PPC Task Checklist For Account Success

When I first began learning pay per click let’s just say I was a little confused, okay incredibly overwhelmed, by all that I had to learn. Bid changes, keyword additions, something called DKI… not only did I have to learn what each of these ppc terms meant but I also had to learn how often to do each task. Luckily I had a great trainer who created a PPC task checklist to help ease me into the pay per click world.

I’m no longer a PPC newbie, but I still use the list when I plan out my schedule for each month. Whether you are new to PPC management, or been have been running accounts for awhile but like to have a reminder of regular tasks you should be doing, this PPC task checklist is for you.

Weekly PPC Tasks

Project Performance. Project the performance of your account to see if you are over or under goals and adjust accordingly. The two metrics I focus on with my accounts are spend and conversions. If I am projected over spend, I know I have to decrease keyword bids.

Display network review. Exclude placements that have spent a lot of money without converting. If you have placements where you are performing well or converting for a high CPL, consider adding them to management placements to bid separately.

Bid Changes. Adjust bids on keywords that are generating the most of your daily spend, converting but in lower positions, spending without converting, converting above CPL.

Check Budgets. Run a report for the past seven days to see if spend is hitting your daily budget. Re-allocate budgets accordingly, giving a larger portion to higher converting campaigns.

Pause Underperforming Keywords. Pause keywords that have spent without converting or have a low CTR and could harm account performance and lower Quality Score.

Bi-Weekly PPC Tasks

Negative Keyword Additions. Run an SQR to find irrelevant search terms you can add into your account. Eliminating these keywords will increase CTR by preventing unqualified traffic from seeing or clicking your ad.  You may want to do this weekly for newer accounts until you build up a solid negative keyword list.

Keyword Expansion. Use SQRs, keyword tools, and monitor the competition for potential keyword additions. If a certain search term is converting, or you start seeing keywords appearing again and again, build out new ad groups and test.

Ad Review. Pause underperforming ads and write new ads to test. You should be testing at least two ads per ad group at all times. Make sure you have gathered enough impressions data to truly evaluate performance.

Impression Share Report. If your Exact Impression Share is low, consider either increasing your budget, tightening up your match types, pausing less targeted keywords or a combination of the above.

Monthly Tasks

Check Campaign Settings. Look at the settings of each of your account’s campaigns once a month to make sure they are correct. Check that you’re targeting the correct locations, languages, networks, and devices. You make a lot of changes to your account in a month, and it’s much easier that you’d think to accidentally select the wrong setting.

Landing Page Review. Run a Destination URL report to see if you have any weak performing landing pages that can be removed in order to devote more traffic to top performing pages. Create new landing page variations based off of the top performing pages to continue testing. Test different form lengths, copy, images, headlines, etc.

Monthly Keyword Comparison. Run a monthly keyword report to identify any major changes that have occurred and compare the performance to previous months. This is also the only way to have a record of a keyword’s quality score as past quality score is not available in AdWords.

Bi-Monthly Tasks

Geotargeting. Run a Geographic report to determine locations where performance is above or below average. Consider excluding poor performing locations or breaking out campaigns to better target different areas.

Day Parting. Look at performance by day of week and hour of day. Lower bids or pause campaigns during hours of low or no conversions and boost bids during peak performance times.

Historical Performance Review. Analyze account performance over the past two years to evaluate any seasonal or other long-term trends in the data.

Obviously these are not the only things you should be doing in your PPC account, but this checklist provides a good foundation for PPC management.

Click below to download your own copy of the checklist and please post any tasks you think should be included below!

PPC Task Checklist