Thinking about promoting your business with Paid Search marketing? If you’re simply planning to kick off your pay per advertising on the go, then it is our sincerest advice that you stop right there and plan things out first.

A thorough paid search marketing plan will not just guide you on the do’s and don’ts of advertising. It will also provide your keen insights on your target audience and how to make the possible use of your allocated funds.

In this article, we are going to talk about how to create a pay per click marketing plan that will definitely put your brand on the map. Let’s get started Shall we!!

1) Start off with Goal setting and past review

The first step to creating a successful pay per click strategy is by setting specific goals for your PPC department. And make sure your goals leads to the achievement of companies overall annual targets.

By establishing definite goals for your business you’ll be able to easily determine whether your pay per click advertising exceeded your company’s targets or fell short.

In order to set the right goals, you should review your previous year or on paid search marketing data to analyze whether there is anything that needs to be changed in your current tactics.

2) Analyze current market

Now that you have your house in order by setting up definite goals, as well as reviewing all your previous pay per click metrics. You are all set to have a close look at the current trends in the market.

Gather the all the data on your competitors such the paid search marketing tactics, their bidding terms, how their ads look like etc. and segment it by month to month.

This activity will give you clear insights on current bidding terms and PPC advertising, You can then decide if you want to inculcate them into your strategy.

3) Compare your own strengths & weaknesses

Following your competitor analysis, you should also factor in how your product offerings, brand content and product compare to that of competitors.

While conducting this activity there are three things that you should take into consideration.

–          The aspects of PPC that you’re performing well

–           What your competitor is doing really well

–          The aspects that both you and your competitors have yet to explore

This type of critical thought process helps you find the opportunities that your business can capitalize on by pivoting and improving your products and services accordingly.

4) Identify your potential buyers and channels

Once you have all the above-mentioned metrics in hand, its time you brainstorm about your niche of most likely customers and platforms most suited for your paid search marketing campaign.

These depend on the nature of your product or services, for instance, if your business sells fashion accessories for women then platforms like Instagram, Pinterest etc. would be useful for your Pay per click advertising. You don’t have to employ all of the channels but it’s good to have a big list to review and vet.

We recommend that you start with a little test budget to give yourselves the ability to continuously test new channels and campaign types.

5) Map out Your Campaigns

After identifying all of your PPC channels and campaign types, map them out throughout the customer life cycle to ensure that they are all working together to guide leads & prospects down the funnel.

We suggest diagraming these to ensure all campaigns are connected throughout audiences and micro-conversions.

6) Create Your Budget Allocations & Your Projections

Now that you know what you intend to run your paid search marketing campaign, it’s time to determine your budget allocation.

Based upon all of the efforts that you’ve put in up to this point, you have quite a bit of know-how about the market trends. You know the goals that you need to achieve.

Allocate both budget and conversion performance per month on month and by the channel to ensure that you’re most likely to succeed.

Review these projections against previous year trends to ensure that they’re realistic and all the performance gains are accounted for.

7) A/B Test your Campaign

Yes, you have worked hard up to this point however there is never a sure shot probability of any marketing campaign.

Which is why you should hedge your bets and start off with at least two ad sets which are mostly the same but with a slightly varying change such as content or image.

Analyse the performance of these ad set for at least week and you can find out which of the ad sets is resonating with your target audience.

8) Be ready for a sudden change!!

The Paid search marketing world is very dynamic and can change at the drop of the hat.

Which is why it is essential for you to keep a close eye on your ad performance and market trend so that you can pivot your marketing tactics.

Because in the business world the one who can adapt the fastest is the most Powerful!!

The post How to Create a Paid Search Marketing Plan in 8 Steps appeared first on QL Tech.