What do I need to know about long-term PPC management?

So, let’s suppose that you have built an awesome doggo treats brand (pawtastic, eh?! 😉 ) that caters to the heart and soul of every four-legged furry canine and their paw-rents. 

But very few people know about your offerings. So what do you do?

You hit the gas on the marketing pedal and create organic content for specific keywords relevant to your product offering. The question is, are pull marketing tactics good enough? 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but just putting out great content won’t help! Yep, we said that loud and clear!

You need to invest in paid marketing tactics as well, such as Pay-Per-Click ad campaigns, that will present your business ads to the right audience. 

Suppose you don’t have the technical expertise to set up PPC campaigns for your brand in-house. In that case, you might have already considered outsourcing your requirements to a third-party digital marketing agency (local or offshore) or even a freelancer!

As you mystery shop for the perfect outsourcing PPC partner, you might have come across agencies recommending a long-term PPC plan that might seem implausible. 

You have many questions about this, such as;

• Why should I invest in a long-term PPC campaign?
• How long does it take to show results?
• What are the benefits of a long-term PPC plan, say for at least six months?

We feel ya! Nobody wants to buy a lemon, and your concerns are perfectly legitimate. 

We at Mavlers have 12+ years of experience catering to the digital marketing and PPC needs of many agencies like yours. Over the years, we have learned the ropes of the trade and gained insight into the concerns and doubts of brands/agencies looking to outsource. 

In the blog that follows, you will gain clarity on the following pointers;

• Gaining a better understanding of the PPC campaign that might be a good fit for you
• How long does PPC take to work?
• An insight into the activities that happen in the Learning Phase (the first three months)
• One-time initial ad account setup vs investing in a long-term PPC plan
• Benefits of a long-term PPC plan
• Link to relevant case studies
• What does the fee structure look like?

We got to work and contacted our tech-savvy sales rep Karan Doshi and our PPC wizard Amardip Raijada to offer genuine insights on the above topics as honestly and unbiasedly as possible. 

An insight into figuring out the PPC channels that might be a good fit for your business 

When you think about running PPC ad campaigns for your business, you might have certain channels in mind. 

At this stage, you might be considering running Search, Display, or Video ad campaigns for your B2B or B2C firm and are unsure about which channel to invest in. 

The answer might vary depending on:

• the nature of your business 
• the budget that you are willing to spend 
• your ad campaign goals, etc. 

When you contact PPC professionals at a digital marketing agency, they will help you determine the channels that might yield the best results for your business. 

Karan says, “When a client approaches us with a USD 3000 budget and wants to run ads on Google, we evaluate their unique needs and suggest the most appropriate channel to yield the desired results. 

Also, suppose a B2C business owner reaches out to us saying that they’d like to run ads on LinkedIn, which is a better fit for B2B firms. In that case, we will review their website, product offerings, and budget and suggest a channel their audiences are more likely to be active or receptive to.” 

How long does it take to work?

Well, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, too! 

In general, it takes a quarter or three months to set up the foundation of a PPC ad campaign. The next three months will be required to offer KPI projections, and then the results start pouring in. 

The duration of this timeframe will also depend on factors like:

• How open are you to implementing the recommendations/suggestions offered by your PPC partner?
• If the ad spending goes up, will you allocate a larger budget?
• How quick are you with giving approvals or feedback?

In summary, while the first three months go into building a solid foundation for your PPC ad campaign, the next two or three quarters are when you can start witnessing results set in the second quarter based on data projections. 

Let’s now look at the technical activities accomplished in the first three months of setting up your PPC ad campaign.

An insight into the activities that happen in the Learning Phase

When you have a solid foundation, you can expect better results. This holds true for almost everything in life, and setting up a profitable PPC campaign is no different!

The first three months of setting up an ad campaign, usually referred to as the learning phase, might involve the following technical activities.

1. Conducting keyword research and selecting relevant ones: 

This will involve diving deep into the keywords that are high-performing and relevant to your business goals and target audience. It will also involve conducting search volume analysis, competition analysis, and CPC (cost per click) for each keyword to make sound decisions.

2. Setting up campaign structure:

Setting the right campaign structure will involve creating specific customer segments, creating separate campaigns for different product/service offerings, setting up a budget, ad delivery method (standard or accelerated), and deciding the campaign’s geographic location and language preferences. 

3. Ad copy creation & optimization:

Create clickable, alluring, and relevant ad copy to bring in the right traffic and continually optimize it based on performance data and user engagement. 

4. Bid management:

This will involve setting up initial bid amounts for each keyword based on research and budget, implementing automated bid strategies and monitoring, and analyzing bids to stay competitive and maximize the campaign’s efficiency. 

5. Optimizing landing pages:

This will involve testing, iterating, and implementing optimized landing pages for relevancy, speed, mobile responsiveness, and conversion rate optimization (CRO).

6. Conversion tracking and analytics:

This step will involve analyzing trends and data gathered to optimize campaigns and make informed decisions. 

Now that we are familiar with everything that goes into building a solid foundation for your PPC campaign let’s begin deconstructing one-time initial set-up ad campaigns vs long-term PPC associations. 

One-time initial ad account setup vs investing in a long-term PPC plan

There could be multiple scenarios wherein you might want to engage with a PPC agency on a one-time or project basis instead of a retainer or longer association (six months or more).

Instances of a one-time engagement requirement may look like:

1. You might need the agency to set up a brand new ad account and come up with an ad campaign structure, and then take it forward from there yourself
2. You could have been running ads for a certain amount of time and are facing issues in a specific segment where you might request the agency’s expertise
3. Or you might want to request a complete audit for your ad account so that you can optimize it and fix issues if any

At Mavlers, we offer both engagement options. You may partner with us for a one-time initial PPC setup or sign up for a longer association that may go beyond six months.

While we strongly recommend going for a longer association to achieve better results that come from a campaign that is monitored and regularly optimized, you can choose to do that yourself or seek an agency’s help. 

If you don’t want to go for a retainer model with a PPC agency, we recommend conducting regular hygiene checks or campaign audits. 

Benefits of a long-term PPC plan

When asked about the importance of investing in a long-term PPC plan for your business, our PPC tech expert, Amardip, shared the following advice. 

“When it comes to executing a holistic marketing approach that includes organic search, SEO, paid social marketing, PPC, email marketing, etc., it is important to give equal long-term importance to all the elements to build and maintain brand visibility and awareness. 

For instance, suppose we have the keyword “professional SEO services” we target through SEO. We should also make it a point to bid on that keyword in our PPC endeavors because if we don’t do that, our competitors will! It is also essential to bid on and run ads on your brand name.”

He suggested at least six months to witness visible results from your PPC ad campaigns. 

The campaign picks up pace only after the first few months. Therefore, it makes sense to run the campaign for a longer period.

In certain cases, such as brand announcements, achievements, or sale disclosures, you may consider running a campaign for a shorter period, such as a month or two. 

For extremely competitive industry genres such as e-commerce, travel hospitality, food and beverage, B2B service-based firms, etc., it is advisable to run paid ads consistently to maintain brand awareness and visibility. 

The benefits of running a long-term PPC ad campaign can be:

1. Year-round availability of ads
2. Your competitor doesn’t get to bid and gain visibility from your brand keywords
3. The quality of your ad campaign can be improved over time by analyzing and implementing the larger pool of data and insights available over time
4. You can eliminate junk keywords and mark them as negative ones. This will help you get the best results
5. Maintain consistent brand visibility

So, greater insights gathered over a longer period translate into better-optimized campaigns, yielding better results. 

When you build cross-platform visibility for your brand throughout the year, you will draw the right set of eyeballs that will benefit your business. 

The only word of caution here is to manage your campaigns consistently and thoroughly. A mismanaged campaign can result in overspending, and the cost per acquisition will shoot up. 

Can you share some relevant case studies?

A hundred percent! 

A case in point is the journey of Doctor’s Health Fund, who reached out to us with the following objectives;

• The primary objective was to increase the total conversions of the account and gather more leads and customer call conversions through strategic Paid Marketing Campaigns. 

• Improve the CPA of the account and keep it around $8.

After a year-long association with Mavlers, we helped them achieve the following results.

Please feel free to check out how we helped Doctor’s Health Fund, an Australian private health insurer, meet its PPC objectives. 

You might also want to know more about how team Mavlers helped Choosewell, a Melbourne-based Health Insurance Comparison service provider, witness a 390% year-on-year increase in sales using AdWords. 

What does the fee structure look like?/ How is the PPC fee calculated?

So, generally speaking, the PPC fees are calculated based on your monthly media spend per channel. At Mavlers, the fee is calculated based on the following slabs.

Interesting! So what lies ahead?

At Mavlers, we are committed to educating our valued clientele with the best, truest, and unbiased marketing insights.

You are aware of the importance and benefits of signing up for a long-term PPC plan. You might now want to explore the difference between PPC and PPM campaigns and decide what works best for your unique business needs.