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Before we get into the heart of this post, you may be wondering why even consider running a PPC campaign at all. 

Easy. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are a great way to quickly drive targeted traffic to your website, increase brand visibility, or generate leads or sales. With a PPC campaign, you have tight control over your budget, ad targeting, and performance metrics, and this lets you reach your ideal customers based on specific keywords, demographics, or locations. Unlike organic marketing, PPC delivers immediate results, making it ideal for time-sensitive promotions or competitive industries. Best of all, you only pay when someone clicks on the ad, ensuring cost efficiency and a clear return on investment (ROI).

There’s the “why.” Now for the “how.”

Running a successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is like piloting a ship. You need to know where you’re going, understand the tools you’re using, and continuously adjust your course. And while PPC can provide near-instant results, without the right strategy, you can easily spend lots of money without seeing any return on investment (ROI). Here are 10 tips to help you run a winning PPC campaign that brings in leads, sales, and brand awareness while making every dollar count.

1. Know Where You’re Headed Before You Take Off
Before you launch your PPC campaign, it’s essential to know exactly what you’re trying to achieve. Do you want more website traffic? Lead generation? Product sales? Or maybe brand awareness? The clearer your goals, the easier it is to structure your campaign and measure success. A goal of “Get rich quick!” while attractive, is nearly impossible to execute on. But a goal of “increasing sales by 15%” gives you something specific to aim for and track.

2. Choose Your (Key)words Properly
Thorough keyword research is the foundation of any successful PPC campaign. The right keywords will connect your ads with users who are actively searching for specific products or services like yours. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner will help you find relevant keywords with good search volume and manageable competition. Also remember that it’s important to balance high-traffic keywords with long-tail ones (specific phrases with lower search volume), as these can lead to more targeted, qualified clicks.

3. Make Your Words Work
You only have a few lines to grab attention in a PPC ad, so make every word count. Your future customer should be able to tell what you’re offering and why it’s valuable within moments of seeing your ad. Include a strong call to action (CTA) like “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Get a Free Quote” to let them know they can and should take action now. And a clear value proposition, like a special discount or free shipping, can also set your ad apart from competitors. Don’t forget to optimize! Test different versions of your copy to see what resonates best with your audience. Keep what works. Lose what doesn’t.

4. When Negative Keywords Can Be a Positive
Negative keywords are your secret weapon in PPC campaigns. These are words that you don’t want your ads to appear for. For example, if you’re selling high-end luxury watches, you might want to exclude search terms like “cheap watches” or “free watches.” This helps prevent your ads from getting in front of people who are less likely to convert, which saves you money and improves your ROI.

5. Optimize Landing Pages
You’d think that once someone clicks on your ad, the work of your PPC campaign is done. But that’s just the beginning. The landing page you’re sending them is just as crucial. Make sure your landing page is optimized for conversions, with a clear message that matches your ad, a simple layout, fast load times, and an easy-to-use form if needed. The landing page should reinforce the value you promised in the ad and make it easy for users to take the next step. It should also resemble the ad users have just clicked. A difference in appearance can be distracting. And a distracted customer won’t be a customer for very long.

6. Add On the Ad Extensions
Ad extensions are additional pieces of information that expand your ad and make it more clickable. They can include extra links, phone numbers, addresses, reviews, and more. An ad extension will give your ad more real estate on the search results page and offer more ways for users to engage with your business. For example, a call extension allows mobile users to directly dial your business without visiting your site.

7. Your Budget Should Make Cents
While PPC can deliver quick results, it’s important to set a budget that aligns with your business goals. Start small and scale up as you begin to see what works. A good practice is to set a daily budget cap that you’re comfortable with, then monitor the performance to adjust as necessary. Don’t forget that PPC is an auction system, so bids for certain keywords can vary depending on the competition.

8. Make Sure Your Ads Are A/B Tested
If you don’t test your ads, you’ll never know what works best, what’s dragging you down, and how you can improve on things. A/B testing involves running two variations of an ad, landing page, or even CTA to see which performs better. For example, you might run two different headlines or two different offers. Use the data from these tests to optimize your campaigns continuously. Small changes can lead to big improvements in click-through rates (CTR) and conversions. Once you have a winner, create a new contender and start the process over again.

9. Monitor, Adjust, Tweak, and Mess Around With Your Bids
Your bidding strategy plays a critical role in how often your ads are shown and at what position. Regularly review the performance of your keywords and adjust your bids accordingly. If a keyword is driving lots of conversions, you might want to increase your bid so it will continue to show in a high position. At the same time, if a keyword isn’t performing well, reduce the bid or pause it entirely to focus your budget on better-performing terms.

10. Don’t Rest on Your Success!
You can’t improve what you don’t measure! Tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads can help you track the performance of your PPC campaigns. Keep an eye on key metrics like click-through rate, conversion rate, cost-per-click (CPC), and cost-per-acquisition (CPA). By regularly analyzing these metrics, you’ll have a clear view of what’s working and what isn’t. Use these insights to refine your campaigns over time. Plus, it’s a great way to present your victories to other stakeholders in your organization.

Wrapping It Up
Running a successful PPC campaign is both an art and a science. By following these 10 tips, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing your PPC investment. Remember to be patient. No campaign is perfect right out of the gate. Success comes from learning, tweaking, and optimizing along the way.

Now, get out there and make your PPC campaign the best it can be!

Businesses and consumers rely heavily on the internet for decision making when it comes to partnerships and purchases. At the same time, businesses use the internet to reach their target audience and promote their business. Google Ads help businesses digitally reach that desired target audience through their SERP advertising and gain measurable results from it.

Here are some reasons why you should implement Google Ads into your digital marketing strategy.

Increase brand awareness:

Google Ads raises awareness by putting your brand in front of other consumers who are searching using keywords relevant to your business.

Works hand in hand with SEO:

A feature that Google Ads has that can help your SEO strategy is testing keywords in order to see if conversions derive from them. After that, you can use that data to improve your SEO strategy and make sure you’re using keywords that will produce results once your website is optimized.

Encourages your audience to take action:

Using Google Ads remarketing ads process consists of categorizing audiences based off of what source they went through to get to your site and targeting them through the Google Display Network.

Outrank competitors:

With an Ads share report, you’ll see how many times your competitor outranks you on Google. By choosing “Target Outrank,” you can adjust your bid in order to outrank the competition.

Increase visibility online:

The Enhanced Cost Per Click strategy on Ads adjusts your bid based on the previous conversion data and other insights such as location, device, browser, time of day and week that potential consumers engage with your ads.

How do we know that Google Ads are effective?

Measurable and Scalable:

Google Ads provides many PPC metrics that allow you to measure what strategy has been working and what does not. From here, you can determine which campaigns to proceed with and which to turn off. Google Ads is also pretty scalable, considering the fact that it does not require excess effort to get leads. If you create a campaign that’s converting at a good rate, you can increase your budget, which can result in increased leads and profits.

Flexible:

Google Ads has the flexibility of hyper-targeting the audience you want to reach. For instance, you can specify keyword match types, use ad extensions, access non-search users with Youtube and Gmail Ads, leverage the display network, and narrow down the audience by location, time of day, language, browser or device.

Faster:

A perk of Google Ads is not having to wait long to see results. Putting resources into your Google Ad campaign will bring you impressions and clicks instantaneously. Since it’s so fast, you can test certain keywords or audiences to see if they’re worth pursuing in your SEO strategy.

Easier:

Google seamlessly combines your advertising needs into one platform. Google also suggests how to adjust your spending on ads based on Google’s observations of their performance.
Taking over SERPS: Google prioritizes Google Ads over organic results since they fall under the same umbrella. Once you start your PPC campaign, you will be able to get your ads high up on SERP, where they have a higher chance of getting clicked.

Ultimately, why should your business use GoogleAds?

You control your budget:

Many small businesses operate with a restrictive budget, so they want to make sure they’re investing their money into something that will produce results. Adopting Google Ads into your digital marketing strategy will allow you to allocate your spending as you please with no minimum investment or monthly ad spend.

The only thing you’re paying for is results:

They call it “pay-per-click” because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Google Ads also tracks who has been clicking your ads but not converting, to see how you can adjust your ads.

Ads show up in the perfect placement with precise timing:

Google is everyone’s go-to for just about everything. If someone takes their time out to search for something, chances are they are ready to buy, which is a perfect time to place your ad in front of their face.

Your competitor is using it:

Global paid search spending has been increasing exponentially and much online revenue is made based off search ad impressions that your competitors are using. If the competition is using Google Ads, it’s definitely something worth looking into.

Google has such a massive reach and pretty much provides the answer to everything online, so why wouldn’t you want your business advertised on their platform?
If you’re ready to set up Google Ads for your business, feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to assist you!

Online reviews can make or break your business. Companies are relying on social media and online review outlets to inform the public on their services, connect with current and prospective consumers and spread the good word about their business.

Unfortunately,  people tend to post reviews if they’ve had a really bad experience or a really good one. The consumers who have had an okay experience don’t usually take the time to leave a review. This audience is the largest and needs some extra encouragement to leave an organic and positive review. So how do we tap into this group? Here are our recommendations:

Referral program

Offer a discount or monetary reward based on referrals. Word-of-mouth is an incredibly powerful method of communication. With a referral program, people tend to speak more favorably about your company in order to get that referral – and the reward that’s attached to it.

Client and prospect newsletter

It’s important to keep your audience up-to-date with new innovations being made, new products or services being offered, and promotions and specials. Newsletters let consumers know you care about your relationship with them and want to keep them in the loop. It is best practice to send these out, at a minimum, on a quarterly basis. Sending out too many emails will categorize you as spammy and will wind up costing you business.

Allow  customers to leave reviews on every outlet

Generally, the most popular sites for reviews are Facebook, Google and Yelp. Depending on the nature of your business, other review sites may be more relevant. Create a CTA to request reviews with a link to each outlet noted on the footer of any digital correspondence you have with you customers, such as emails or online receipts, so your customers can easily take the next step.

Be responsive to every review

It’s important to keep up with reviews and respond in a timely manner. Make sure to thank customers for taking the time to leave a review. And never ignore the negative. Failure to respond to negative reviews only makes your company appear dismissive. Not sure how to respond to a negative review? Here’s a simple guide:

Read. Make sure you have a solid understanding of the customer’s problem. You’ll only make matters worse by missing the point your customer is trying to make.  

Resolve. Find a solution for their problem, and if you don’t have one, let them know you’re working hard to solve it.

Record. Jot down these details to help improve your business practices and prevent this type of problem in the future.

Create a FAQ page

Many times, bad reviews are the result of the customer not having the right information. Creating a FAQ page customers can easily access on your website will help prevent common minor issues people may encounter with your product and or service. If there is a solution already presented at their fingertips, they won’t need to leave a review about what happened. Also, if they have any doubts about your products or services, your FAQ page will answer those questions.

Invest in a reputation management software

Reputation management software takes control and monitors your online reputation. For example, if a negative comment is posted, you’ll quickly receive an alert, so you can go nip it in the bud, helping you to be responsive in a timely manner. It’s hard to keep up with every review posted, but reputation management software will help address them quickly and effectively. Podium is a great software that we recommend for you to use in order to manage reviews.

Ask!

This doesn’t mean just ask your customers for a review. You want to ask them at the right moment. If you ask at the wrong time, you may come off as pushy and get a negative review instead. After a customer enjoys a positive experience, you can have them fill out a survey/review form immediately. Leaving a positive post on social media is another good opportunity to ask. And if your service is subscription-based, you can insert a form to leave a review in your renewal letters. This also works for people who decide to re-purchase your products. When prompting your customer to leave a good review, make sure the language is casual, relaxed, and friendly.

Numbers are important

The ultimate goal is to get as many reviews as possible. For instance, if you have ten reviews with eight of them being good and two of them being not-so-good, you’re still in a good position.

Share your positive reviews online

Good reviews make for great shareable content. Share your  positive testimonials people post on social media. Share positive reviews with your target audience, so your target audience doesn’t have to go looking for them.

Live up to what you want your brand to be viewed as

Ultimately, the greatest advertising is a great product. If your company is constantly providing exceptional products and services, there really shouldn’t be a reason for anyone to leave a bad review. Make sure customer service is always available for consumers, ready to help and constantly remind them that you care about their experience.

Quick recap: Gaining positive online customer reviews are not only dependent on your services being good but the way you communicate and connect with your consumers to leave a good review in the first place. If there are any questions or professional assistance needed in forming a social remediation strategy, feel free to contact us!

Here at Boxcar Creative, we use Brand Tiles (or style tiles) to convey the design direction for any website or digital collateral we plan to build. Our clients often mistake a Brand Tile for website layouts. But as we usually have to emphasize, they are NOT layouts. 🙂

Okay.. SO, WHAT ARE Brand Tiles?!

Brand Tiles are a design deliverable in the form of a digital mood board that consist of fonts, colors, photo treatments, buttons and other interface elements that communicate the visual essence of a brand for the digital space. They assist with forming a common visual language between our designers and our clients and provide a stimulant for discussions around the design preferences of the client.

oilogic brand tile

The best analogy for Brand Tiles is that they’re similar to an interior designer’s finish palette or mood board. The paint chips and fabric swatches an interior designer presents must be approved before going all in and designing a room.
 The same idea applies to our process in designing websites. Our Web designer will not design three different webpage mock ups for a client at the first design kick-off meeting. It simply is not efficient or cost effective for either parties.

What is the Brand Tile process?

I. We Listen

It seems simple to come out and just tell your client what you think they need for their website, but your clients hold an invaluable amount of information about their industry that can intelligently inform the design of their website. So what we do is stop and listen by initiating a design kickoff meeting. During this meeting, our design team becomes acquainted with our client and we discuss the answers to their website design survey (completed before the meeting).

II. We Decode

During this phase, our designers individually interpret how the insight communicated during our meeting translates into design principles. With the meeting notes in hand, our designers are able to make choices about how to use the elements of design in their brand tile. Ultimately, the designer’s goal is to provide the perfect visual cues that will guide client’s subconscious assumptions towards the communicated desired adjectives and themes.

III. We Create

This is the step of our process in which the designer creates the Brand Tile. They determine themes from the aggregated feedback and begin to match those ideas up with styling techniques. The Brand Tiles give our client a point of reference to determine if their vision is aligned with the designer’s.

IV. We Repeat

To be as efficient as possible, we present multiple tiles to give our client information to work with that can influence the evolution of a final brand tile. We often see that our client’s opt to combine Brand Tile options; combining Brand Tiles fosters a process that allows for a natural evolution of stylistic elements without losing sight of the established design goals. Making revisions to Brand Tiles is a simpler and more objective manner of refining a visual design without being too vague or precise.

Like our process? We’d love to work with you! Feel free to drop us line on our contact page, if you’re interested in some killer web design.

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