Though Pay Per Call isn’t a carbon copy of traditional PPC, many of the skills that PPC technicians have honed over the years translate quite well. The bidding strategies and tactics that have been proven to work with PPC are equally applicable to Pay Per Call. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a rank amateur, you should regularly school yourself on the best approaches to bidding. These simple tips will help you to get the most from your ad spending.
Start Specific, Then Move Broad
One of the biggest mistakes that beginner AdWords publishers make at the outset is selecting keywords that are too broad. This is an incredibly inefficient way to launch a campaign that can waste a ton of money before you eventually see a profit. Start with highly specific keyword groups and tweak them until you get reliable results. You can expand to broad match keywords later on once you get the lay of the land.
Use Opposing Rules for Low CPC Keywords
Long tail keywords that are specific to a particular niche are highly attractive to Pay Per Call marketers due to their relative affordability. While a strategy based on low-competition keywords is usually a good idea, said keywords don’t often stay cheap for long. Setting opposing rules for keywords with low CPCs is kind of like setting stops on stock trades. Doing so will prevent potential losses if bids on keywords rise quickly.
Move Under-Performing Keywords Around
Just because a keyword phrase or group of keywords doesn’t work on the first try doesn’t mean that you should abandon them entirely. The smartest approach to keyword selection for Pay Per Call campaigns is the so-called “Peel n’ Stick” method. Take keywords that aren’t firing on all cylinders and shift them to other ad groups. While this approach takes a bit more effort, it can quickly boost conversion rates for your landing pages.
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Adjust Your Bids on a Weekly Basis
At a certain point, micromanaging your campaigns becomes a waste of time and money. Oftentimes, publishers feel the need to fiddle with their keywords on a daily basis. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t give you enough quantifiable data to work with when attempting to determine campaign viability. You’ll need up to two weeks of feedback to figure out whether or not a group of keywords has potential.
Don’t Automate Until You’re Ready
There’s much to be said for automating various aspects of any PPC or Pay Per Call campaign. The mistake that most people make is putting their campaigns on autopilot too soon. You’ll need to really pin down your verticals and play around with different match types to create a campaign that’s strong enough to be partially or fully automated. Once you’re ready to automate bid management, be sure to adjust bidding rules as you go.
Pay Per Call Bidding Is a Numbers Game
Like any method of online promotion, Pay Per Call entails a fair amount of failure on the road to success. The trick is to keep swinging until you knock one out of the park. As long as your hits more than make up for your misses, you’ll be golden. The bidding tactics expounded upon above will help you to greatly decrease the time it takes to strike pay dirt.
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