I’m not pointing fingers at anyone in particular (I promise!), nor do I assume that everyone of you fall into this category. But I know that there are a great deal of you out there who are “too busy” to improve your PPC campaigns. Either out of apathy, stress or maybe you just don’t know any better – many of you are neglecting PPC and are suffering the consequences. How do you remedy this situation? Easy! Today I’ve outlined 3 tasks that can get you involved in your PPC campaigns for just a few minutes a day.
- Create Automated Reports: In a world full of no-brainers, this one takes the PPC-cake. In AdWords, Analytics, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter you can create report templates that can be emailed to you at designated intervals with your account’s most important data. The task of setting up a report template is SO simple and only takes a few minutes. The benefit to you? You no longer have an excuse for not knowing how your PPC campaigns are performing. If you choose to receive daily reports, that’s fine (and a good way to stay on top of things). However, I would recommend that you create your report templates to pull at least 30 days worth of data so that you can look at trends. Why? So you don’t make knee-jerk account changes based on a single day’s data.
- Review Account Settings: I’ll start this one off with a disclaimer: If you don’t create new campaigns on a frequent basis, this is likely a one-time or every-few-months type of event. However, if you’re managing PPC accounts where campaigns are added weekly or a few times a month, this activity is certainly worth your time. I’ve harped about account settings many times in the past, but that should only prove out how important I feel that they are. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s PPC interfaces each have a collection of settings that will be a major factor in your overall performance. Spend 5 minutes a week reviewing your campaign settings. It is quite easy to forget about Ad Serving or Ad Rotation settings in AdWords (for example) – especially when you use AdWords Editor (those settings aren’t available in Editor!). Check ’em. Change ’em. Thank me later.
- Create a PPC Schedule: Busy people require schedules to plan out their time. To make account changes a part of your daily routine, set aside 10, 15, 30 minutes a day – whatever you can spare – and designate a task to each day. Need examples? Monday: Rotate Ads. Tuesday: Edit Bids. Wednesday: Run Search Query Reports; Add Negative Keywords. Thursday: Rotate Ads (again). Friday: Conduct Keyword Research (look for new opportunities). This is by no means a NEW idea, but it is so important. I’ll leave it at this: If you’re dedicated to spending money for search engine traffic, you need to be dedicated to making the necessary changes to continue seeing improvements in performance.
In no way am I trying to condense the world of PPC into 3 simple tasks. PPC management at its best is an in-depth process that requires great attention to detail and dedication. This post is intended to push those individuals who are neglecting their PPC campaigns and claim to be “too busy” to take the first steps towards making real progress. First steps – steps that should lead to a greater level of interest and care!
