7 Steps to a Strategic PPC Agency Marketing Plan

It’s easy to get lost in paid ads marketing. However, if you’re a PPC agency dealing with more than one client at a time, you need to set things straight, focus on your clients’ goals, and strategize. With a well-planned PPC campaign, you can generate more quality leads and guide your client’s customers through the buying process.

PPC or pay-per-click is not a setup and forget marketing strategy. Instead, you need to invest time, budget, and effort to make things work. And to help you make the most out of every PPC campaign, consider these steps to create a strategic marketing plan.

7 Steps to a Strategic Marketing Plan for PPC Agencies

     1. Set PPC Marketing Goals

Sit down with your clients and start formulating your marketing plans. Ask relevant questions to guide them like

• Do you want to create more leads?
• Do you want to increase site traffic?
• Do you plan to dominate a new market or niche?
• Do you need to promote customer loyalty?

These questions will help you assess your client’s marketing needs and identify how paid ads can help fulfill these needs. Marketing goals will depend on your plan. There may be an ultimate goal with smaller targets or a single goal.

For instance, if the ultimate goal is to dominate a new niche, your plan must include smaller objectives such as developing your products or services, providing solutions, communicating with your market, and engaging in competitive analysis. On the other hand, you could have one main goal, like increasing site traffic, readily achievable with PPC.  A few tips to start the goal planning phase:

• Define short-term and long-term goals.
• Consider your campaign’s “achievable” and “challenging” goals.
• Consider previous and ongoing PPC campaigns; focus on the strength and weaknesses of these campaigns.
• Take time to perform a website audit.

    2. Identify Your Target Market

Once you establish your client's goals, it's time to identify their target market. This verification will allow you to zero in on the right paid ads strategy and create better campaigns. Generally, your client may want to target their current market, overtake a competitor to take their share of it or look into penetrating an entirely new market.

• Use demographic data and firmographic info if your client’s goal is to reach out to a new market.
• Use demographics data for business to consumer companies or B2C. Demographic data is relevant information about your consumers like their location, age, gender, and other preferences.
• Consider firmographics for business-to-business companies or B2B. Firmographics is information about companies, including their products, services, brand, employees, etc.
• Conduct in-depth market research. Include market segments, customer profiles, your offerings, etc.
• Take a look at your competitors. Assess how they use keywords, formulate URLs, etc.
• Use social listening to identify your audience’s opinion, discussion topics, and new industry trends on social media.

     3. Select the Best PPC Campaign Tools and Management Software

PPCs may appear on different online platforms like search engines, video sites like YouTube, social media, and websites. It's possible to have ads on all these platforms, but if you're still at the early stages of PPC and still testing campaigns, it's best to start on one and slowly expand to other channels.

Manage PPC ad campaigns from the platform you are using to maximize features and reduce costs. This strategy is practical if you manage only one campaign on one platform.

• Use PPC management software to expand your campaigns to cover more sites on different platforms.
• Use software that seamlessly integrates with social media sites like Facebook and Google. These are the most popular PPC platforms.
• Consider PPC spy software to find out your competitor’s PPC campaigns. This tool will help you create a well-formulated ad campaign.

     4. Get To Know a PPC Ads Campaign Structure

Let's start with Google Ads, where you can create different campaigns. Every campaign has different AdGroups, and every AdGroup has ads and keywords. Understanding this basic PPC ads campaign structure will help you make daily budget plans with your client. After considering your campaign structure, you can choose your target region and bid on generic and branded keywords.

• Create a list of generic and branded keywords, and use these efficiently on your campaigns.
• Develop a template to keep keywords and best practices. Consider keywords for various campaigns, different variations of your ads, and your AdGroups.
• Avoid targeting more than one platform in one campaign.
• Name your campaigns to make these clearer and easier to manage. Create and share a spreadsheet for your client and all the members of the PPC  team.

     5. Determine Which Are Your Landing Pages

On your PPC ads platform, the term "destination URL" is the web page to which the PPC ads will lead. For example, use a landing page URL as the destination URL to cut costs. Also, you want ads closely related to your landing pages to direct your customers to a sale effectively.

• Add a form to your landing page for effective lead generation.
• Use a keyword for every landing page to develop another AdGroup or start a new campaign for a specific keyword.
• Consider the sales funnel to identify your landing pages. What part of the funnel is your landing page located? The search funnel helps you segment your client’s audience through intent and create better marketing strategies that focus on users in each segment.  

     6. Create a Formidable Keyword Strategy

You've determined your client's landing pages; now it's time to identify the keywords for a specific page and client offer. Your keywords should be high-quality and relevant to rank higher and claim more clicks.

• Consider keywords CPC or cost-per-click. Amazon describes CPC as the price of paid ad campaigns to reduce the CPC and nurture top-quality clicks.
• Determine the paid ads' purpose to create a good keyword strategy.
• Take advantage of long-tail keywords. These are more specific and are almost similar to what clients use to search on Google.

     7. Time to Create Your Ads

In Google and Microsoft Ads, you can make two or more ads for your AdGroup. The platform will automatically use and rotate these to determine which one is more profitable than the others.

PPC ads are well structured and formatted. The title should not exceed 25 characters, the display URL 35 characters, and line copies for 35 characters. Keep with this format, and your ads will be easier to read and understand. More tips for creating the best PPC ads for your clients

• Create engaging headlines to catch would-be customers’ attention.
• Use a keyword in the headline and on the body of the ad.
• Improve user experience by placing keywords naturally in the ad copy.

Final Words

When done creating your ads, you may now share your template with your clients and other stakeholders to ensure that these ads align with your client's goals. Considering these seven crucial steps to enhance PPC strategies can help you formulate more productive campaigns, manage ad spending, and create better landing pages and other platforms for your clients.