If you want to know how to optimize the CPC of your campaign, you will find some practical tips for applying a targeted strategy in this article.
If you have read my article on Cost Per Click, you know it's a KPI critical to assessing the success of your advertising campaigns (and thus the ROI accordingly), allowing you to know how much your paid ads are costing you each time a user interacts and clicks on them.
As I already explained, CPC falls under pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, a form of online advertising in which you pay to have your content appear on websites and high in search results (above organic).
However, you may find yourself a little struggling to manage it all: sometimes your goal may be to save money on PPC campaigns; sometimes, you would like to invest money (strategically) to reach as many customers as possible.
In any case, it is clear that the price you pay for ads can affect the success of your campaign.
If you're not sure how to make your efforts more effective, here are 5 tips to help you optimize the CPC of your ads and get the most out of your ad investments.
How does the CPC work?
Before moving on to practice, let's quickly go over a couple of things.
Paying attention to your CPC is important because it tells you how successful your ad campaigns are - and whether you are overpaying for any of them.
To appear in relevant search engine results pages (SERPs), you must bid on target keywords.
The amount, among other things, determines where your ad will appear on the results page. Which affects the number of clicks you get.
The most common tool for publishing this type of advertising campaign is Google Ads.
In your account you can create specific campaigns, set up "ad groups" (i.e., sets of related ads), write ad text, and bid for specific keywords.
Goal: Improve your quality score
Your first goal in running a campaign should be this: to have an excellent quality score.
In fact, the quality score has a direct impact on your CPC: this is because Google uses it to determine how relevant (and useful) your ad is compared to other ads competing for the same keyword.
This translates into creating the right ads, targeted to the right people, and linked to a landing page corresponding to the message, with an offer that resonates with the target audience.
Because Google prefers to show top-notch ads to its audience, it has created a system that incentivizes high-quality ad experiences, which it rates such based on three factors:
Expected click-through rate: the probability that someone will click on your ad for a given keyword;
Ad relevance: the extent to which the ad message matches the search intent of the keyword;
Experience on the landing page: how relevant the landing page is to the search query.
Therefore, by creating ads and landing pages relevant to your audience's search and needs as a customer, you will ultimately lower your CPC.
That said, let's then look at how to optimize the CPC of your ads.
5 strategies to optimize the CPC of your ads
#1 Make your ads more relevant
To achieve a high quality score, the text of the ad itself must be as relevant as possible to the search keyword-and the more relevant your ad is, the more likely it is to be viewed by people interested in seeing it.
The easiest way to achieve this every time is to write unique ad groups for each keyword you choose to target.
For example, if your product is restaurant management software, you can target different long-tail keywords such as "management software for small restaurants" and "management software for pizzerias" and create different ad groups for each.
So you can write ads that are particularly relevant to the search query; as a result, this strategy will improve the CTR, will lower the CPC and increase conversion rates.
#2 Enhance your landing pageÂ
The quality of your landing page can have a huge impact on the effectiveness and budget of your advertising.
Even then, it should:
- Be relevant (visitors who click on your ad should be directed to a page related to what they searched for);
- contain a clear message (use text that clearly explains the purpose of your page and builds trust with reviews or testimonials);
- look simple (don't force users to click on tons of links to find what they're looking for-and remember to optimize it for mobile devices);
- Provide a good user experience (make sure your landing page is accessible and consistent with the ad text).
Just as you should have a single keyword for each ad group, you should also have a 1:1 ratio of ads to landing pages.
When someone clicks on an ad, it is because the message in the ad has resonated with them in some way. If the landing page matches the message-in the sense that it has the same tone as the ad-that resonance is likely to increase further.
Now, if you have 20 different ads that all lead to a single landing page, it is unlikely that the latter will match the message contained in all of them, with the risk that the user will not find what he read in your advertisement.
#3 Improve Your Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate optimization is critical if you want to get the most out of your advertising campaigns.
There are several factors to consider when trying to increase the CTR of your ads:
- title and text: the words you choose will either attract customers or drive them away; use one or two key words, appeal to your audience's emotions and needs, and solve a problem for them (read more about the basic rules of copy);
- specific call to action: avoid overly general directions, instead write a direct and compelling call to action that stimulates your audience to click;
- images: the visual elements are a great way to increase CTR; depending on the marketing channel, some types may work better than others (so run A/B tests to know what is best).
Don't forget also to study your competitors' ads to see what tactics they are using and thus understand how you can stand out.
#4 Choose longtail keywords (longtail keyword)
The long-tail keywords (longtail keyword) have a relatively lower search volume, but are easier to classify.
They link to more targeted and intentional searches: therefore, it is easier to create ads and landing pages relevant to that search. Greater relevance improves your quality score, thereby reducing your CPC.
I know what you're thinking: it's easy to get caught up in targeting only for high-volume keywords. But doing so will increase your CPC, because everyone wants their ads to rank for those, right?
Although long-tail keywords have lower search volumes than short-tail keywords, there are two main advantages to targeting them:
- Have lower competition (and CPC);
- generally have higher conversion rates than more generic terms. This can help you benefit from higher return on advertising expenditure (ROAS).
#5 Use reverse-matching keywords effectively
Reverse-matching keywords (or negative keywords) are terms that you exclude from your campaigns, to prevent your ads from appearing against irrelevant search queries.
Every time your ad is displayed for an irrelevant search, in fact, it lowers your CTR and quality score, which increases your CPC in the long run.
For example, if you're doing PPC campaigns to advertise "houses for sale in Florence," they might pop up at the time someone does a search for "houses for rent in Florence" and thus have two disadvantages: the ad would end up being ignored, also reducing the CTR; or the user might click on it and arrive at the site to realize that there's not what they were looking for-and so you'd be paying for an irrelevant click.
To avoid this, you can add "rent" as a negative keyword.
Conclusion
To optimize your CPC, the goal in general should be to increase relevance for your audience in the pre- and post-click experience.
By creating customized, tailored ad groups and landing pages that intelligently target keywords, you can provide a valuable advertising experience for your audience while simultaneously reducing the cost per click.
It is therefore obvious that the more refined your understanding of your audience, the better you can craft your advertising message directly for them - and the higher your click-through rates will be without increasing your costs .
Finally, there is one thing you should never forget: your ads should never remain "stationary."
This means you need to keep testing and optimizing them over time; keep experimenting, run A/B tests, and don't be afraid to try new messages to capture attention.
But tell me, have you ever tried any of these strategies?
Let me know in the comments!