Let’s face it: we could all use a little help. Today, I’m showcasing 8 PPC hacks that can help your campaigns flourish. You may know of a few of these already, but even if just one is new to you—you could really rake in the benefits!
Ad Hacks
Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) or Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) will give you extra character space
While the official limit on ad headline character length is 25 characters, these two dynamic products can stretch the limits. Make sure you are testing DKI headlines at some point in your ad testing, and try Dynamic Search Ads as well. This could be especially helpful if that 25 character limit is the bane of your PPC existence, which happens with businesses that have essential keywords that are quite long.
Ending description line one with a period combines this text and the headline into a long headline
Using a period at the end of description line one will extend your headline. If you don’t use punctuation, you have the potential of showing a run-on sentence that could hurt click-thru-rate. You can preview the different possibilities while editing ads in the interface.
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Targeting Hacks
You can add an audience to DSA campaigns to make dynamic search remarketing campaigns.
I wrote about Dynamic Search Remarketing last week, but I really can’t stop talking about it until more people start using it. It’s just SO cool, and the results are great. You can add a search audience to your DSA campaign, and it will create dynamic ads targeted to that audience. It totally qualifies as a super legit hack, too, since you have to finagle how you go about creating it.
Run ads through the Google Display Network (GDN) for cheaper LinkedIN ads
Targeting B2B customers on Search can be problematic, as you have to wade through the consumer searches as well. There’s no real way to distinguish if your keywords can apply to both. Also, sometimes your CPCs can be crazy high. This is especially true on LinkedIn, and it’s prime real estate for B2B clients looking to avoid lots of wasted spend on consumer clicks.
A lot of PPC managers might not know that LinkedIn is part of the GDN. You can set-up a campaign to target LinkedIn directly with text or image display ads. All at a way cheaper cost than working with LinkedIn directly. Granted, you don’t get access to that super cool amount of targeting you’d get working with the platform directly. You just have to decide if that additional targeting power is worth the extra cost.
Analytics Hacks
Use manual analytics tags to custom group your data
Using the URL Builder allows you to create custom tracking URLs for your ads. Specifically, the content and term spaces allow for custom grouping. For instance, if you are running promotional ads, you could tag the content as promo or generic. Then, see if people who respond to deals do more on the site or are just cheapskates who spend less. This could influence decisions on future sales and lead to increased revenue.
Use Analytics Annotations for historical accounts of data influencers.
I know a big issue when working as part of a team is knowing exactly who did what and when, and then back tracking that information to determine what caused fluctuations in data. In addition to that issue is my own memory failing me. Did I turn those promotional ads on last year three or four weeks before Christmas? It’s at best a pain to dig through to find out the answers to these types of questions, and at worst totally impossible. With Analytics Annotations, you can always have notes about what happened on certain days. It will also share that information with your team or client.
Just click on the dot that represents the day you want to annotate, and then the little arrow under your graph to expand to the annotation area.
Account Management Hacks
Copy Google AdWords campaigns into BingAds
This is one hack that I’m always surprised by the number of people who don’t know about it. It’s such a HUGE time saver, and if time is what’s stopping you from getting your Bing accounts up to par with your AdWords accounts—this could also lead to a lot more conversions for you! This Bing Ads article shows you how to import directly from your AdWords campaign. There’s even a find & replace feature for items like custom URLs. You could, say, change “Google” to “Bing”. It’s super easy, and very cool!
AdWords Editor shortcuts
I love the AdWords Editor. It already saves me a huge amount of time. However, I just recently discovered there are a ton of fancy shortcuts to make using it even faster. You’d better bookmark this article for reference and start memorizing them! Oh, and I guess this one if you’re rolling with a PC. After you learn all of these hot keys, just imagine how fast you can work in the Editor. $10 for the first video I get of an agency hosting a contest to see which Account Manager can upload multiple campaign creations the fastest!
What are some PPC hacks you use?
