Common PPC Questions from Clients

The search engine marketing industry changes rapidly and that will continue to be the case. Our clients and prospective clients are busy doing their real jobs and can’t keep up with the changes when looking at their AdWords accounts. So I thought it would be beneficial to compile a common list of frequent questions I have been hearing lately.

If people click more on my ads won’t it help my organic listings?

I am not sure who started this rumor, but they need to be shipped to sea. I still get these questions, 10 years into this business. Yes, amazing, I know. And NO, the two are totally separate.

What is a good click through rate?  

This is always an excellent question to ask, but it is a hard one to answer. There are a lot of factors that go into determining a good click through rate (CTR), such as business type, B2B vs B2C; industry sector; the keyword mix; and the client’s bid to budget within their budget appetite. However, across the hundreds of campaigns we run, I would say that somewhere between 3-12% is a good CTR to aim for. Anything lower generally catches my attention as an area of improvement, with exceptions.

What is a good bounce rate?

This falls into the same category of the click through rate question; hard to answer with many factors. Factors for a good bounce rate include industry sector, but also in terms of the purpose of the landing page, what our offering is and how well we are matching query intent to content. But, all things being equal, anything over 40% catches my attention, providing it is a landing page that isn’t on an island and doesn’t have any next steps to it.

I want to create custom landing pages, is that a good idea? 

It can be — it really depends on what you’re offer is and how well the page is structured to match the user’s intent. We have many clients that use a program like Unbounce to test landing page templates. However, especially in B2B environments, I will also test internal product or service page against the custom landing page. Lately, I have been finding that using pages on the main site for campaigns has been outperforming single standing landing pages. It appears that users want to move around and read about other products or about the company background. A custom landing page often is a 1 or 0 proposition, either fill out the form or leave. Either way, it highlights why testing is important.

How do I know if my ads are showing in our target geographies?  

This has been a common question for as long as I have been in the industry. One of the quickest ways to determine if your ad is showing up in our targeted area is to use the Ad Preview Tool. Keep in mind, the client must be logged in with a Google account to use this. Type in a sample query along with geography and you should get a clean, unfiltered view of how the ads are showing.

Where do I find AdWords traffic in Google Analytics?  

Simple question, but again, people are busy running their business and Google Analytics can be overwhelming. I point them in the direction of Acquisition > AdWords on the right hand column of options.

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How are you going to determine what our starting click budget should be? 

When deciding the best click budget, there are several items taken into consideration. First, what the client’s wide budget range is. Second, the competitiveness of the keyword by looking at how many companies are bidding on the desired keywords and how well they are positioning ads. Next, we determine the average monthly search volume and historical cost per click by using tools like the Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush and GrepWords. From this, we combine the data, back it out against our anticipated click through rate to try to determine a range for the monthly budget.

Where do I find the Call Detail Report?

I get this one a lot because it is hard to find in the AdWords interface. With a Campaign or Ad Group View, Go to Dimensions > Call Details. There you will see calls from both ads and your website (if it is set up as such), as well as date, time, duration, and the area code of the caller.

While these are just a handful of questions I receive, these are the questions I’m more commonly asked. What other paid search questions can I answer for you?

Joseph Ford

Joe Ford is a Managing Partner at Netvantage Marketing. In addition to overseeing day to day business operations of Netvantage, he directs paid search strategy and management. Ford is on the Marketing Committee for Impression 5 Science Museum, and the Executive Board of the Capital Area IT Council. He was previously a member of the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce Executive Board of Directors for 8 years. Additionally, Ford is an adjunct faculty member in the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

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