It is essential to manage ecommerce PPC to secure sales from the PPC campaigns established for your store. In the absence of such management, a majority of your ad expenditure is expected to be fruitless, causing doubt regarding the efficacy of advertising for your store’s progression and revenue.
By utilizing it, you can employ data-driven decisions to optimize your ROI. Are you seeking improved techniques for handling your PPC campaigns? Our top-notch insights are sourced from 41 eCommerce professionals who specialize in PPC.
Out of the individuals included, 63.41% are either eCommerce proprietors or staff members, while the remaining 36.59% work as consultants or agencies for eCommerce companies.
PPC Management
PPC management involves developing a strategy and optimizing a company’s advertising expenditure to enhance ad campaign performance and ROI. Nonetheless, managing PPC campaigns encompasses numerous tasks, such as landing page generation, keyword evaluation, and channel targeting, among other initiatives.
PPC Best Practices for Ecommerce Businesses
1. Set up your Google Merchant Center account properly
Ensuring the correct setup is crucial in developing effective ecommerce PPC ads, which is unsurprising. However, numerous firms remain oblivious to their inadequate account configurations, resulting in erroneous tracking and unnecessary procedures. Therefore, how can you guarantee commencing your ecommerce PPC administration appropriately?
Link your account via a shared email address
To start off, it is essential to generate a GMC account for free on Google Merchant Center. It is recommended to employ an email address that you use for platforms such as Google Ads (previously known as Google Adwords) and Google Analytics for your account to be connected.
Afterward, connecting your Google Ads account to GMC is possible. It’s recommended to set up ecommerce tracking in Google Analytics so that you can gain greater knowledge of performance metrics.
Choose a product data input method
Afterward, you need to make sure your products are added to the Google Merchant Center. Some factors to keep in mind while deciding the method to upload your product information to GMC include:
- Which ecommerce platform will you be leveraging?
- How many products will you be uploading?
- How many product variations with individual SKUs will you be uploading?
- Do you have all the product details organized?
The method of integrating your products with GMC for creating a feed largely relies on the quantity of your products. In case you have a considerable number of products and are utilizing a widely used ecommerce marketing platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, the process of integration with GMC ought to be simple.
Mapping your product feed and regularly submitting the latest information to GMC will guarantee the freshness of your product data. For those with a smaller product quantity, integration can be done manually through a Google spreadsheet. If desired, individual products can also be added manually to test out the platform.
Enhance the configuration of your Merchant Center for better performance.
Many GMC configurations tend to be disregarded, such as the option to allow automatic updates.
If you choose to receive automatic updates, Google will crawl your page and discover the most recent price and availability information.
In case you face a situation where your product goes out of stock, this feature proves to be useful as it prevents you from advertising through Google Ads for an unavailable product page. However, if your site’s structure obstructs Google’s ability to comprehend your pricing, it is advisable to disable the automatic price updates.
After organizing all your items in GMC, you can integrate with your Google Ads account to oversee your ecommerce PPC campaigns. In April 2020, Google revealed their plans to implement no-cost product placements in Google Shopping, which is comparable to Amazon’s platform that enables users to sort merchandise based on cost.
It is now crucial to have your GMC set up with your products and prices to take advantage of the free exposure on the Shopping tab. This can significantly enhance your local SEO efforts.
Our professional advice suggests that you set up a feed in GMC even if your ecommerce venture lacks the finances for new campaigns. Doing so will make you eligible for costless listings in the United States.
2. Stay on top of your product feed
After establishing your GMC account, avoid adopting a mindset of setting it up and forgetting about it.
It is equally important to maintain an updated product feed as well as ensuring proper setup. Nobody wants a potential customer to click on an ad only to discover that the product is out of stock or priced higher than advertised.
Your products will be active for a total of 30 days from their input. If you fail to update the information, they will expire and no longer be visible to prospective customers. To update your products, you can choose to either reprocess your feed or establish automatic processing, depending on the frequency of changes to your inventory.
Ensuring that your prices are current is crucial. The 2021 GMC update resulted in heightened attention to prices. It is imperative that the prices displayed in your product information, landing pages, and during checkout correspond. There is a 28-day grace period to rectify any disparities before your account is suspended.
3. Optimize all aspects of your ad
Ads that drive ROI are not limited to having an attractive image of your product. Rather, every aspect of these ads – including their text and the call-to-action on the landing page – is designed to maximize the likelihood of conversion.
According to Robert Johnson from Coast Appliances, adopting this method for eCommerce PPC management has yielded remarkable outcomes. Johnson stated that enhancing and regularly updating the landing pages on their website has resulted in an increase in their PPC ad conversion rate, from 2.1% in 2021 to 3.5% in the current year.
According to Johnson’s advice, to enhance your ad performance and ROI, it is recommended to divide PPC campaign conversion tracking into smaller ad groups.
Johnson states that our approach is to focus on multiple appliance brands that we provide in our text ads in correspondence with the search engine query. Selecting the appropriate appliance-related phrases and creating persuasive text ads are vital in attracting internet buyers to click on our appliance store over our rivals. Additionally, we employ ad extensions to produce an impressive advertisement.
4. Research your keywords thoroughly
The success of many eCommerce PPC campaigns relies heavily on the keywords that are being targeted.
According to Clare Jones from Custom Neon, selecting appropriate keywords and avoiding irrelevant ones is crucial in enhancing clicks and conversions for eCommerce PPC advertising.
Our survey participants have claimed that conducting keyword research is the most efficient approach to enhance your eCommerce PPC outcomes. Furthermore, this guide includes guidance on optimizing ad copy and product pages, which come in second place as effective methods.
Now that the previous matter has been addressed, let’s return to the topic of researching PPC keywords. To begin, it is crucial to allocate a sufficient amount of time for keyword research prior to launching your PPC ads. Although it may appear to be time-intensive, it is not an element of the process that can be sacrificed.
Jones believes that dedicating adequate time to researching keywords, despite it being a time-consuming task, is essential for a successful PPC strategy as it lays the foundation for it.
To start with, it is advisable to employ appropriate tools for carrying out keyword research. Jones suggests Ahrefs and SEMrush, as they enable you to identify crucial factors related to keyword research, such as keyword volumes in diverse markets and anticipated cost per click.
Jones says that at Custom Neon, they regularly analyze appropriate search terms using the mentioned tools to detect newly developing or popular keywords and add them to their PPC plan.
Another tip related to keyword optimization as part of eCommerce PPC management comes from Jonathan Aufray of Growth Hackers who recommends targeting transactional or commercial keywords for PPC ads.
According to Aufray, many marketers focus on broad or informational keywords, which can be beneficial for increasing brand recognition but not as effective for generating leads or sales. Aufray suggests that targeting keywords that indicate an intention to make a purchase will result in clicks from individuals who are already interested in buying your products, making it more likely that they will convert on a product or sales page.
Start by optimizing your product pages.
Michael Bell from Manukora recommends optimizing your website for PPC advertising to improve its effectiveness. He suggests directing attention towards your product pages as the solution. Bell cautions that if your pages are not optimized, you risk potential customers bouncing away and disregarding your ads in the future.
Bell’s team has managed to increase the conversion of customers from their ads by providing distinct and pertinent details about their products with captivating images.
It is possible for you to do the same. Start by examining your product photos and ensuring they are of excellent quality, displaying the product from all angles. If feasible, enhance your images with product videos to assist buyers in choosing your product.
Afterwards, examine the description of your product as if you were a potential buyer. Is it comprehensive enough to provide answers to all their inquiries pertaining to your product? Specifically, shoppers typically seek vital details such as shipping expenses, expected delivery dates, and the product return policy prior to completing an online purchase.
In addition to providing all the necessary information, ensure that your product description is clear and concise.
It is recommended that you examine your call-to-action button to ensure that it is both noticeable and effortless to use, with straight-to-the-point wording that encourages users to take action. Once that is done, concentrate on streamlining your checkout process to make it as quick and stress-free as possible.
Implementing these measures enhances the purchasing experience for your customers, resulting in increased sales and a customer base that regularly returns and refers others to your business.
6. Pay attention to ad groups
Christopher Marrano of Blue Water Marketing suggests that the best method for handling a Google Shopping eCommerce PPC campaign is to establish the campaign structure and product segmentation.
Marrano suggests that eCommerce businesses should divide their products into specific ad groups and campaigns in order to achieve effectiveness.
To achieve greater control over bidding and success, it is recommended to segment products into distinct ad groups. A keyword-targeted campaign with negative keywords and campaign priority tailored to different search terms within multiple ad groups, using manual cost-per-click bidding, can effectively maximize budget allocation and improve results.
Filip Silobod from Millennium Machinery Ireland offers another advice regarding your eCommerce PPC management products.
According to Silobod, having knowledge about the products that bring in the most conversions is crucial for successful eCommerce PPC. It is recommended to assess the product conversion rates in Google Analytics. For products that have good organic rankings and high conversions, replicate their landing pages and create PPC campaigns for them. This is a clear indication that these products work well. The best option for PPC campaigns is search ads as they offer more control. It is important to manage the keywords with both exact and phrase matches.
7. Test your ads consistently
Repeatedly testing is a crucial step towards achieving high-performing ecommerce PPC ads.
Elements such as imagery, verbiage, and call to action (CTA) can be subjected to A/B testing. It’s important to note that what may succeed on a paid social media campaign might not necessarily yield good results on SEM. Determine which performs better between a flat-lay image of a product on a white background and an actual image of it in use.
The outcome may astonish you even though you believe you understand the desires of your target audience.
8. Think beyond Google
Thinking of ecommerce PPC ads with paid search, it’s only logical to associate with Google. Despite being the dominant global search engine, there are other options worth considering. If you’re achieving favorable outcomes with Google and dominating your impression share, why limit yourself to just one platform?
It is now possible to seamlessly transfer your Shopping campaigns to Microsoft Advertising, which was formerly known as Bing. This platform comprises of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and the Bing search engine.
With 7.2 billion monthly searches conducted by its user base, Bing may provide less competition than Google and a potentially more affordable CPC for your ecommerce product.
If you possess a Microsoft Ads account, creating a merchant center account is a simple process that can be initiated from the ad platform. The data will be handled by Microsoft in a manner similar to Google. Upon scrutinizing the product information, you can establish a Shopping campaign on Microsoft or transfer a successful one from Google.
Microsoft Ads allows users to import on a recurring basis, thereby facilitating optimization in a central location and eliminating the need for manual optimization across multiple platforms. Additionally, it is possible to optimize based on individual platform behaviors for optimal results.
