Online paid promotion is always a beast regardless of the exact technique you’re relying on to drive traffic. For Pay Per Call marketers in particular, the bidding process for keywords can be rather complicated and confusing. One of the most effective ways to position ads properly is through the use of negative keywords. By using negative keywords to fine-tune the direction and scope of Pay Per Call campaigns, one can greatly boost ROI. Here are six excellent negative keyword tips.
Employ Starter Lists
Compiling lists of negative keywords to use in your campaigns can take a long time if you’re starting from scratch. Instead, try using existing starter negative keyword lists and take out what’s not working as you go. It’ll take a little experimentation to find the right formula. However, you can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to hit pay dirt by starting out with existing lists that have proven themselves and modifying them.
Define Your Ad Levels Early
As you should know by now, there’s a big difference between campaign and ad group level negative keywords. The former are specific to individual campaigns. The latter tend to be greater in number and should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis for specificity. However you choose to organize your promotional efforts, you need to understand how campaign and ad group keywords affect ROI. Develop two different approaches to campaign and ad group keywords.
Be Careful with Match Types
In the keyword arena, match types have incredible power for both good and evil. Pay Per Call marketers need to be pretty cautious when using negative keywords to eliminate whole categories of potential customers. Long story short, you need to be really careful about adding a broad negative keyword to your negative keyword mix. Picking the wrong negative keyword can have unintended consequences thanks to the far-reaching impact of match types in the bidding process.
Run Search Query Reports Often
The most important part of the whole keyword research process is ongoing analytics. As far as keyword bidding is concerned, you can never have enough on-the-ground intelligence to work with. SQRs give you the skinny on which keywords are responsible for your ads getting placement and hits. Make sure that you run SQRs once every week or so to ensure the best results. Daily SQRs might be required for particularly challenging campaigns.
Build Keyword Lists Gradually
While starter lists can be quite effective, you’ll need to put in some serious effort to compile a good negatives list over time. The point is that you shouldn’t expect immediate results overnight. Wait for a month or so with a particular campaign before writing it off. If you’re not willing to put in that kind of time and effort, maybe a paid Pay Per Call promotional campaign isn’t the right fit for you and your business model.
Trim the Fat
Negative keywords in Pay Per Call campaigns are a great example of “addition by subtraction.” By paring down a campaign to its bare essentials through the use of negative keywords, it’s a lot easier to cuts costs and maximize profits. Any Pay Per Call ad network worth its salt will make the process as seamless and intuitive as possible. Once you get the swing of things, negative keywords are actually pretty easy to implement.