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The PPC Advertising Checklist

Pay per click advertising (such as Google AdSense) is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your website very quickly.

Indeed, you can have traffic coming into your site within minutes after your campaign is launched.

And that means you can test products, promote your offers and more just as soon as your product is ready for market.

Now while pay per click (PPC) advertising can do wonders do grow your business, it can also be a nightmare. Many a marketer has plunged hundreds of dollars into an ad campaign and come up empty handed.

Don’t let that happen to you. You can avoid that sort of costly endeavor by using the following PPC checklist…

Step 1: Determine Your Goal

Before you begin, it’s a good idea to determine the overall goal of this campaign. Specifically, do you want to make money on the frontend?

Or are you using your frontend product as a loss-leader so that you can build your customer mailing list and make money on the backend?

Or are you looking to get people to fill in an opt-in form to request a lead magnet, a free quote, free consultation or similar?

Decide on your goal, which may affect your overall strategy. Then move onto the next step…

Step 2: Design Your Landing Page

Depending on your goal, this might be a sales page, a lead page, free quote form or similar.

In most cases, it’s likely to be a sales page or lead page. Be sure your page (at a minimum) includes these items:

  • A compelling, attention-getting headline. Generally, you should put your biggest benefit in the headline. E.G., “Who Else Wants to Lose Weight the Super-Fast and Easy Way?“
  • A bulleted list of benefits to increase desire for the product.
  • A call to action.

If you have a full sales letter, you’ll also want to include:

  • Problem agitation, which is where you remind people of the pain of their problem (and emotionally engage people at the same time).
  • Proof that your solution works (testimonials, case studies, photos, videos, etc.)
  • Price justification.
  • Descriptions/benefits of any bonus materials.
  • Objection handling (including risk reversal in the form of a guarantee).
  • A postscript that mentions a main benefit and reiterates the call to action.

Next…

Step 3: Draft Your Ad

You generally don’t have much room in a PPC ad – just enough space for a short headline and two additional lines. So, the goal of your PPC ad isn’t to sell your product.

Rather, it’s goal is to give people a good reason why they should click on your ad. You can do this by providing a benefit and/or arousing curiosity.

Example 1:

Ancient Fat Loss Secret

This secret herb is already in your cupboard – but are you using it to lose weight? Learn more [link]

Example 2:

Make your golf buddies jealous

Increase your drive and shave strokes off your game. Find out how here: [link]

Step 4: Develop Your Campaign

Now you can log into your desired pay per click platform (such as AdWords) and start setting up your campaign. Follow these tips and best practices:

  • Use targeted keywords.
    The more specific your keywords, the higher your conversion rate. For example, a keyword like “bodybuilding” is way too broad. A more targeted keyword is something like, “how to win bodybuilding competitions.“
  • Narrow by demographics.
    Depending on what PPC platform you’re using, you may be able to narrow your audience by certain demographics such as location. Use this feature whenever it’s available.
  • Test your campaigns.
    The only way to tell for sure whether your campaign works is to test every part of it. This includes:
    • Your landing page (headlines, body copy, benefits, calls to action, overall offer).
    • Your ad (headline, body copy and call to action).
    • Your keywords.
    • Your audience demographics.

TIP

Facebook has one of the most powerful advertising platforms, as it lets you target across a wide variety of demographics and behaviors.

For example, you can narrow by gender, age, location, language, interests and more. You can even choose audiences that have already engaged with you (retargeting/remarketing).

Now let’s wrap things up…

Conclusion

So here’s the bottom line if you want a successful ad campaign:

  • Create a persuasive landing page.
  • Craft an ad that gives people a good reason to click on your ad.
  • Narrow your audience down with targeted keywords and demographics.
  • Test everything.

Follow these steps, and you’ll be well on your way to enjoying profitable pay per click ad campaigns!