You Can’t Manage It, If you Don’t Measure it…

We’ve all been guilty at some point in time of getting into the habit of ‘set and forget’.

We see it happen with people who lose weight. They focus on their diet and training, weigh themselves daily and lose a tonne of weight. But, when they reach their goal, they stop focussing on it. They no longer weigh themselves daily, their dietary habits slip and they, without realising it, revert back to their start weight.

What has this got to do with your business?

Well, I’m sure you have some goals. Some targets that you want your business to achieve. I’m here to help you achieve them.

My name is Sam, and I am the PPC pro at Hillsgreen. This means that I make a living from tweaking, testing, and tracking the results of Pay Per Click campaigns.

Yes, my knowledge and understanding has been tailored specifically around Google Ads Pay Per Click, but the principles can be taken and multiplied across almost any marketing strategy.

Due Diligence

You’ve got to put the research time in to be almost certain that your campaign is going to be a success. There’s got to be a market for your product with enough people searching for it, you must stand out from the crowd in some way, plus take advantage of many other factors including seasonality and trends.  There’s little point trying to market a double thickness, woolly blanket in the height of Summer or selling flip flops in Iceland (the country!). This research will save you countless hours by determining a general direction for your campaign to start off.

Taking Action

Don’t get bogged down with all the data. Do your due diligence but don’t continue researching for the sake of it. Look at the important info, data and trends. Make sure your decision to go ahead or not is as informed as you can reasonably be. If the research is in your favour, it’s time to get started.

Tweaking and Adjusting: The Two Main Types

A/B principle – what will set you aside from your competition!

You’re ready to set your campaign live… I want you to create a minimum of 2 ads to advertise the same product or service. I don’t care if it’s a Google Ad, Facebook Ad, or a printed flyer. The principle is the same. On one of the ads change one element – the ad copy, colour scheme, image or video content. Just make sure there is one difference. Get them both live.

You’ve done the due diligence, you’ve set your ads live and they’re running. Now, you need to wait, sit on your hands and, as long as nothing goes drastically wrong, just leave them alone while you gather some data. This is important. Many people make the mistake of messing with their ads without having the data to back it up. Resist the urge.

Now comes the technical part… The Analysis

Your ads have been running long enough to gather some data. Now you need to analyse the data. Analysis sounds technical and daunting but in truth, it’s using data to answer questions. This is where you’ll thank me for telling you to create 2 ads. It makes the analysis very simple.

• Which ad performed best?

• Which ad converted best?

• Which ad delivered the best ROI?

• Which ad drove the most traffic to site?

Usually, you will have one clear winner, and you can pause the other ad while you make changes to it.

Now you have more visibility on what your audience are engaging with.

If the red colour scheme worked better than the blue, you know that red is the colour scheme to use. Make both ads red and change one other element – the ad copy, image, video, layout…

Rinse and repeat, changing one element at a time, until you have the best performing ad possible.

The second kind of tweaking is done with just one well working ad.

When you have an ad with the right image, colour scheme, ad copy, layout etc, it’s time to make tweaks individual to the platform.

Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn Ads all have plenty of different levels to pull but the principles are all the same.

Important Note – Make a note of which lever you pulled and what date and time so you can turn it back if it doesn’t work.

Firstly, analyse the data that you have collected and choose an area where you want to improve your ad. Then tweak it to elicit a change to that specific metric.

For instance, to improve your Click Through Rate, you could change the ad copy or the Call To Action.

Or if you want to lower your Cost Per Click, you could change the Google Ads bidding strategy or match types.

After you make your changes, keep an eye on the data but leave it alone unless it does something drastically wrong.

Analyse the results of your test, if it worked then keep it as is, if it made the activity perform worse, simply put it back to how it was prior to your test.

Now, rinse and repeat with another lever.

Most Importantly… Keep Testing!

Keep testing, tracking and tweaking and soon enough, you will have a campaign which is running like a well oiled machine. When it is, don’t stop! All the platforms are constantly evolving so you’ll need to keep tweaking, testing and tracking to keep ahead of the changes!