Pay-per-click campaigns involve a lot of trial and error to determine which types of ads, ad placement and keywords get the most clicks. For quite some time, marketers have been receiving advice on how to make their PPC campaigns most effective. Some of the biggest factors that they focus on include keyword relevance, landing page quality and quality score. What many people don’t realize is that there are additional factors that can have a significant impact on PPC results, but they are often overlooked.
Uncovering the factors that influence PPC is like unlayering a recipe. What sets one recipe apart from the next is the secret ingredients that are used – the ones people don’t want to tell you about. Once you find these secret ingredients, you can have a recipe that tops the cake. This is how it works for PPC as well. When you determine what some of the overlooked and less obvious factors are, you will have continued success with your PPC campaigns.
Let’s take a look at some of these overlooked factors.
The Weather Outside
They always say that talking about the weather is a great way to start a conversation, and the same is true when developing a PPC strategy. It’s more common for marketing campaigns to be built around a particular season, i.e. electric blankets in the winter and pool rafts in the summer. But the thing is that most people buy reactively instead of proactively. If you can match your campaigns to the current conditions, you’ll see more success.
The End of the Month
Many businesses see a spike in traffic at the end of the month. The reason for this is twofold. First, many people are getting their second paycheck for the month. Second, bills are being paid off for the month, so people have extra spending cash. Either way you look at it, making a small increase in bids to accommodate this traffic can result in better performance. Also pay attention to peaks during other days or weeks in the month that are exclusive to your business.
Quality Score
Quality score is not a secret measure used in PPC, but how you look at it is important. If you analyze quality score over a specified timeframe, it can be misleading and make you focus on the wrong factors. There are times when accounts are simply stuck with low quality scores, so you shouldn’t fret. Instead, keep a record of what changes you are making and how they impact your quality score in order to move forward.
