Setting up a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign involves extensive planning and even with the very best preparation things can slip through the cracks. Whether you’re an experienced PPC professional or not everyone needs a checklist to help keep everything on track.
There are certain things every PPC campaign needs in this two-part post we’ll look at six areas that need your attention. In part one of our post we looked at identifying your market and messaging, creative development and campaign structure and development.
Conversion tracking
All the effort you put into your campaign won’t be worth much if you don’t track it. Setting up conversion tracking allows you to measure conversion actions and track the performance of your ad.
- Set-up AdWords Conversion Tracking to record sales/downloads/contact form submissions etc. depending on what your desired goal is.
- Create goals in Google Analytics to track where you visitors maybe falling out of your ‘Goal Funnel’.
- “Live test” your tracking.
Finances and budget
Once you know what your ideal campaign will look like it’s time to set up a budget for your ad spend.
- Is billing within AdWords set up?
- How much are you prepared to bid up to for a click on one of your adverts.
- Set your bids and be prepared to adjust after you’ve launched the campaign to achieve your desired ad positions.
- Have you selected a budget that is comfortable to you?
Launch
Once you’ve ticked the boxes for the areas listed above you should approaching the launch phase of your project.
- Try and avoid launching a new pay-per-click campaign over the weekend unless you will be monitoring it.
- Most PPC professionals prefer to launch a new campaign on a Monday. This way they have an entire week to monitor the campaign.
- Once you’ve launched the campaign continue to monitor the performance and make adjustments where necessary.
- Review the negative keywords weekly and update accordingly.
Missed part one of our post? Click here.
