Blogging Tips

In Monday’s post, we discussed what pay per click (PPC) is and the three most important elements that go into writing a PPC ad. In yesterday’s post, we talked about two things to consider that will help you decide if pay per click marketing is right for your blog.

Today we’re going to discuss what you should do after you start your pay per click campaign. This is not a “set it and forget it” type of marketing – as many think. And really, is any form of marketing? Following are three things you should always do after you start running PPC ads.

3 Things to Do After You Start a Pay Per Click Campaign

Test, Tweak and Retest: Customer wants, needs and expectations constantly change. So must your advertising to capitalize on it. As mentioned above, you can’t set up a PPC campaign and simply abandon it. You should constantly monitor ads, tweak them and retest them.

Nothing is off limits when it comes to testing. Try a different headline, try a different URL, try different punctuation, etc. Did you know that changing a simple colon to a dash can double, triple or quadruple pay per click ad results? It’s true.

The PPC firm I acquired as a client a couple of months ago opened my eyes to this. They have case study after case study proving that even the most minor tweaks can lead to dramatic ad results. So even if an ad is performing well, tweak it to see if it can perform, perhaps, phenomenally!

Note: When you change an ad, you results can be worse – not better. But, you can always go back to the previous ad format. This is all part of effective advertising. Sometimes you try something that doesn’t work. But, how will you ever know what works – better – if you don’t switch it up.

Adjust Ad Budget: After you’ve gotten your feet wet and know a little more about pay per click marketing, adjust your ad budget. You can adjust it up, or down. The point is, with newfound knowledge you can be smarter about how you spend your money.

Maybe you’ve been spending too much; maybe you can get much better results by spending just a little more. Either way, knowledge is power. Use it to adjust your ad spend budget accordingly.

Assess the Competition: One thing you’ll notice about PPC is that advertisers come and go. An ad that was in first place last week has disappeared altogether. Or, an advertiser that was on the second page suddenly jumps onto the first page of results.

What did they do differently to get there? Is the headline different? Are they using a different domain? Did they change their landing page?

You should constantly monitor the competition to learn from them. It’s one of the best ways to learn this ad medium.

Pay Per Click Marketing Summary

PPC marketing is fun and frustrating at the same time. Because it constantly changes, it means you have to constantly be thinking – staying on top of trends and the idiosyncrasies of your target market.

But, that’s what any small business owner should be doing, right? PPC marketing just makes you more keenly aware that you have to do it to get the results you want.