3 More (Yes, More!) Ways to Save Money on PPC

Already followed all our other tips on cutting costs in your PPC account? Still want to squeeze more efficiency out of your campaigns so you have more pocket money for cocktails and handbags? I feel you sister. Here are even more ways to make your paid search budget go farther.

See also:

• Five Ways to Lower Your PPC Campaign's Cost Per Action (CPA)
• Five Ways to Lower Your AdWords & PPC Costs
• What to Do When Your AdWords CPCs Are Too High
• Five Ways to Squeeze More Efficiency Out of Your Best Performing Campaigns
• Google AdWords Quick Wins: Two Reports that Could Save You Thousands
• AdWords Quick Wins, Volume 2: More Reports that Could Save You Thousands
• Why Is My Content Network Cost Per Click So High? 3 Mistakes New Advertisers Make

Close Your A/B Tests

PPC ad testing always starts out with the best of intentions. You want to improve your click-through rate (CTR) or conversion rate so you write variations on your old ads, then sit back and wait for the new and improved results to roll in. Over the next few weeks, or even months, you check back, sometimes pausing an ad that is under-performing, but never really concluding your A/B test. Many advertisers leave their ad tests  running for 6 months or longer, way after statistical significance is reached.

An easy way to increase your PPC account’s performance is to pause all ads in every ad group except the top performer. If you leave your tests running too long, your weaker ads will continue to run next to the winners, racking up impressions while you lose valuable clicks and conversions in the process. Don’t forget to eventually declare a winner so you can claim all those extra clicks and leads! In the long run it will improve your Quality Scores and ROI.

Create a Negative Keyword Conflicts Report

If you run campaigns on Bing Ads (formerly adCenter), you can create a negative keyword conflicts report, which lets you know if any of your negative keywords could be at cross purposes with keywords you’re actively bidding on. For example, let’s say you’re bidding on the term “window cleaner” and you have “free” set as a negative keyword, as many businesses do. That would prevent your ads from showing when someone searches on “streak free window cleaner.” Being overly aggressive with negative keywords can kill your volume. This report can help prevent that. Here are instructions from Bing on how to do it:

1. Click Reports along the top of the page. This brings you to the Reports page.
2. Click Create a new report and then select Negative Keyword Conflicts report from the Targeting section.
   This report is automatically a summary of today's activity only.
3. Here are some options:
   • You can add more detail to your report or filter its data in the Advanced settings (optional) section.
   • If you want, you can give your negative keyword conflict report a name in the Templates and scheduling (optional) section.
   • You can also save the report as a template or schedule it to run automatically.
4. Click Create new report to run your report.

Naturally, the insights from this report shouldn’t be limited to your Bing campaigns. If you find negative keywords that are preventing your ads from showing on search queries that could drive valuable traffic for you, be sure to disable or refine those negatives in AdWords as well.

Create More, and More Specific, Landing Pages

When we asked Perry Marshall the top three mistakes that new AdWords advertisers make, his #2 answer was sending all clicks to the home page. Specificity is really important to PPC success, and you’re never going to get ROI from PPC if all your clicks bounce after they get to your site. Each landing page should have a clear connection to the corresponding ad and the keyword you’re bidding on – it really tans my hide when I click an ad that advertises “black cropped pants” and I land on some page on a clothing site with no black cropped pants in sight. In most cases, more landing pages will result in more conversions, even at the same number of clicks.

Need inspiration for creating better landing pages? Check out some of Oli Gardner’s landing page critiques on the Unbounce blog:

• 25 Smart Landing Pages for Collecting Leads [+10 Tips for Your Next Page]
• 35 Beautiful Landing Page Design Examples to Drool Over [With Critiques]

Image via Philip Taylor PT

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.