Getting a budget below PPC and getting maximum results is a challenge for many advertisers.
It can be done! You can make the most of it with practical planning and a laser focus on your goals.
Read on for tips for getting started or optimizing budgets for your PPC program.
1. Paving the way for the account
With a smaller budget, managing expectations about account size and scope will allow you to stay focused.
First, set your daily budget. For example, if the monthly budget is $2,000 per month, then the daily budget is set to $66 per day for the entire account.
The daily budget will also determine how many campaigns you can run at the same time in the account because the $66 will be divided among all campaigns.
Be aware that Google Ads and other channels may exceed your daily budget from time to time to maximize results. However, the total monthly number must not exceed the daily number x the number of days in the month.
Now that we know our daily budget, we can focus on prioritizing our goals.
2. Prioritize goals
Advertisers often have multiple goals per account. A small budget limits the number of campaigns – and the number of goals – you can pursue.
Some common goals include:
- Brand awareness.
- Consideration of the product and the brand.
- Lead.
- sales.
- repeat sales.
In the example below, the advertiser is using a small budget to promote the scholarship program.
They use a combination of leads (search campaign) and awareness (ad campaign) to split a daily budget of $82.
The following several features can help you with laser focus campaigns to allocate your budget to where you need it most.
Remember that these settings will limit traffic to the campaign. If you don’t get enough traffic, relax/expand your settings.
3. Geographical targeting
Not only is geotargeting an important part of your marketing strategy, but managing a small advertising budget also plays a role.
A good way to maximize a limited budget is to focus on core target sites only. Should states, cities, zip codes or groups be targeted?
The smaller the geographic area, the less traffic you’ll get, so weigh fit and budget.
Consider adding negative sites where you don’t do business to prevent extremists from seeing ads.
4. Ad scheduling
Ad scheduling also helps control budget by showing ads only on certain days and at certain times of the day.
If your business is open during certain hours, it might make sense to set ads to only show when you’re open.
If you’re selling online, you’re always open-minded, but it can be smart to review the reports to determine if there are any times in the day when you have a negative ROI.
If reports reveal hours of the day when campaigns are least effective, consider removing targeting to those areas or using the site bid adjustment tool to reduce ad serving in those areas.
5. Types of matching
Matching types are essential for budget control, especially if funds are tight.
Study match types and how each triggers ads.
Besides ad scheduling and geo-targeting, you may have to test different match types to get the right balance.
Working on a tight budget means you’ll have to be creative to get the most out of your budget.
These next few points will help you.
6. Call only
Some businesses with smaller budgets will also have challenges building landing pages and testing different versions.
If phone calls are important to your business, consider running a call-only campaign.
Screenshot from Google Ads, September 20217. Try the display network
Make your company look “everywhere” with remarketing to website visitors and many different audiences in your target market.
If you pay per click, impressions won’t cost you anything.
These campaigns can provide wider reach and increase brand awareness.
8. Aim for competition
Use portfolio settings for bid strategies to outpace competitors by stretching The goal is to share the highest ranking to choose.
You can create a rule by adding the domain to rank higher, the percentage of time the rank is higher, and the maximum bid.
Choose the best competitors in your area. The Auction Insights report will show competitors who are also competing for the same search keywords.
Screenshot from Google Ads, September 2021Finally, put these next few tactical tips to work for your campaigns.
9. Trace setup
Ensure that tracking is set up through the PPC platform and website analytics to measure performance.
The data collected will be necessary to inform your decisions about where to improve the account.
10. Target long tail keywords
The CPC for high volume generic keywords can be very high. Find unique, long-form keywords to compete effectively with a smaller budget.
Find effective long-tail keywords using your analytics account to see the organic searches that lead back to your website, Google autocomplete, and tools like Google Keyword Planner.
11. High volume keyword management
High volume keywords and competitive keywords can get expensive and put a real dent on the budget.
If the keyword has high volume/high cost, consider organizing those keywords into their own campaign and using exact keyword match. This will enable you to keep a close eye on the spending on this group.
Consider setting a cap (maximum bid) on what you are willing to pay.
In other words, accept a lower ad arrangement to pay less per click, depending on your goals.
12. Reconsider Dynamic Search Ads
Consider avoiding Dynamic Search Ads.
These ads are not triggered by specific keywords that you choose. Instead, they are displayed based on the keywords found in your landing page content.
While this seems convenient, it often results in inappropriate impressions and clicks, which can lead to an increase in daily spend.
13. Use ad extensions
Ad extensions can draw attention to the ad as well as provide additional information that does not fit with the ad text.
These details may include:
- local address.
- Website section links.
- Summons.
- phone number.
- Structured excerpts.
- Consumer reviews.
- Pictures.
Google also offers dynamic ad extensions, which are automated extensions that display details from your website added to your main ad text.
14. Set negative keywords
Just like match types, a comprehensive negative keyword list is crucial to controlling budgets.
- Proactively generate negative keywords by brainstorming keyword ideas that may cause ads to appear incorrectly.
- Review query reports to find irrelevant searches that actually lead to clicks.
- Create lists and apply.
- repeats.
Update it regularly if your campaign keywords are broad match and phrase match type.
15. Perfect your landing pages
Last but not least, targeted and conversion-optimized landing pages can be essential.
Google judges landing page quality based on criteria of relevance, originality of content, transparency, and ease of navigation. It’s hard to convert from poorly structured or outdated landing pages.
This could be a problem for some small businesses that don’t have access to a web development team. If developing landing pages is a hurdle for you, consider the call-only campaign tip in this post.
conclusion
Low budget accounts can be effective if managed properly.
We hope you now have plenty of ideas to rock your own small budget PPC campaigns.
More resources:
- Structure Best Practices: How to create your campaigns and ad groups
- The most common way to waste your PPC advertising budget
- PPC 101: A Complete Guide to the Basics of PPC Marketing
Featured image: Jirapong Manustrong/Shutterstock
