The Early Worm Gets Eaten By the Bird – PPC Campaign Tips from Adwebvertising
Pay Per Click PPC Campaign Tips from Adwebvertising
Knowing Your Competitions PPC Campaing
The High Cost of Low Budgets
In a nutshell here is how it works. Let’s say you are willing to spend $1000 per month as your advertising budget on Google PPC campaign. What this equates to is $33 per day in advertising over the course of the average month (1000/30 days = $33.33/day). If you are willing to bid $11 per clicks this means that you could potentially get (3) clicks on any given day before your ad comes down off of Google. Now, the reality is that even if you bid $11 per click it is not necessarily the case that you will pay the full amount per click and so you could actually get more than (3) clicks. But for the sake of argument, let’s say this is the case and you max out at (3) clicks per day. In competive verticles like Plumbing, or Real Estate, $11 dollars won’t even get you on the first page in most cases! So when I have a client that is limited by budget I always recommend that they use their lower budget by limiting the time they show ads to a shorter month. That same $1000 budget becomes $66 per day and (6) clicks when you cut your month to a (15) day month. Take that same $1000 and apply it to a (5) day month and you start to see more consistent exposure (albeit for a shorter amount of time throughout the month).
I generally employ PPC campaign strategies like this for clients that have lower budgets and are insistent on being in the Google space for PPC. One example would be roofing companies. By running ads during seasonal events, such as heavy rains, having a good budget to work with on days when leaking roofs are more likely is a better use of their advertising dollars. All of this to say, you want to make sure you have a budget that is competitive enough to earn your place at the table, and yet flexible enough to choose the best times to run your ads.
Be the Bird Not the Worm
So, how does this play favorably for my clients who spend a great deal of advertising dollars on their PPC campaign to maintain their seat at the table in the high-stakes reality of Google advertising. Well, in reality it requires us to capitalize on advertisers that are under budgeted. By carefully monitoring the competition, we are able to see those who are on auto-pilot and come pretty close to estimating their daily spend. Because Google is forced to economize delivery of ads through two delivery methods: Standard and Accelerated delivery. With standard delivery Google paces the ad delivery of their clients PPC campaigns throughout the day (placing ads at various times depending on their ad schedule). Client ads will then appear sporadically. This is why clients with lower budgets often ask, “why are my ads not showing up,” when they go on Google to check. One they are underbudgeted, two, their ads are in rotation. This goes on until the advertiser exhausts their daily budget and come down from Google for the day.
Carpe Diem
Enjoy the Friuts of Your Labor
With the competition now out of the way, we are free to go into bid adjustment mode and enjoy less expensive clicks, significantly higher CTR (click through ratios) and better quality scores (which Google rewards with lower CPC).
With your competitor’s PPC campaign budget exhausted in the later hours of the day, the competitive bidding for a particular keyword/keywords thins significantly. If circumstances line up properly, you can lower your bids in the afternoon hours and enjoy far less expensive clicks, and better click-through rates (and, ultimately, higher quality scores). There are two ways to approach lowering your bids in the later part of the day. By this time we can bring out some of our other ad copy that has the lower bid price and watch as our analytical data proves our strategy to be effective.
Don’t Fret If You Have A Low Budget: Maximize What You Have
Of course this is just one approach to being competitive in the now 3rd largest metro in America. But it works well for our clients. There are other tactics that we employ that are all a part of our “secret sauce,” but if I told you about those I’d have to….well you know. But anyways, I hope this is helpful to you. At least if you are limited by your budget you will have a greater strategy to compete against our clients. I would recommend biting the bullet and shortenting your month or your day and just capitalizing on what you can while you can or increase your budget. To get the most for your Google PPC Campaign Ad budget, consistency and knowing your competition is the best way to come out on top. If you have a smaller budget, don’t get discouraged. Find your niche time and keywords and work those until you can build up enough capital to compete in the big-stakes game. I have had clients that started out spending $5oo per month (against my better judgment) only to have them come back later after several months of success in shortening their game to spend $6-10K per month! It happens all the time.
For more information about how you can get your own Adwebmaster to manage your Pay Per Click advertising on Google, give us a call at 713.397.3833 or contact us via our contact page.
Great article Nick. Don’t you think that this tactic is a bit machiavellian though? I know it is a dog-eat-dog world, but this does not seem to give the little guy much of a chance at the game. Don’t get me wrong, I would do the same thing, but my budgets are really low right now.
Jason, you said it correctly, it is a “dog-eat-dog” world that we live in. But here is my take on it. I have been made steward over my clients accounts and it is my job to make sure that their campaigns run effectively and I get them the highest ranking at the lowest possible CPC (cost per click). In the Art of War by Sun Tzu, the military strategist speaks about flexibility and knowing how to adapt and understand your competitor. I think it is prudent to know what my clients competitors are doing so that I can cause their businesses to flourish. The fact is, that being on page one of Google at the top of the page is beneficial for business. If you have not read our article on the Google Golden Triangle you should check it out. We understand the plight of the little guy. We encourage them to maximize their dollars on Google by being equally strategic in their approach to advertising online. We can help the little guy compete with the big boys by employing some similar tactics.
Hope this helps.