What is a PPC audit?
Many online advertisers would like to know how to maximize the effectiveness of their search marketing campaigns. And PPC audits are the perfect tool for assisting them in this quest.
A PPC audit assesses a PPC campaign and evaluates how it can be enhanced or upgraded to generate a higher return on investment (ROI).
It evaluates your paid advertising strategy’s short and long-term success by examining the performance, cost, and returns of your ad campaigns, ad groups, and personal ads. PPC account audits should be performed regularly to maximize the performance of your PPC campaign.
PPC is a complicated task and can be pretty demanding. Even if you’re following best practices while managing your accounts, chances are you’ve overlooked something – especially if you’ve been working on the account for a while.
Furthermore, things change quickly in the world of paid search. What worked yesterday may no longer work today, so a regular PPC audit is necessary for your ads to excel in the right direction.
Why Are PPC Audits Important?
You might have often heard that you should do an audit if you run a PPC campaign. So, what is the benefit of performing a PPC audit?
Well, auditing your campaign provides numerous benefits. Here are a few:
Monitor the effectiveness of the campaign
When you put time and money into a campaign, you want to know if it’s working. A PPC audit helps you to understand how your strategy has performed over time and how you can improve it.
Identify performance troubles
To ensure your campaign performs optimally; you must regularly monitor and update it. A PPC audit will assists you in identifying and correcting faults within your campaign that might be causing the drop in your PPC results.
Comparison with the competition
PPC audits provides the proper insight into the performance of your campaign. You can use this data to assess your ad’s performance against competitors.
Helps to optimize the campaign
There is always scope for improvement when running a digital marketing campaign. A PPC audit will assist you in determining where you can improve your campaign’s performance by pointing out the pain points.
Insight of target market
A PPC audit will guide you in understanding how your target audience interacts with your adverts. You will know what your audience enjoys about your ad and what things need to be improved to create a better user experience for them.
💡Fun Fact: According to a survey, 75% of participants think paid search ads make it easier to find the information they’re looking for.
Does all this seem overwhelming already? Worry not! We at InvisiblePPC make PPC Audit look easy with our Done-For-You PPC Ads Audit
8-steps to perfect PPC audit
New to the world of PPC? Never run a PPC audit before? Then this PPC audit checklist is for you!
1. Select a date range
Setting the date range is the first step in conducting a PPC audit. You need to make sure you have adequate data to evaluate.
You shouldn’t examine a limited sample of data that only covers 30 days. A month’s worth of data is insufficient time to assess how well your modifications are working. To ensure that you can correctly measure results over time, use a larger set of data.
At the absolute least; you should examine three months’ worth of data. This is enough information to determine whether your strategies are effective.
2. Download the data
Once you have set your date range and have enough data, the safer option is to download everything because you’ll be evaluating a large volume of data, and you don’t wanna miss anything.
You can effortlessly export your data by using your Google Ad’s account. You’ll be able to export all of your PPC account data, data from specific campaigns, or specify custom exports.
You can save all of this information into a Google sheet or Excel spreadsheet. It will benefit you in keeping the data organized.
Export your data by using your Google Ad’s account
3. Keep a budget record
When performing your PPC audit, make sure you pay special attention to how much you’re spending on each campaign. Keep track of such information to calculate the cost of attaining the campaign’s goals.
You should keep track of your cost-per-click (CPC) and the number of clicks you get for your budget. In order to properly set up your audit and analyze the effectiveness of your campaign, it is crucial to keep track of your expenses and ROI.
4. Examine your ad copy
This is one of the few non-metric parts of your PPC campaign that you should keep an eye on. It’s necessary to examine your ad text while reviewing your PPC campaign because your ad copy significantly impacts how your audience responds to your ad.
First, ensure that your ad is directed at a specific demographic. When you execute your marketing, you should have a particular audience in mind; try creating a target audience to help your campaign perform better.
Additionally, make sure your ad includes a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA) in your ad copy. And, if you want to improve your ad relevancy, ensure you’re using keywords appropriate to your ad copy.
Review your ad content to check if it answers the customer’s query: “what’s in it for me?
5. Check your quality score
One of the most crucial elements of any PPC campaign is the quality score. Your ad’s placement is influenced by its quality score and maximum bid.
If you wish to increase the placement of your ad, you must first improve your quality score. Factors such as ad relevancy and clickthrough rate (CTR) influence your quality score.
People are more likely to click on your ad if it is more relevant to their search query, which is why improving your quality score becomes a must if you want to boost the overall performance of your ad.
6. Evaluate your keyword targeting
The most fundamental aspect is to optimize for long-tail keywords. These are keywords of three or more words. For example, a long-tail keyword can be “shoe stores in Austin, Texas.”
If you are not currently using long-tail keywords in your campaign, now is the time to start. It will assist you in developing a more effective campaign for your brand.
7. Analyze your bids
We can’t emphasize enough on this one! Keeping track of your bid when running your PPC campaign is a must. You should keep an eye on this figure to understand how much you’re spending to get leads for your product.
You want to leave enough room for your company to make a profit. If you pay $10 each time someone clicks on your ad and buys a $15 product, your profit margin is razor thin; then, it’s time for you to rethink your strategy.
8. Assess your location targeting
You can use location analysis to see where your adverts perform best. Google Ads allows you to check which cities your ad appears in. Knowing where you’re more likely to get more business is a terrific approach.
This will enable you to see where you could boost your ad spending. If certain cities produce better results than others, you can spend more money on ads for a better return on investment.
Location analysis assists you in determining where to direct your finances to achieve the best outcomes for your Google Ads campaign.
