The PPC Search Network Campaign Launch Checklist

Even if you can launch a PPC campaign in your sleep, sometimes, things get overlooked; items slip through the cracks, and months later, you’re scratching your head wondering how a scarf ad landed users on a hat page.

It happens to the best of us. No matter how focused and experienced a PPC manager, there are endless details that go into a streamlined campaign launch.

Organization is a PPC manager’s best friend, and creating repeatable processes through detailed checklists is one way to ensure everything you can think of gets done pre-launch.

In this post, we’ll look at all the key areas of a PPC campaign, and give basic checklists for each part in preparation for making a new campaign go live.

It’s worth mentioning that the checklists in this post apply to PPC search network campaigns that are both being built from the ground up, and those being copied and pasted from existing campaigns, where all the settings are carried through. Even though the copy/paste approach is convenient, appropriate adjustments always need to be tended to, or the campaign can go off path.

Keywords Checklist

First, we’ll start with the keywords. Follow these steps to be sure you’ve tackled common obstacles in this area:

1. Make sure all the keywords are housed in the correct ad group.
2. Be sure you’re utilizing all appropriate match types. (And don’t forget the close variant setting is changing in September.)
3. Make sure you look out for duplicate keywords.
4. Check the negative keyword lists to make sure relevant keywords aren’t negated in the new campaign.
5. Keyword lists should be short and sweet. If you have more than 20 keywords in an ad group, you probably want to break things out more specifically.

Ads Checklist

The next thing we want to do is double-check on our ads before they go live. Consider the following checklist:

1. Be sure ads include the most relevant headline.
2. Verify display URLs have keywords in them, if possible.
3. Ensure you have mobile-specific ads. If it makes sense for the type of business, make the call-to-action mobile-specific, like phoning the business.
4. Include a messaging test between the two ads you include per ad group. Create two different ad messages to test and try testing two different call-to-actions as well.

Ad Groups Checklist

Now we move onto ad groups. Standard checks and balances on the ad groups side for optimal account structure include:

1. Review the naming convention for each ad group.
2. Make sure the ad groups match the content that’s in them, and the keywords and ads are under the correct ad group.
3. Double-check the ad group default bid to ensure it’s what you want per ad group.

Campaign Checklist

Reviewing the campaigns is next, and here are some of the things to watch for before launching a new one:

1. Double-check the daily budget, and ensure that new campaigns have a decent budget to launch with. The last thing you want is to reach the max cost per click after just one user clicks through.
2. Verify the campaign settings. When a business is in different locations, such as in the U.S. and internationally, make sure to target the right location and ad scheduling.
3. Ensure you have your campaign set to the search network as well.

Ad Extensions Checklist

Ad extensions help businesses and prospects get the most from PPC ads. When reviewing your campaigns for launch, make sure you:

1. Check that the PPC campaigns have all the appropriate extensions for the business. There are a lot to choose from, like sitelinks, call extensions, location, seller ratings, and much, much more.

Landing Pages Checklist

The landing page is an important part of your Quality Score. As you’re gearing up for launch, take a moment to review your landing pages, looking for all those items that help ensure the page is relevant, like:

1. Useful content, ensuring it delivers on the promise of the ad.
2. Strong calls to action as needed for the type of business or offer.
3. Keywords from the ad used in the headline and copy of the page.
4. Easy navigation, and a speedy page load time (especially if you have mobile users, Google wants pages served in one second or less).

Tracking Checklist

Finally, ensure your tracking is on the up and up, so you can begin measuring performance from the launch of the PPC campaign. Consider the following:

1. Ensure the correct tracking parameters have been added to the ads’ destination URLs if the account requires additional tracking parameters.
2. Be sure to include a goal in Google Analytics tied to the ad as needed to track conversions, as well as adding the AdWords conversion code to the thank-you page when necessary.

Although we almost always build campaigns in AdWords Editor, often we’ll post a campaign in paused mode, and view again in the live AdWords interface. The different view can sometimes be helpful in catching errors.

Once you have your campaigns up and running, be sure to check out the guide to PPC operations, which gives daily, weekly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual checklists for your PPC campaigns.

Now that you have my checklist, what’s yours? Anything you’d add that you don’t see here? Let me know in the comments!

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SEO vs PPC: Which One Takes the Gold?

For all companies, institutions, and individuals who use the internet, the underlying goal is to generate views to drive business. Getting the most webpage “hits” is what allows a company to grow, attract visitors and members, and allows individuals to get noticed. Most people who use the internet seek to attract more visitors by making their webpages interactive, eye-catching, and memorable. 

While these goals are important and worth investing in, we believe the secret behind receiving numerous website views is quite simple. No matter how nice your webpage looks, if it is not listed as a popular result in a search engine, it will likely not get much notice. Some people may stumble across it, and some may intentionally find it, but the casual internet surfer will not see your webpage.

The real way to attract attention to your webpage is to try one of two search engine marketing approaches: search engine optimization or pay per click. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is following a certain set of criteria when making a webpage, so search engine spiders will select the matching keywords from a page when those keywords are searched. Pay per click, or PPC, is contracting advertising programs to advertise a page. You pay a fee every time one of those advertisements is clicked and the surfer is redirected to your webpage.

SEO was, for some time, the leader in the traffic boosting technology race, as it was free and was essentially a matter of loading a page with keywords. This practice, known as “keyword stuffing,” allowed for companies to trick search engines into selecting their pages simply because of the quantity of relevant keywords, and not necessarily for the content of the page itself. One somewhat unscrupulous practice was to load the keywords into the non-visible space on the page. This would mean a visitor to the page would not notice anything out of the ordinary, but a search engine spider would be fooled by the artificially high keyword content.

Given the relative simplicity of this practice and the general knowledge of the criteria by which search engines would rank pages, companies were able to work the system to their advantage without spending any additional money. In fact, although it may take a long time for SEO to work, the cost in the beginning is essentially free. In the last several months, however, search engines such as Google have stepped up the game.

Google’s search algorithms have been changed so keyword stuffing is no longer an effective method, and companies need to focus on relevant content. This is the biggest weakness of SEO: when search algorithms change, the formatting of the page and its effectiveness by the old system are no longer meaningful, and the page could actually fall in search rankings.

PPC is the other commonly used method of boosting internet traffic. Pay Per Click campaigns are less popular for some companies because of the initial cost: companies must pay the advertisers every time someone clicks the advertisement, whether or not that click leads to a profit for the company. However, if your webpage is well-designed and your product is marketed effectively, those payments to the advertisers may be well worth the money.

PPC is fast acting, so you can quickly get a high number of page views with little effort. You don’t have to format your page in any specific way, and there is less planning and thought that needs to go into the specific content on the page. In addition, PPC is protected from any changes in search engine algorithm updates. As long as the page includes what was advertised and viewers are instructed on how to patronize your business, you will be successful.

However, if you are a small business with a more limited budget, PPC will be less effective. If your goal is simply to spread information and your page consists of no sales opportunities whatsoever, then you will likely do more harm than good with PPC. You are paying for customers to view your page, and if nothing is gained from them once the page has been viewed, it’s a wasted cost. 

So, the question for all internet webpage designers is this: do you choose PPC or SEO? Which method is best for your company? Here are some questions to ask when making that decision:

• What is your website advertising budget?
  • If it is high, consider PPC. Otherwise, SEO may be the way to go.

• What is the average price being paid for PPC by companies in your industry?
  • If your competitors are paying a lot for PPC, chances are you will as well.

• How competitive are the keywords you wish to use in your advertising?
  • If many other companies all wish to use the same keywords, you will have to pay more.

• What is your capacity for creativity and time spent developing your webpage?
  • If you don’t have the time or people to devote to developing your webpage and following SEO parameters, use PPC.

• What is your time frame for turning a profit?
  • If you need to make money fast, use PPC. The cost is higher, but the rewards will come more quickly. If you have time to spare, use SEO. SEO is a long term method, driving traffic organically and slowly pushing webpages to the top of internet search lists. 

Of course, the best method, if you have the resources, is to use both technologies together to achieve the best results. This way, you are covered no matter how the search engine protocol or advertising rules may change. It is also important for people specializing in each method to learn from the practices of the other. This allows for the strengths of one method to offset the weaknesses of the other. They can ultimately work together to boost internet traffic to your company’s website as effectively as possible. In the competition between SEO and PPC, which one takes the gold? Well, that all depends on the race you’re running.

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