The Complete Guide to PPC Management

Being a business owner is tricky. Believe me, I know. As the CEO of a digital marketing agency, I've experienced the highs and lows, the challenges, and the triumphs of growing a business. 

One thing I've learned is that success hinges on the ability to adapt, innovate, and utilize data-driven strategies to make informed decisions. That's why I strongly emphasize PPC management as a key service offering. It’s a critical component in driving targeted traffic and achieving measurable results.

The difference between profit for the client and lost revenue often comes down to how effective your PPC strategy is. At Digilatics, we’ve developed a strategic approach to PPC management that consistently yields positive results.

We’re used to taking on challenges. And our collaboration with AgencyAnalytics has been vital in taking on those challenges and prevailing. Let’s explore that in a little more detail.

Agency Role in PPC Management

Your clients expect quick and visible results from you. Yes, it can be difficult, but if your PPC strategy is on point, such targets become easier to achieve. This is especially true if your strategy is clearly planned out to be flawlessly executed bya PPC specialist.

Digilatics has mastered this, especially for our clients in the home inspection industry. Let’s look at an overview of what we usually do for our clients that other digital marketing agencies can apply to their own workflows.

Keyword Research

Imagine stepping into a cluttered room, and your job is to find the most valuable items. That’s how we approach keyword research.

We start with a complete keyword analysis, identifying not just the obvious terms but also the ones that the competition often overlooks. We pinpoint high-intent keywords that align with the services and the search intent of our target audience, ensuring every click is a potential lead.

But our secret sauce is the extensive list of negative keywords that we’ve gathered over the years. All of this helps put up ad campaigns that generate results much faster than the industry standard.

Negative keyword research played a crucial role in one of our client's success stories. By meticulously identifying and excluding irrelevant search terms, we were able to save money and optimize their campaigns.

This approach significantly reduced the cost-per-click and helped filter out unqualified leads. As a result, the client saw a substantial increase in conversion rates and a noticeable boost in their ROI.

PPC Monitoring

Staying ahead of the curve is all about research. We research what the competition is doing, and evaluate where our own PPC campaigns can be further optimized.

When completing competitive analysis, we examine campaign structure, target keywords, ad copy, and even landing pages to find anything that we might have missed. We also continuously monitor our own PPC campaigns, using real-time data from our Lead Insight tool to adjust and optimize wherever needed.

The Lead Insight tool that we developed provides clients with a comprehensive view of their call performance by monitoring and analyzing incoming calls.

We analyze every call and provide insights into why some aren’t converting, highlighting gaps in the process that might otherwise go unnoticed. This detailed visibility helps businesses identify areas for improvement, allowing them to address issues and enhance their sales outcomes. 

We believe there’s always room for improvement, and we are always looking for any inefficiencies that we can fix to generate better-than-expected results.

Campaign Targeting

Effective targeting is crucial—it often means the difference between a campaign that simply spends money and one that actually drives conversions.

Most of our clients offer home services, so we ensure that their ads reach the right neighborhoods where people are actually looking for these services. For this, we use detailed demographic data to fine-tune our audience targeting so the ads reach the right people at the right time.

Bid Optimization

Bid optimization is what efficiently drives your PPC campaigns while keeping the budget in sight.

Many of our clients work in extremely competitive markets. To approach this, we use dynamic bidding strategies. This simply means using performance data, including which areas perform the best, and which keywords bring in the best leads, to optimize the bids and budget.

These insights ensure targeted, efficient bidding so our clients achieve maximum ROI without overspending.

One notable instance was with a client who had an essentially unlimited budget. This allowed us to experiment with various dynamic bid strategies to find the most effective approach. By employing aggressive bidding tactics, we were able to test different bid levels and target audiences, significantly optimizing the campaign. 

Aggressive bidding essentially means setting bids higher than competitors to secure top ad placements, especially in highly competitive markets. This strategy gave us flexibility to refine our approach and achieve impressive results like a substantial increase in conversions and a higher return on the company's PPC ad spend. 

The Most Common PPC Management Challenges (and How To Overcome Them)

While each client’s needs naturally differ from the next, and each PPC advertising campaign is unique in its own way, there are several common challenges that pop up across most PPC management programs. Let’s explore a few of the common themes a PPC manager will encounter. 

Ensuring Ad Relevance

Regardless of how competitive the market is, one challenge that agencies will undoubtedly face is ensuring that ads remain relevant.

We once had a client who decided to try their luck with another agency. However, shortly after making the shift, they returned and asked that we resume our services. 

We did a deep dive into their performance during the time that they were working with the other agency and found that the number of qualified leads was very low and the core issue was ad relevance.

Ads were not reaching the right audience, and if they were, the ad copy was not speaking to them. So we then created relevant ads, made the messaging consistent with the custom landing page, refined the targeting—and gave them more than 10X ROI in the first few months of their return.

AgencyAnalytics played a critical role in this story, providing a clear and easy-to-read view of our data, offering great visibility for both us and our clients. This helps us by allowing us to track performance metrics and identify trends quickly.

With this visibility, we fine-tune our approach more effectively, making data-driven decisions to optimize campaigns and enhance results. For our clients, it means they easily understand the value of our efforts and see how their investments are performing.

Keeping Up With Algorithm Changes

Ever digital marketing manager knows that algorithm updates can turn a well-oiled PPC campaign on its head. A sudden change in the platform’s ad algorithm will greatly impact performance. To tackle this, we utilize real-time data and insights from a variety of tools.  

We combine our custom Leads Insights with AgencyAnalytics to monitor our metrics constantly. If anomalies arise, we promptly revise our strategies. 

If any of your clients are struggling to monitor and stay up to date with algorithm changes, test the AgencyAnalytics free 14-day trial to thoroughly strategize their PPC ads. Revisit the keyword strategies, adjust bids, and optimize PPC ad placements. Within weeks, the campaign won’t only recover but may very well surpass the previous performance benchmarks.

Navigating Budget Constraints

This is one of the most significant challenges. The stakes are high, and the budget is low. It’s tough, but a few smart moves will help you handle it all. 

Analyze the past campaign data and leverage the insights to restructure the budget allocation. Strategically reduce bids on underperforming paid search ads while allocating a higher budget to those that produce better results. To be fair, this approach does require a keen eye, but with a data-driven approach, you will achieve your client’s goal and optimize every dollar spent.

At Digilatics, we recently helped a client navigate budget constraints by optimizing their Google CPC ads. We transitioned from responsive search ads to a Maximize Clicks campaign, which allowed us to be more efficient with their budget.

This strategic shift not only improved cost efficiency but also enhanced overall campaign performance, resulting in a higher click-through rate and better ROI for the client.

Overcoming Ad Fatigue

You’re putting in the effort, but the results are dwindling. The ads you’re running for your clients run successfully for months, but gradually, conversions and engagement start to drop. What can you do about it now? 

Craft a series of fresh, engaging ad creatives and introduce them in phases. Closely monitor the performance and identify the optimal rotation frequency to keep the target audience engaged. This strategy will revitalize your client’s campaign, significantly boosting engagement rates and maintaining a steady flow of leads.

Digilatics’ Strategic Approach to PPC Management

At Digilatics, our approach is rather simple. We don’t believe that if a client spends more, they will have more conversions, and this isn’t promised either. We focus on building a strategic approach to PPC management that maximizes our client's ad spend to generate higher revenue. 

Our process begins with seamless onboarding. We discuss our client’s service list, operational area, monthly budget cap, and desired outcomes. This helps set us on a path where we can manage their PPC campaign effectively.

Once we have all the information, we move to the internal strategy. This is where we review the client's previous PPC performance (if any), their target areas, best-performing keywords, etc.

As we have specialized in the home industry for quite some time now, we have been able to develop tailored strategies that help us reach the desired ROI much faster than if we had to start from scratch.

These perfected campaigns in culmination with our unique Leads Insight tool has allowed us to know exactly what the return of the investment is and identify areas of improvement. We have seen clients hit 10x ROI, others 15x and even 25x, and all the credit goes to our strategic approach and commitment to maximizing their revenue.

How AgencyAnalytics Has Transformed Our PPC Management Workflow

By keeping our clients informed of progress towards their goals, and demonstrating our agency’s success in delivering positive ROI, we’ve scaled the business and built a reputation as a premier agency in the home services space. Here’s how Digilatics has used AgencyAnalytics to enhance client retention and streamline our internal processes:

Automated Reporting

Forget about the old days of tedious manual reports. With AgencyAnalytics, Digilatics was able to get automated reporting down to a science. We create sleek, customizable dashboards and reports that save us time and keep clients looking sharp. 

We pride ourselves on delivering exceptional ROI. While some clients have explored other agencies, they consistently return to us for our proven results. Comprehensive reporting plays a significant role in our agency’s ability to translate reports to demonstrate revenue. 

All PPC Marketing Data in One Place

AgencyAnalytics integrates with over 80 marketing platforms, making it easy for us to pull all a client’s data together in one place. Whether it’s Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, or HubSpot, we have everything synced up, empowering us to effortlessly keep track of every single client campaign and make informed decisions. 

Custom Dashboards & Reports

Every client’s business is different, and so are their reporting needs. With AgencyAnalytics, we build custom dashboards and reports tailored to client requirements. The drag-and-drop builder and customizable widgets let us showcase the data that matters to each client most. Plus, we use the white label feature to add client logos and colors, showcasing their brand.

Conclusion

We know all of this looks rather precise and scientific, and it is. We've been a PPC management company for years now and have optimized our approach to PPC management—especially for the home industry. 

Our team is certified and extensively trained, giving us an advantage over amateur PPC “experts.” However, professional agencies can deliver similar results in any industry with patience and persistence. Digilatics didn't reach here on day one, there were bumps on the road. But if you keep testing and refining your PPC strategies, you'll also achieve remarkable results.