Small Businesses: Stretch Your Reach With Great PPC Tactics

Is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising cost effective for small businesses? Yes, but it requires high-impact techniques to work. If you are marketing in California, a San Diego PPC agency usually includes the following strategies to widen your reach and increase conversions:

• Narrow your target audience.
• Increase the ad quality score (AQS).
• Go beyond Google Ads.
• Streamline PPC campaigns.
• Regularly refine PPC campaigns.

Read the article below to learn how each plan works toward your small business PPC goals. Let’s go!

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1. Narrow Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience is one of the most effective San Diego PPC strategies. It quickly increases returns while maximizing limited resources. It also sets your business apart from competitors that have big budgets and reduces the cost per click. Whatever your small business in San Diego is, you can narrow your PPC leads in two ways:

• Get local with your ads.
• Use negative words.

Many PPC platforms let you customize ad locations down to your preferred mile radius, which is great for hyper-localization. Other methods to localize your copies include:

• Adding ad extensions, such as your business address and phone number. This technique is useful if you operate in various locations.
• Incorporating language nuances. A taco shop might say, “Craving a legit California burrito? Slide through and get your grub on!” or “Taco Tuesday, SD style! Dive in for the dankest tacos in town.”
• Using regional videos and images, especially on paid ads on social media.

On the other hand, negative keywords refer to search terms that should not trigger your ads because you do not serve that location and its market. For instance, if you are a beach resort near Solana, your negative terms can be “Monterey inns” or “Bay area accommodations.” 

2. Increase the Ad Quality Score (AQS)

Effective ads boost your small business’s PPC conversions and decrease click costs by increasing your ad quality score (AQS). Google created AQS, a diagnostic tool that evaluates how well your copies perform compared to your rivals. It scores them from 1 to 10. A higher number indicates that you are running quality ads. As a reward, keywords cost less when you bid, and your ads usually appear in better positions in the search results.  To raise your AQS, a San Diego PPC agency focuses on three factors:

• Relevance of your ads to your keywords. 
• Landing page experience.
• Expected clickthrough rate (CTR).

You have little to no control over your expected CTR because the system calculates it for you. Google considers your previous ads’ performance based on their positions and combines the data with other elements to forecast the CTR. A reliable PPC agency thus optimizes your keywords and landing page, ensuring that they match, and that your site delivers a good user experience (UX). 

3. Go Beyond Google Ads

There is more to paid ads than Google. For example, since February 7 ChatGPT has boosted Microsoft’s Bing search traffic by 15.8 percent. Depending on your California market, social media also offers PPC advertising.  These channels benefit San Diego small businesses in the following ways:

• Cheaper PPC costs.
• Wider reach.
• More targeted ads to preferred leads.
• More diverse types of engagement. 

For instance, users might find thumbnails bigger on Bing and preview videos when they hover over them. Social media copies work better when targeting younger generations, especially Y and Z.   Although Bing’s significantly lower traffic seems disadvantageous, it also lowers competition when bidding, even for pricier keywords. 

4. Streamline PPC Campaigns

Optimizing ad campaigns supports small businesses in the following ways:

• Managing their ad spending by directing their efforts to strategies that can result in higher conversions.
• Simplifying campaign elements such as ad groups, keywords, and management.

• Enhancing the UX because the process forces marketers to provide relevant and targeted ads.
• Creating a more lead-centric message that pinpoints the company’s value proposition.
• Adapting quickly to changes in market conditions.

You can streamline campaigns in two ways:

• Use artificial intelligence (AI) platforms.
• Outsource the job.

AI tools today handle many routine, but necessary, PPC tasks. These include the following:

• Researching and optimizing keywords.
• Organizing related key terms and phrases according to themes or user intent.
• Consolidating similar campaigns to eliminate redundancy and budget waste.
• Writing and fine-tuning ad copies, including conducting A/B experiments.
• Enhancing the landing page’s web design and content.
• Shifting budgets from underperforming campaigns or ad groups to those that provide a better return.
• Automating bidding strategies and ad rotation.

However, without extensive paid-ad experience, you are still prone to costly and irreparable mistakes. Hiring a San Diego PPC agency helps bolster your chances of succeeding.  The right team develops a well-curated PPC plan, beginning with a thorough audit of your previous and existing campaigns. The information helps them weed out tactics that do not align with your objectives and audience.  It also supports your campaigns with search strategies that provide organic traffic, such as local search engine optimization (SEO). These take care of other critical aspects of your digital marketing program. For example, email marketing nurtures leads until they are ready to buy your products and services. 

5. Regularly Refine Your Campaigns

Twitter now allows cannabis ads to appear in states where it is legal, including California. If you are a dispensary or a supplier, this social media channel compensates for the severe restrictions of such copies in search engines.  This is not the only change happening in advertising. Elsewhere, new countries pass laws regulating the copies you can make and the audience you are allowed to target. Last year, Google expanded its E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) guidelines to include another E, which stands for experience.  These new changes are outside of your scope but directly impact PPC campaigns and outcomes. An agency helps your ads stay relevant and convert customers by continuously improving and updating the campaign elements.  

Summing Up

Small business PPC ads cost money, but the right strategies decrease the overall long-term costs and raise the bottom line.  Work with Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to enjoy PPC’s full benefits. As an experienced San Diego PPC agency specializing in your industry, we can help increase your return on ad spend (ROAS) by four times. Contact us and schedule a free consultation to learn more.