ads, keywords, or strategies are delivering results.
Tools like Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads conversion tracking are essential for capturing all types of conversions, from purchases and phone calls to email sign-ups and lead submissions. Here’s how detailed tracking can elevate your campaigns:
- Attribution Modelling: Understand how different touchpoints – like display ads, organic search, and paid search – work together to drive conversions. This helps allocate budgets more effectively.
- Revenue Tracking: Go beyond counting conversions by measuring the revenue generated by specific campaigns, keywords, and audience segments. This provides deeper insights into what’s truly driving business growth.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Analyse the long-term value of customers acquired through different channels. Campaigns that bring in high-value customers might justify higher acquisition costs.
- Cross-Device Tracking: Capture the full customer journey as users move between devices. This is especially important in the UK, where multi-device behaviour is common.
- Call Tracking: For businesses that rely on phone leads, techniques like dynamic number insertion can reveal which campaigns and keywords are driving calls.
Monthly reports should do more than summarise data – they should highlight trends and recommend actionable steps to improve performance.
Providing Clear and Actionable Reporting
An excellent PPC agency doesn’t just hand over raw data – it transforms it into meaningful insights that align with your business objectives. The goal is to turn campaign data into actionable takeaways that guide decisions, without simply rehashing the measurement benefits already woven into campaign management.
Overloading stakeholders with endless dashboards can obscure the bigger picture. Instead, reporting should be straightforward, ensuring that performance metrics are directly tied to your business goals. This type of clear and concise reporting lays the groundwork for creating reports tailored to your specific needs.
Custom Reports for Business Goals
One-size-fits-all templates often fall short when it comes to addressing unique business strategies. Customised reports, on the other hand, focus on the metrics that truly matter for your goals, aligning directly with your decision-making processes. By tailoring reports in this way, every piece of data supports your strategy, enabling quicker decisions and paving the way for sustainable growth.
Conclusion: Choosing the Right PPC Agency for Long-Term Growth
The difference between a mediocre PPC agency and one that truly drives results lies in how well they understand your business and its unique goals. The best agencies focus on aligning their strategies with your objectives to support sustainable growth.
Key Takeaways
To recap, here are the essential services a top-tier PPC agency should provide:
- Thorough PPC Audits: These audits pinpoint both immediate opportunities and areas for long-term improvement. A strong foundation is built by identifying how to refine campaigns to align with your broader marketing goals. The most effective agencies know that successful PPC campaigns are deeply tied to your business priorities, whether that’s increasing market share or fostering customer loyalty.
- Active Campaign Management: PPC campaigns require constant attention. Effective agencies don’t set campaigns on autopilot. Instead, they actively manage and optimise every pound spent, ensuring campaigns adapt to market changes and deliver maximum impact.
- Actionable Reporting: Data is only as useful as the insights it provides. Instead of overwhelming you with endless charts and dashboards, a great agency delivers clear, tailored reports that focus on metrics most relevant to your goals. This ensures quicker, smarter decision-making.
When there’s a lack of strategic alignment, businesses risk wasting money, missing sales opportunities, and even damaging their brand reputation. This makes choosing the right PPC agency a critical decision for achieving your marketing goals.
The PPC Team: A Trusted Partner
The PPC Team understands that successful PPC management goes beyond platform expertise. It requires a strategic approach that aligns with your business objectives. They offer tailored audits, customised strategies, and targeted reporting to ensure every campaign delivers meaningful results.
Starting with a free PPC audit, The PPC Team identifies opportunities specific to your business, avoiding cookie-cutter solutions. Their approach includes precise audience targeting, in-depth competitor analysis, and advanced conversion tracking to continuously refine your campaigns.
With over 8.5 billion daily searches and 65% of buyers clicking on ads, the potential for growth is immense. Partnering with the right agency – one that treats your success as their own – ensures your business benefits from expert strategy, ongoing optimisation, and measurable results that drive sustainable growth.
FAQs
What does a thorough PPC audit involve, and why is it crucial for my business?
A proper PPC audit means diving into the key parts of your campaigns, like account structure, targeting settings, keyword performance, ad copy effectiveness, and conversion tracking. The goal? To spot problems like irrelevant targeting, wasted budget, or tracking mistakes that could be holding your campaigns back.
Why is this so important? It ensures your advertising budget is being used wisely, which can lead to a better return on investment (ROI). But it’s not just about fixing current issues – this process can also reveal chances for long-term growth, helping your business hit its marketing targets more effectively.
How can a PPC agency help improve my conversion rates and what techniques do they use?
A PPC agency can boost your conversion rates by applying data-driven strategies to refine both your campaigns and landing pages. By delving into user behaviour, website performance, and campaign data, they pinpoint areas that need tweaking, ensuring your ads and landing pages are designed to encourage action.
Some of their go-to methods include A/B testing, which compares different versions of ads or pages to find the most effective one, and heatmap analysis, which reveals how users navigate your site. They also focus on conversion funnel optimisation, working to eliminate any hurdles that stop users from completing key actions. These approaches help turn more clicks into paying customers, ensuring you get the most out of your investment.
What should I consider when choosing a PPC agency to ensure their strategies align with my business goals?
When choosing a PPC agency, it’s crucial they invest time in understanding your business goals – whether that’s boosting revenue or hitting a specific return on ad spend (ROAS). The right agency will craft custom strategies that align with your objectives and cater to the unique demands of your industry.
Make sure the agency values open communication and delivers clear, actionable reports. This way, you can easily monitor progress and see how their work is driving results for your business. Also, seek out agencies with a proven history of achieving measurable outcomes and leveraging data-driven optimisation to help fuel your growth.
