6 Things You Can Do Right Now To Increase Your PPC Advertising ROI

1. Recognize and Respond to Shopper Recon

One of the best ways to give your PPC advertising ROI a boost is to focus on shopper behaviors. Some behavior is confusing, but none of it is inexplicable. One of these actions is something we call “shopper reconnaissance” – it’s a behavior that many PPC experts observe, but not everyone capitalizes on.

Here’s what happens:

A mobile user conducts a search, clicks an ad, engages on social media, etc, and finds a business’ website.

They spend some time scrolling around, looking at a few details – and then suddenly leave.

Later, the user repeats their search, re-clicks the ad, re-engaged on social media, etc. on their laptop or desktop and one again navigate to the website – only this time, their intention is different.

One study reported that 37% of mobile users said that while they used their mobile device to do research, they still went to the desktop to make the purchase. It should come as no surprise that desktop users aren’t necessarily a different type of person than a mobile user – they’re a multi-device person with a specific (and usually low funnel) intention. Desktop users stay on a site 3x longer, view more pages, and are less likely to bounce than mobile users.

The solution to this: optimize your mobile PPC ads for shoppers in the recon stage, and focus But be aware, mobile is growing and usability is improving. This trend might not last forever.

2. Seek To Improve Your AdWords Quality Score

Sometimes it pays to just work the system. AdWords Quality Score is basically a way for Google to determine how user-friendly and relevant your ads are. The higher your Quality Score, the more AdWords likes you – which means a lower CPA and a much better overall PPC ROI.
Here’s how to most effectively improve your AdWords Quality Score

Alter and optimize your ad copy for CTR
Ask yourself “Is this ad relevant to these customers?” If the answer isn’t – “Absolutely!”, change something.
Align your landing pages perfectly with your ad copy. There’s nothing worse than following a specific ad only to get to a generic homepage.
Keep your ad groups neat and tidy. If your ad groups are getting over 15-20 keywords in size, you need to prune them. Keep them small and specific.

3. Optimize Your Advertising Timing (per Device)

Does it seem like nitpicking? Maybe. But it can increase your advertising ROI – sometimes significantly. Naturally you should be advertising during the standard hours people are awake (unless you have a specific late-night audience) – but are you advertising during the hours that they’re willing to pay attention to you?

The highest mobile activity during the week comes in the morning (before work or school) and in the evening (after work and before bed), while desktop activity ramps up during work hours. Many PPC ads already target these segments. However, mobile users are likely to call during business hours – often in response to research or an ad.

If you are seeking to increase your PPC ROI, target these mobile business-hour callers.

4. Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are an amazingly easy way to increase the efficacy and ROI of your PPC ads. Ad extensions are display features developed by Google to make ads more useful to users. The actions made possible by ad extensions, when used correctly, support both the user and the advertiser’s goal – a call, click, message, or conversion.

These helpful additions to your PPC advertisements are available free of charge. According to Google, “There’s no cost to add extensions to your campaign. Clicks on your ad (including your extension) will be charged as usual. (The exception is clicks on seller ratings, which are not charged.)”

Here are a variety of the ad extensions that advertisers can enable (we’ve used our sister company Jazel Auto as an example).

Now, ad extensions won’t show up every single time. Google will only display them when it thinks that the extension will improve your performance, and your Ad Rank is high enough for extensions to be allowed. All the same – it’s best to create and enable them, optimize your Ad Rank, and shoot for the stars. When it come to a ROI boost, you don’t have too much to loose by optimizing.

5. Exercise Exact Match

While its necessary to advertising your business generally – it’s equally important to implement some exact match PPC advertising for your products.

Here are the steps:

Conduct an analysis of your historical advertising data, as well as strategic testing, to reveal particularly strong long tail keywords.
Explore these and build ads that closely reflect the shopper’s intentions and goals.
Implement your ads and watch the results. Optimize and repeat.

Here’s an example: Someone looking for “spa gift basket price” is very likely checking out prices because they intend to purchase soon. This would the perfect time to advertise with an exact match PPC gift basket ad with a particularly appealing picture or copy and a good (preferably slightly discounted) price.

Naturally, this shouldn’t be the only tactic in your playbook, but if you’re looking for a quick boost to your ROI, you’d do well to try this out.

Consider Your Specific Audiences

Chances are the people who buy your products or use your services do so for different reasons, or under different circumstances. Rarely do we find a business in which there’s only one viable buyer persona. Therefore, your ads should reflect, to the greatest extent possible, the variation in your audience.

Look at your buyer personas (or build them, if you haven’t already) and determine the pain points of each shopper. Ask yourself, if you were in their shoes, what would they want to see in your advertisement. What kind of ad would best explain the value of the product?

Once you’ve armed yourself with those answers (and all the rest we’ve equipped you with), you’re ready to launch your PPC ROI to new heights.