In the ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising, PPC campaigns have remained a steady source of traffic in digital marketing plans.
PPC is one of the most effective advertising strategies, and, as such, can bring major benefits to your brand.
Ecommerce PPC campaigns are an important part of your advertising structure, and therefore it’s important that you understand the value eCommerce PPC management can bring to your brand.
In this article, we’ll talk about the definition of PPC management, why it’s essential in an eCommerce business, and give you 8 best practices to follow.
We’ll also discuss why hiring an eCommerce PPC management company can be a great solution to help you meet your marketing goals.
What is PPC Management?
PPC, or pay-per-click, is a type of digital advertisement in which a brand only pays for the ad when the user clicks on it.
For an eCommerce brand, PPC would promote the current online store and products that can be purchased.
Management of PPC refers to the process of monitoring, overseeing, and managing PPC ad spending and campaigns.
PPC ads can be continually optimized during the ad run, and keeping track of areas to improve and performance metrics is key to successful PPC management.
The PPC model uses keywords as the foundation on which campaigns are built. Companies bid on different keywords related to industry, products, or services and pay the winning bid amount per click.
Why is PPC Marketing Essential for eCommerce?
PPC advertising and marketing is an essential component of the eCommerce business.
As your brand exists largely in the virtual world, it’s important to capture audiences through online advertising and bring them to your store.
Let’s take a look at a few key benefits of PPC marketing for eCommerce brands.
Quick Traffic Boost
PPC brings in new traffic to your site or store almost immediately.
While it is still your job to convert the new leads into customers through your sales funnel, the increase in traffic can help you improve conversion rates and bring in new audiences to explore your products.
Contributes to Business Goals
PPC advertising can help you achieve your business objectives and meet revenue goals.
In general, it provides fast results, meaning that you can quickly move towards your business goals, while other strategies like content marketing can take months, even years, to have significant payoffs.
Controlled and Targeted Advertising
PPC models like Google Ads don’t just give you control over budget, but also give you control over the audiences you target.
PPC advertising allows you to create granular target groups which your ads will display for, rather than any person who uses the keyword in your ad.
This allows you to dig down into demographic information and tailor your campaigns to specific audiences.
Helps to Manage Marketing Budgets
Advertising budgets can sometimes get out of hand — particularly when you’re struggling to get your message ahead of large brands with seemingly unlimited spending power.
PPC ads help you manage your marketing budget by only having you pay for ads that are clicked.
You can also use your keyword research to find keywords that aren’t as competitive and therefore have more manageable costs per click.
8 Best Practices for Ecommerce PPC Management
In order to successfully run your PPC campaign, there are a few areas of eCommerce PPC management that need to be included in your strategy.
By implementing best practices and ensuring that your team is following through, you can improve your campaign results.
Here are 8 best practices to effectively manage your brand:
1. Improve Your Ad Click-through Rate
The click-through rate, or CTR, of your ads refers to the rate of people who see your advertisement compared to those who actually click on it.
Getting clicks is the first part of bringing a lead through the sales funnel to making an eCommerce purchase.
Improving your click-through rate means spending time optimizing your copy and the advertising offer to entice more customers to click.
Using PPC advertising platforms, you can monitor the different responses in your advertisement to know which messaging brings you the highest click-through rates.
2. Choose Appropriate Keywords
The keywords you choose for your PPC campaigns are the building blocks on which your campaigns are built.
Keyword research is necessary to find the keywords that are related to your industry and product offerings and are used in user searches.
Keywords should include not only the short, precise words utilized in your industry but also long-tailed keywords that closely match the exact queries entered into search engines.
This not only brings you traffic that is looking for your exact solution, but also users who are ready to buy.
3. Add Negative Keywords
In addition to the keywords that you want to be found for, you can also add negative keywords, or keywords and searches that you don’t want to appear for.
This can help filter out users who you know won’t click and convert since what they are searching for isn’t what you offer.
Not only do negative keywords help you avoid users who aren’t interested in your products, but it also helps you manage and control your campaigns down to a very granular level.
4. Optimize Your Product Pages
The goal of PPC advertising for eCommerce brands is to bring leads to your online store.
However, if your product pages aren’t optimized, your new leads will bounce off of your site and ignore your advertisements in the future.
Optimizing your pages includes adding clear, relevant information, using images and videos to help sell your items, and making the path to purchase as seamless as possible.
5. Update Product Feed
Your product feed is the sheet of information you send to Google Shopping and other shopping channels to help get your product information displayed properly in listings.
When your product feed is outdated and incorrect, you’ll lose clicks and risk damaging your brand reputation.
Keep a schedule to review and update product feeds regularly, and always update immediately when a new product or feature is introduced.
6. Create a Good Shopping Cart Experience
In order for your users to cross the finish line and check out, you need to improve the shopping experience.
The first step is picking the right shopping cart platform. Don’t try and skimp on pricing by going with a lower-quality program.
After you’ve picked the platform you want, you need to look through each step of the buying process and make sure that instructions are clear for shoppers, the cart experience is optimized to help encourage checkouts, and that your forms aren’t overbearing to the point they turn customers away.
7. Use Google Shopping Ads
PPC advertising isn’t just Facebook and Google Ad Words: it’s also grown to include different ad formats like Google Shopping Ads.
These ads are what appear at the top of a search engine result page when users type in a keyword related to products.
These product ads are able to be monitored and improved just like other ads on the Google platform, meaning that it’s important to continually manage your Google Shopping Ads to improve the results.
8. Run Dynamic Targeting Campaigns
Dynamic targeting campaigns allow you to run different campaigns on the same website.
The dynamic advertisement will automatically organize your eCommerce products and services into categories, which can be filtered for each user and used to retarget leads who bounce from your site.
What are the Benefits of Hiring an eCommerce PPC Management Company?
Effective eCommerce PPC management requires a significant input of time and effort from you and your team.
Without the necessary time spent on management, your campaign won’t see the best results.
Because proper management requires so much upfront time, not every brand has the bandwidth to make it happen.
Ecommerce PPC management companies are a great solution for brands who understand the value that PPC advertising can bring but don’t have the time internally to spend on management.
Specialists who have a wide range of knowledge about not just general PPC management but PPC management for eCommerce brands will be able to give you the time and energy needed to get the best results out of your campaigns.
Agencies and companies that specialize in running and managing PPC campaigns can help with:
- Keyword analysis
- Bid management
- Geo-targeting
- Performance analysis
- Channel targeting
- Competitive analysis
- Landing page creation
- Campaign monitoring
- PPC testing
- A/B testing
- Negative matching
When you allow third-party companies to help with your eCommerce PPC management, you free up more time within your team to spend on bigger picture items like your overall digital marketing and advertising strategies and ways to tie PPC campaigns into larger brand initiatives.
Wrap Up: The Value of eCommerce PPC Management
Ecommerce PPC management is an important aspect of a well thought out digital marketing and advertising strategy, and doing it right can quickly:
- Increase your sales.
- Reach targeted audiences.
- Bring you more control over marketing budgets to improve your brand’s bottom line.
In order to effectively run an eCommerce PPC campaign, the first step is to understand and optimize the keywords you want to target.
To learn tips on how to improve your eCommerce keyword research, check out our blog and get started today!
