For those new to digital marketing, the world of paid advertising can seem downright complicated at best and impenetrable at worst. With all the recommended best practices, campaign optimizations and bidding strategies, it’s easy to feel lost. 

In this article, we’re going to show you how unclear goals are the root cause of serious loss of revenue and time. We’ll explore what SMART goals look like and how the right goals can lead to better performing ads, along with some useful tips on getting started. 

This week’s PPC mistake to avoid: Not Having Specific Goals

Your goals could be to ‘get more revenue’ or ‘increase leads’ which are a good starting point, but in this article I’m going to ask you to dig a little deeper.  

Sure, you want more leads, but what kind of leads are you after? For example, if you offer car repair services, you may want oil change leads but not transmission repair leads. You want to ask yourself, who is your ideal lead? Also, consider what aspect of your business you’re wanting to focus the growth on.

It may be you’ve just hired a tire technician and want to expand into selling more tire changes and tire repairs. What services are you actually wanting to advertise? And if someone were to be interested in your services, what words would they be searching for on Google?

How much are you willing to pay for this ideal lead? $1, $10, $100?  How much revenue do you make on an average customer?

Here are three steps to help you set smarter goals –>

Step 1 – Identify your business goals 

Why does your business need a PPC campaign and what results do you wish to achieve? Let’s explore this through an example. Suppose you’re launching a new dog treats brand in a market where there are a lot of established treats brands. What makes your brand unique? It could be that the treats are organic or something even more niche like being vegan. A PPC campaign will help get your brand in front of people searching for new, healthier doggie treats. What you will achieve with this campaign is an increase in brand awareness. 

Whether you are launching a new business or an existing one, everyone can benefit from a PPC campaign. For example, let’s say you’re a game console brand introducing a new console. With plenty of new units, you want to move your inventory quickly, so you’ll want to get your console in front of as many people as possible. Your PPC campaign can convert viewers into buyers instantly.

Step 2 –Identify short vs. long-term goals

With PPC you can set short-term and long-term goals. Using the game console as an example, your short-term goal could be to reach a certain amount of leads in the first month of launch. Your long-term goal could be to achieve an overall sales figure within your target CPA (Cost per acquisition).

Make sure your goals are focused on results that bring your business real growth. Will a goal of ‘generate 500 leads’ contribute to your business ROI? Maybe not. A better goal would be specific, time-sensitive, and measurable.

For example, by March 2023, we will increase sales month-on-month (MoM) by 10% and decrease cost-per-acquisition by 5%.

Step 3 – Measure your performance

Having goals is different from tracking goals. Your goal might be to get more leads but how do you know if you’re actually acquiring them? How much is each lead costing you? The only way to know whether or not your campaign is actually working is to analyze everything! This means looking at your website’s traffic, conversions, impressions, tracking calls and other key metrics.  The more granularly defined goals, the easier it will be to measure what a successful ad looks like.

Next, let’s look at the top 3 PPC goals you can set —>

Are you ready to hit the reset button on your PPC campaigns? We’re here to help! Let our team of PPC experts help you avoid making costly mistakes and generate solid customers for your organization.

Give us a call today – 303.473.4400 or reply back to this email and let’s connect!

Thanks,
Jeff