The Ultimate Guide to PPC Account Management: Strategies for Success

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising opens the door for businesses to achieve remarkable sales and revenue. With the right PPC account management strategies, you can drive your business to new heights. 

But remember, PPC account management is a complex method that requires a precise plan; otherwise, you could be losing money. It’s a step-by-step process that involves keyword analysis, campaign optimization, bid management, and performance data analysis. That’s why many businesses opt for PPC account management services to achieve a better ROI. 

PPC is a dynamic model that continually evolves with the latest trends. Keeping up with these changes can be challenging for PPC agencies managing numerous clients. From analyzing vast amounts of data to identifying the best strategies and practices, it can be overwhelming. 

However, there are tools and solutions to manage your PPC accounts effectively, so you can focus more of your time on strategy and planning. For instance, MatchCraft offers a range of products for PPC account management across multiple platforms, all under one roof. 

Supercharge your agency’s growth with our powerful solutions for PPC account management. 

Understanding PPC Account Management 

PPC management includes a variety of tasks, from the initial setup of ad campaigns to continuous monitoring and refinement. The ultimate goal is to drive high-quality traffic to a website, increase conversions, and achieve the best possible results within the allocated budget.

Key Components of PPC Management

Before diving into how to manage your PPC account, let’s explore the key components of PPC management:

• Keyword Research: It’s all about identifying the search terms and phrases that your potential customers might use to find your products or services. By targeting these keywords, you can ensure your ads are shown to the most relevant audience.
• Ad Creation: Compelling ads attract more clicks. This involves writing engaging ad copy, designing eye-catching visuals, and creating a clear call-to-action. 
• Bidding: Bidding is the process of determining how much you’re willing to pay for each click on your ad. In this system, you compete with many advertisers for the same keywords, and the highest bidder wins the top spot in the search results. 
• Optimization: Consistent adjustments and refinement are essential to keep your PPC campaigns performing at their best. This includes A/B testing different ad variations, adjusting bids based on performance data, and refining keyword lists to improve targeting.

PPC account management is vital for your agency and clients because it allows you to target specific demographics, locations, and even times of day, ensuring your ads reach the right people at the right time.

It’s a cost-effective marketing strategy, and when done correctly, it can yield tremendous results in a short period of time. But you need to master the PPC account management tactics to make it work for you and your clients. 

PPC is a performance-based model that differs in many ways from other digital marketing strategies. While SEO can take months to show results, PPC can generate leads almost instantly. Plus, you can target specific audiences based on their search behavior.

Essential PPC Account Management Tasks

1. Keyword Research and Selection

Keyword research is the process of identifying relevant keywords and terms to include in your PPC campaigns.

Here are the techniques you can follow for effective keyword research: 

• Brainstorming: Start by brainstorming a list of potential keywords related to your products or services. Think about all the possible terms your customers might use to find you.
• Competitor Analysis: Identify the keywords your competitors are targeting by using tools like SEMrush or SpyFu. This can provide valuable insights and help you discover new keyword opportunities.
• Long-Tail Keywords: Focus on long-tail keywords, which are more specific and less competitive. These keywords often have higher conversion rates as they target users further along in the buying cycle.
• Customer Surveys: Ask your customers directly what terms they would use to search for your products or services. This can reveal keywords you might not have considered.

Tip: Ramp up your PPC search campaigns with MatchCraft’s advanced keyword and ad copy library that covers over 2,500 categories in more than 22 languages. Plus, you can scale the operations with our real-time bidding algorithm. 

Analyzing Search Intent

First, find out what the user wants to do when they type a particular keyword. Are they looking for information, ready to make a purchase, or comparing products? Categorize those intentions into formational, navigational, or transactional to easily optimize your PPC efforts. 

Ensure that your landing pages and ad copy match the keywords’ search intent to improve the user experience and conversion. 

Balancing Broad and Specific Keywords

Using broad keywords can help you capture a wide audience by driving significant traffic, but they also attract less relevant clicks. On the other hand, long-tail keywords may bring in less traffic, but they attract qualified leads, resulting in better conversions. 

So, how do you generate more relevant leads within your budget? Striking a balance is the key. Combine both broad and specific keywords to achieve better results with an optimal budget. 

2. Ad Creation and Copywriting

Ad creation is an important task in PPC account management that must be engaging to attract potential customers. 

Here are some best practices you can follow:

• Keep your message clear and concise.
• Add a strong call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the users to click. 
• Highlight unique selling points like discounts, free shipping, or any specific feature. 
• Include relevant keywords to improve the quality score and attract the right audience. 
• Use words that evoke emotion and create a sense of urgency. 

You may have done a good job creating compelling ad copy. But how do you find out if it will perform well? You can conduct  A/B testing for different elements in your ad copy to pick the winning versions and optimize your campaigns. You can A/B test headlines, CTAs, and descriptions.  

Ad extensions are an important part of PPC campaigns. Extensions like callouts, structured snippets, and call extensions provide additional information and help increase an ad’s visibility. Google often rewards ads with extensions by giving them a higher ad rank, leading to better placement and potentially lower costs per click.

If you’re new to PPC and wondering how to create ad copies that drive results, we’ve got you covered. MatchCraft’s AdVantage platform offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies the ad creation process. Take advantage of pre-built templates and automation features to quickly generate high-quality ads. 

3. Bid Management and Budget Allocation

PPC bid management plays a crucial role in optimizing your campaign budget. You can either manually manage your bidding strategy or use automated bidding to adjust your bids in real-time. 

While the manual bidding strategy allows you to get complete control over your PPC campaigns, it requires constant monitoring to ensure optimal performance. On the other hand, automated bidding leverages historical data and machine learning to make informed bidding decisions, often resulting in better performance without the need for constant oversight.

How to Set and Adjust Budgets

Here’s how you can set and adjust your budgets to make your PPC campaign a success:

• Clearly define your campaign goals, whether it’s brand awareness, lead generation, or sales. 
• Distribute your budget across campaigns based on their importance and expected ROI. High-priority campaigns should receive more funding.
• Regularly monitor your campaign’s performance. If a campaign is underperforming, consider reallocating its budget to more successful ones.
• Decide whether to set daily or monthly budgets. Daily budgets help control daily spending, while monthly budgets offer flexibility to accommodate high-traffic days.
• Be prepared to adjust your budgets as market conditions change. For example, increasing your budget during peak shopping seasons can capitalize on increased consumer activity.

Pro Tip: MatchCraft’s intelligent bidding algorithms take the guesswork out of bid management. By analyzing vast amounts of data, these algorithms adjust bids in real-time to maximize your campaign’s performance.

4. Account Structure and Organization

Organize your campaigns by specific themes, products, or services. This ensures that your ads and keywords are relevant to each other, improving performance and quality scores. For example, if you sell outdoor gear, you can have separate campaigns for ‘campaign equipment,’ ‘hiking gear,’ and ‘fishing supplies.’

Within each campaign, create granular ad groups that target specific keywords and audience segments. This helps you tailor your ad copy and landing pages to be more relevant, enhancing the user experience and conversion rates.

Naming Conventions and Labeling:

Develop a consistent naming convention for your campaigns, ad groups, and ads. This makes it easier to manage and analyze your account.

Use descriptive labels to tag and categorize your campaigns and ad groups. Labels can help you quickly identify and filter specific parts of your account for analysis or adjustments.

For time-sensitive campaigns, include dates or time frames in your naming conventions. This helps track the performance of specific promotions or seasonal ads.

If you’re looking for effective PPC account management solutions for better organization, try MatchCraft’s platform, which offers automated structuring tools to create and organize your campaigns and ad groups efficiently.

5. Performance Monitoring and Reporting

Monitoring the performance of your PPC campaigns is crucial for success. Here are some key metrics you should always keep an eye on:

1. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Tells you how often people who see your ad end up clicking on it. 
2. Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of clicks that result in a desired action, such as a sale or lead. 
3. Cost Per Click (CPC): This is the amount you pay for each click on your ad. 
4. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Tells you how much you’re spending to acquire a new customer. 
5. Quality Score: Provided by platforms like Google Ads, this score reflects the relevance and quality of your keywords and ads. A high score can lead to lower costs and better ad placements.
6. Impressions: This metric shows how many times your ad is shown. 
7. Ad Position: Tells you where your ad appears on the search results page.

Creating Custom Reports

Custom reports are essential for providing insights that are tailored to your business needs. Understand what you want to achieve and choose the metrics that align with your objectives.  For example, if your goal is to increase conversions, focus on metrics like conversion rate, CPA, and CTR.

Break down your data by segments such as device, location, or demographic. This can help you identify trends and areas for improvement. Use charts, graphs, and tables to make your data easy to understand. 

Use MatchCraft’s solutions to set up automated reports to save time and ensure consistency. You can send reports to your clients at regular intervals to ensure they are up-to-date with their campaign performance without requiring manual effort. 

Advanced PPC Account Management Strategies

1. Audience Targeting and Segmentation

Getting the most out of your PPC campaigns often hinges on how well you can target and segment your audience. 

Here are some advanced strategies to help you master this art:

• Use demographic insights like age, gender, income, and education level to tailor your ads.
• Behavioral data helps you understand your audience’s online behavior, such as their browsing history, purchase behavior, and engagement patterns.
• Many ad platforms allow you to target users based on their interests. 
• Create custom audiences based on specific behaviors or affinities. For example, if you’re marketing a travel package, you can target users who frequently search for travel-related content or have recently visited travel websites.
• Retarget users who dropped out at the payment session, viewed specific products, or spent some time on your site. 
• Use dynamic ads to show users products or services they have previously viewed. This personalized approach can significantly increase conversion rates.

Learn more here: Audience Targeting and Why It’s Important

2. Ad Schedule Optimization

Optimizing your ad schedule is a key strategy for improving the performance and efficiency of your PPC campaigns. 

Analyzing Performance by Time and Day

1. Data Collection: Begin by gathering data on your ad performance over different times of the day and days of the week. Most PPC platforms offer detailed reports that show when your ads receive the most impressions, clicks, and conversions.
2. Identify Trends: Look for patterns in your data. Do certain days consistently perform better than others? Are there specific times during the day when your CTR and conversion rates spike? For example, an e-commerce site might find that weekends and evenings yield higher conversion rates as people have more leisure time for shopping.
3. Segment Your Data: Break down your performance data by device type, location, and audience segment. This can reveal more granular insights, such as mobile users converting better in the evenings or a specific geographic area performing well during certain hours.
4. Visualization: Use graphs and charts to visualize your data. Tools like Google Data Studio can help create clear, visually appealing reports that make it easier to spot trends.

Setting Bid Adjustments

Once you’ve identified when your ads perform best, you can optimize your bids to make the most of these peak times:

• Increase your bids during high-performing times to capture more traffic and conversions. 
• Similarly, adjust your bids for specific days that show higher performance. If Saturdays are particularly profitable, increase your bids for that day to maximize your presence.
• If certain devices perform better at specific times, set bid adjustments accordingly. For example, if mobile users convert more often during the evening, you can increase mobile bids during those hours.

Tip: Enhance your PPC account management for product shopping with MatchCraft’s AI-powered solution that analyzes your data performance and provides recommendations for optimal ad scheduling.

3. Geographic Targeting

Geographic targeting allows you to target a specific location where you want your pay-per-click advertising to appear. 

Here are the best strategies and best practices you can follow to optimize your PPC account management: 

 Local PPC Strategies

Use keywords that include the names of your city, neighborhood, or region. For example, “best pizza in Chicago” or “plumber near downtown LA.” This helps your ads appear in relevant local searches.

Utilize location extensions to show your business address, phone number, and a map marker in your ads. This makes it easy for potential customers to find and contact you.

Tailor your ad copy to reflect local interests and events. Mention local landmarks, events, or community issues to make your ads more relevant and appealing. Plus, you can also highlight local promotions and discounts. 

Read this blog to learn more about how to maximize local reach using advanced strategies for better geo-targeting advertising. 

Geo-Targeting Best Practices

• Define the geographic area you want to target, and that could be as broad as a country or as specific as a city or zip code. 
• Adjust your bids based on the performance of different locations. Increase bids for high-performing areas and reduce them for lower-performing ones.
• If certain areas consistently underperform, consider excluding them from your targeting. This helps you allocate your budget more efficiently.
• Enhance your targeting by combining geographic data with demographic insights. For example, target young professionals in urban areas for a tech product.
• Adjust your geo-targeting based on seasonal trends or local events. For instance, if there’s a major festival or sporting event in a city, tailor your ads to capitalize on the increased local activity.

MatchCraft offers flexible PPC solutions for social ads with advanced geo-targeting options. You can get relevant keywords and adjust bids based on high-performing locations, and more. 

4. Device-Specific Strategies

Optimizing your PPC campaigns for both mobile and desktop devices is crucial, as user behavior can vary significantly between these platforms. 

As mobile screens are smaller, keep your ad copy concise and to the point to capture attention quickly. Use strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that are easy to tap. For desktop, you can include more detailed information in your ad copy, including additional ad extensions and snippets. 

Mobile users usually look for quick answers, so ensure your pages load faster with clear, concise information. Meanwhile, desktop users prefer detailed content. Make sure to have a good layout with multimedia elements. 

Cross-Device Tracking

Cross-device tracking is essential for understanding how users interact with your brand across multiple devices. 

How to implement effective cross-device tracking:

1. Unified Tracking: Use tracking tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to collect data from all devices. This helps you understand the complete user journey, from initial interest on one device to conversion on another.
2. Attribution Models: Implement multi-touch attribution models to see how different devices contribute to conversions. 
3. User IDs: Use unique user IDs to track individual users across devices. This can be set up in Google Analytics by enabling user-ID tracking, which provides a more holistic view of user behavior.

How to Automate PPC Account Management

Automation can transform the way you manage your PPC campaigns, and it offers several key benefits that include:

• Saves time by handling repetitive tasks. 
• Reduces the risk of human error. 
• Makes real-time adjustments based on performance data.
• Campaigns are easily scalable without a proportional increase in workload. 

Areas Suitable for Automation

There are several areas within PPC management where automation can be particularly effective:

Bidding: 

Use automated bidding strategies to set bids based on the likelihood of achieving your desired outcome, such as maximizing conversions or achieving a target CPA. Google Ads, for example, offers strategies like Target CPA, Target ROAS, and Maximize Conversions.

Automation tools can adjust bids in real-time based on performance data, ensuring your ads are competitive without overspending.

Reporting:

Use tools like Google Data Studio or MatchCraft’s solution for agencies to create custom dashboards that automatically update with the latest data, providing a visual and easy-to-understand overview of your campaign performance. 

Ad Creation:

• Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs): DSAs automatically generate ads based on the content of your website, ensuring your ads are always relevant to the search queries they match.
• Responsive Search Ads (RSAs): RSAs automatically test different combinations of headlines and descriptions to find the best-performing variations, helping you optimize your ad copy without manual A/B testing.
• Ad Customizers: Use ad customizers to dynamically update your ad text based on user queries, time of day, or other parameters. This allows you to deliver highly relevant and timely ads.

Overcoming Common PPC Account Management Challenges

Here are some common PPC account management challenges and ways you can use to overcome them: 

Low Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Low CTR can be a sign that your ads aren’t resonating with your audience. To tackle this issue, consider improving your ad copy with strong CTAs, including site link extensions and callouts, and refining your target audience. 

High Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

High CPC can eat into your budget quickly. Here are some strategies to manage and reduce CPC:

• Focus on long-tail keywords that are less competitive but highly relevant. 
• Use negative keywords to filter out irrelevant traffic and avoid wasting money on clicks that are unlikely to convert.
• Consider using automated bidding strategies to avoid overpaying for clicks. 

Check out this blog on MatchCraft’s Q3 2023 insights on CPC and CTR. 

Poor Quality Score

A poor quality score can affect your ad rank and increase your CPC. To improve it, make sure your ad copy is related to the keywords you’re targeting and that your landing pages are relevant to the ads. 

Work on improving your CTR, as it’s a key component of the quality score. Plus, optimize your landing pages for speed, mobile-friendliness, and clear calls-to-action to improve the user experience.

Limited Budgets

Working with limited budgets can be challenging, but strategic management can help you maximize your resources. Allocate more budget to high-performing campaigns and less to underperforming ones. Use ad scheduling to run your ads during peak times when your audience is most active, ensuring your budget is spent effectively.

Tip: Overcome all these common challenges involved in PPC account management services by leveraging MatchCraft’s comprehensive tools and solutions. From ad scheduling and real-time bidding adjustments to custom reporting and optimization, you’re covered for all PPC tasks. 

Measuring Success in PPC Account Management

Setting Realistic KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for measuring the success of your PPC campaigns. Setting realistic and achievable KPIs ensures you can effectively track performance and make data-driven decisions. 

How  to set meaningful KPIs:

1. Ensure your KPIs are aligned with your overall business objectives. 
2. KPIs should be specific and quantifiable. Instead of a vague goal like “increase traffic,” set a specific target such as “increase website traffic by 20% in three months.”
3. Set realistic targets based on past performance and industry benchmarks. Overly 
4. Choose KPIs that are directly relevant to your campaign’s success. For an e-commerce site, relevant KPIs might include conversion rate, average order value, and cost per conversion.
5. Establish a clear timeline for achieving your KPIs. This helps track progress and make timely adjustments.

Calculating ROI and ROAS

Calculating return on investment (ROI) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) helps you understand the financial performance of your PPC campaigns.

ROI Calculation:

Formula: ROI = (Net Profit / Cost of Investment) x 100

For example, if you spent $1,000 on a PPC campaign and generated $3,000 in revenue, with costs of goods sold at $1,500, your net profit is $1,500. 

Thus, ROI = ($1,500 / $1,000) x 100 = 150%.

ROAS Calculation:

Formula: ROAS = (Revenue from Ad Campaign / Cost of Ad Campaign) x 100

For example, if you spent $1,000 on a PPC campaign and generated $5,000 in revenue, 

ROAS = ($5,000 / $1,000) x 100 = 500%.

MatchCraft offers robust analytics tools that can help you demonstrate the value of your PPC campaigns to clients. Using our tools, you can:

• Consolidate all your clients’ campaign insights into a single, unified view. 
• Get comprehensive analytics and reporting. 
• Enjoy seamless scalability. 

Contact us to schedule a demo today!

Future Trends in PPC Account Management

AI and Machine Learning in PPC

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are revolutionizing PPC account management, bringing new levels of efficiency and effectiveness. 

They help you with: 

• Automated and smart bidding
• Ad creation and optimization
• Audience targeting 
• Forecast future PPC trends

Voice Search Optimization

Voice search is becoming increasingly popular with the rise of smart speakers and voice assistants. Consider optimizing your campaigns for longer, conversational keywords and incorporating questions into your keyword strategy. 

Voice searches frequently involve local intent. Ensure your ads are optimized for local keywords and your business listings are up-to-date. Plus, they are conducted on mobile devices. Ensure your landing pages are mobile-friendly and load quickly.

Visual Search Advertising

Visual search allows users to search using images instead of text, opening up new possibilities for PPC advertising. 

How to leverage visual search:

• Use high-quality, optimized images for your products. Visual search engines like Google Lens and Pinterest Lens rely on clear, detailed images to provide accurate results.
• Ensure your images have descriptive alt text and metadata to improve their discoverability in visual searches.
• Use image ad extensions in your PPC campaigns to capture attention and drive engagement.
• Provide a smooth and intuitive shopping experience, from image search to purchase.

Conclusion

PPC account management is certainly a complex process. But with the right tools and solutions, you can easily overcome many challenges involved in bid adjustment, targeting, reporting, and optimization. Leverage our AI-powered tools to uplift your pay-per-click account management services efficiently. 

Author: Maria Selvam Amalraj