5 Tips to Engage Your Audience in Your PPC Campaigns

An engaged prospect is more likely to click on your ad and visit your site. That’s where a killer landing page will convert them from a curious shopper into a motivated buyer.

But engaging your target users in the first place is tough, especially in highly competitive markets.

You need to stand out, grab them by the scruff of their neck, and make them realize your ad is the ONLY one they need to click on.

How do you do that?

Here are 5 tips to help you engage your audience in your PPC campaigns and achieve better results.

Take a closer look at your audience to develop a deeper understanding of your target customers

You can’t bring your ideal customer what they’re looking for if you don’t know that that is. Sounds obvious? It is.

But your current understanding of your audience might not be as deep as it could be.

Yes, you might know you’re looking for buyers in their twenties and thirties with lots of disposable income to spend on gym clothes. But do you know what fabrics they like best? Do you know which manufacturers are the most ethical in sourcing their materials and paying their workers? And do you know what other gear they take to the gym?

Answering any of these questions will give you a deeper insight into your buyers and help you appeal to them further.

And pay attention to the different demographics within your audience. To stick with the gym example, perhaps you could start targeting older shoppers who want to wear more conservative clothing while they work out. Or try stocking smaller gym gear for fitness fanatics who want to get their kids involved.

Define different audience segments and start building PPC campaigns to reach them. Use comprehensive personas to create ads tailored to their pain points, goals, values, etc.

Invest more time into your ad copy to maximize brand appeal

No business can afford to skimp on ad copy in their pay-per-click ads. Words matter. Language matters. Tone matters.

Go back to your audience research and buyer personas. Think about your target demographics. What ad copy seems most appropriate to each segment? What would they consider a turn-on and turn-off?

For example, let’s say you run a yacht hire business. Your ideal customer is unlikely to find “cheap” or “lowest prices guaranteed” attractive — “luxury”, “premium”, or “exclusive” would make a bigger impact.

But if you’re targeting a more mainstream shopper, “save”, “free,” and “discount” can all leap off the page. You MUST honour these promises, though. Prospects may abandon your site if they realize a freebie or discount isn’t what they expect.

Look at your highest-performing competitors’ ads. Study their language and tone. Do they use a humorous style to break the ice and create a friendly persona? Or do they opt for a more formal approach?

Think about how you can improve on their ads with your own, based on your in-depth audience insights.

Experiment with eye-catching images and videos across social media

More than 3.5 billion people worldwide use social media, and 11 newcomers join every second. That’s why every business NEEDS to invest more time and resources into building an active social media presence.

While social PPC is incredibly competitive, using visual content is one of the most effective ways to engage audiences and gain a foothold.

Images and videos stand out more than text-based posts on Facebook and Twitter. But Instagram and TikTok both revolve around visual content, so creating impactful ads on these channels is even more difficult.

Here are a few things to remember when experimenting with images and videos:

• keep videos concise, as users have an almost limitless amount of other posts to check out — you’ll lose 33 percent of viewers after 30 seconds, 45 percent after one minute, and 60 percent after two minutes
• stay on-brand: create ads that reflect your business values and reflect your target customers’ lives

• never be controversial just to get attention — it could backfire and cause lasting reputational damage
• use original images whenever possible to reinforce your professionalism and build credibility

Incentivize users to click through to your site and convert

Engage your audience and motivate them to click on your ads with simple but effective incentives.

For example, free shipping is increasingly important. Around 90 percent of shoppers claim that free shipping meant more to them than fast shipping (particularly around the holidays), and more than 60 percent would not pay more for expedited delivery anyway.

Another option is to offer discounts, even if only 10 or 20 percent. Customers may click on your ad if you stock the same products they can find elsewhere at a slightly lower price.

Speaking of prices, including costs in your PPC ads can increase their appeal. Visually, numbers break up text and help ads stand out.

But only include prices if you know they’re competitive — avoid them if you know other businesses might run ads featuring lower rates near yours.

And include words that inspire a sense of urgency, e.g. “limited”, “must go”, “clearance”. Prospects may be motivated to click through if they feel your offers are time-sensitive.

Take advantage of sitelinks to boost your ads’ appeal

One final quick tip: include sitelinks in ads to boost audience engagement in your PPC campaigns.

These bring extra content to your ads in the form of links to various pages on your site. They can show off different categories, and take customers directly to pages they might be interested in. This can help your ads stand out from those without sitelinks and contribute to a smoother customer experience.

You could include links to Top Sellers, Holiday Sales, Shipping FAQs, What Makes Us Special, or any other page you believe customers will be looking for. Consider what steps you want users to take when your ad appears and help them do so with clearly titled sitelinks.

Follow these 5 tips to engage your audience in your PPC campaigns more effectively.

And if you want to take your paid ads to the next level, our PPC experts are here to help. Contact us today to discover what we can do for you!

8 Common PPC Mistakes You Might Be Making

Launching a PPC campaign is a critical marketing step for every business, no matter how big or small it may be.

But there’s a world of difference between running a PPC campaign and running one well. There are plenty of mistakes to make if you don’t have the knowledge, training or experience to guide you in the right direction. Even minor errors can cost you money and prospects over time.

To help you get ahead, Reputation Mart’s experts explore the 8 common PPC mistakes you might be making below.

#1. A Disconnect Between Ads and Landing Pages

You’ve created an ad that packs a punch and makes prospects an offer they can’t refuse. Let’s say you promise customers a 50 percent discount on their first purchase with you, or claim you have hundreds of products on sale at a 70 percent reduction.

Both are pretty impressive deals, but you have to make sure to showcase these on your landing page. Any prospects who click on your ad and realize the deals they were promised are nowhere to be seen when they reach the page may feel cheated.

And you could lose them for good.

The lesson: always make sure your ads and landing pages are relevant to each other.

#2. Neglecting Your Ads

Daily monitoring is essential to maintain a successful PPC campaign. While it’s tempting to spend hours creating an irresistible ad and assuming you can just leave it for months without any further attention, that’s not the case at all.

Monitoring your PPC ads daily gives you valuable insights into their performance and reach. You could be completely unaware of important changes if you leave your ads to run on their own, such as a major reduction in clicks or increased traffic.

This is just one reason why trusting a professional PPC team to run your campaign is a smart choice, for businesses of all scales.

#3. Not Specific Enough with Keywords

Your keywords must be the best possible match for your products and services. Every ad you put out there to attract customers has to be accurate and tailored to your target audience.

If you use broad or inaccurate keywords, you could be throwing money away as prospects may not find what they’re looking for after clicking on your ad. You’ll still be charged but without securing any valuable customer engagement.

#4. Overlooking Negative Keywords

Staying on the subject of keywords, don’t make the mistake of ignoring or overlooking negative keywords.

These are a vital part of any successful PPC campaign: as the name suggests, negative keywords are those search terms you DON’T want to trigger your ads. Take advantage of negative keywords to save yourself from the risk of paying for clicks that go nowhere.

Coming up with a list of negative keywords takes a little extra time when launching a PPC campaign, but it’s well worth doing in the long run. You should keep adding to said list as you continue to find new search terms you want to avoid.

#5. Weak Ad Copy

The text in your ads has to be of the highest quality. The right words have the power to attract new visitors to your business and convert them into customers, even if bigger companies have ads close to your own on the SERPs.

But getting the copy in your ads right is easier said than done, unless you have strong writing skills and years of experience managing PPC campaigns. One effective way to find inspiration is to look at your competitors’ ads, especially those with the highest authority. What language do they use? How do they structure their headlines? What about their ad extensions?

Absorb what you see and read and use this to inform your own ad copy.

#6. Not Testing Variations

You should be testing multiple variations of ads at any one time. This is a fantastic way to determine which techniques work best and which should be dropped in the future, so you can keep getting maximum bang for your buck.

Experiment with different extensions, tones and approaches. Use a sale as the basis for one ad and brand new products for another. Try a mix of short and long-tail keywords. After a set period, check out the analytics to see which gained the most traction.

This process streamlines decision making in the future a little, as you know what works and what doesn’t.

#7. Not Paying Attention to Locations

The freedom to target specific areas with your ads is ideal for local businesses or those shipping to various locations.

But make sure your ads aren’t appearing for users in areas you don’t cater to, as you’ll end up paying for clicks that have no real chance of leading to conversions. Users will become frustrated when they browse your product catalog — and possibly try to place orders — only to discover they’re out of your range.

It’s possible to bid higher or lower based on target users’ location, which is (again) a major advantage for local businesses trying to attract nearby prospects.

#8. Not Tracking Conversions

Conversion Tracking is a terrific feature well worth taking advantage of. This does exactly what it appears to: tracking your conversions to ensure you know how effectively your ads are securing sales from newcomers.

Google’s tool shows what customers do after interacting with your ad. Perhaps they went on to buy one or more of your products. Maybe they registered for your newsletters, or downloaded that free eBook you offer.

Conversion Tracking reveals which keywords and ads make the biggest impact, and help you make effective bidding decisions for the best ROI.

Conclusion

Starting a PPC campaign for your business can be daunting if you’ve never done it before. But as long as you avoid these eight mistakes, you could go on to drive more traffic to your site, boost conversions and get a better return on your investment.

Reputation Mart’s expert team has the training, experience and tools to create a bespoke PPC campaign for your company. We’ll perform a free PPC Account Evaluationfor your Google Ads or Facebook Ads account, to reveal how you perform compared to your competitors.

Want to know more? Please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

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