For businesses in the Philippines, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a key way to attract customers, boost sales, and increase online visibility. However, even the most well-planned PPC campaigns need regular audits to ensure they are performing at their best. A PPC campaign audit helps identify areas for improvement, allowing you to optimize your ads and maximize your return on investment (ROI).
This guide will walk you through how to conduct a PPC campaign audit, helping your business get better results from your PPC efforts.
Why You Need a PPC Campaign Audit
A PPC campaign audit is essential for making sure your campaigns are effective and delivering the results you want. Over time, PPC campaigns can become inefficient if they are not regularly reviewed and updated. An audit helps you:
- Identify wasted spend: Find out where your budget is being spent on clicks that aren’t converting.
- Improve ad performance: Spot opportunities to optimize your ads, keywords, and targeting to increase clicks and conversions.
- Enhance your ROI: By fixing inefficiencies, a PPC audit helps you get the most out of your advertising budget.
By conducting regular audits, your business in the Philippines can ensure its PPC campaigns are consistently driving traffic and generating leads or sales.
Steps to Perform a PPC Campaign Audit
Here are the key steps you should follow when conducting a PPC campaign audit for your business.
1. Review Campaign Goals and KPIs
The first step in your PPC audit is to review your campaign goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Ask yourself:
- What are the main goals of the campaign? (e.g., drive sales, generate leads, increase brand awareness)
- Are these goals still relevant?
- Which KPIs are you tracking to measure success? (e.g., click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost-per-click (CPC), return on ad spend (ROAS))
If your goals or KPIs have changed, adjust your campaigns accordingly. For example, if your goal was to increase website traffic but you now want to focus on lead generation, your strategy may need to shift to prioritize conversions over clicks.
2. Analyze Campaign Structure
A well-organized campaign structure is essential for effective PPC management. Examine how your campaigns and ad groups are set up:
- Are your campaigns organized by goals? For example, you might have one campaign focused on driving sales and another on raising brand awareness.
- Are your ad groups tightly themed? Make sure your ad groups contain closely related keywords. This helps improve ad relevance and performance.
- Is there unnecessary overlap? Check if multiple ad groups are targeting the same keywords, which can lead to wasted spend.
A clear and organized structure ensures that each campaign and ad group serves a specific purpose, improving the effectiveness of your overall PPC strategy.
3. Review Keyword Performance
Your choice of keywords plays a huge role in the success of your PPC campaigns. As part of your audit, review your keyword performance and ask:
- Which keywords are performing well? Focus on keywords that are driving conversions or generating quality traffic.
- Are there underperforming keywords? Identify keywords with low CTR, high CPC, or few conversions. Consider pausing or removing these keywords to stop wasting your budget.
- Are there any negative keywords missing? Add negative keywords to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant searches. For example, if you sell premium products, you may want to add “cheap” as a negative keyword to avoid irrelevant clicks.
By fine-tuning your keyword list, you can focus your budget on the terms that bring the best results for your business in the Philippines.
4. Evaluate Ad Copy and Creative
Next, review the ads themselves to ensure they are compelling and relevant to your audience. Look at each ad’s:
- Headline and ad copy: Are they clear, engaging, and relevant to the keywords they’re targeting? Test different versions of your ad copy to see what performs better.
- Call-to-action (CTA): Does your ad have a strong CTA that encourages users to take action, like “Buy Now,” “Get a Free Quote,” or “Contact Us Today”?
- Ad extensions: Are you using ad extensions (like sitelinks, call extensions, or location extensions) to provide more information and make your ads stand out? If not, consider adding these to improve your ad performance.
Strong, relevant ad copy helps increase your click-through rate and ensures users take the next step toward converting.
5. Check Landing Page Relevance
Even if your ads are performing well, if your landing pages don’t match the ad’s message or don’t provide a good user experience, you’ll lose potential customers. Review your landing pages and ask:
- Do the landing pages match the ad? Ensure that the content on the landing page aligns with the promise made in the ad. For example, if your ad offers a 20% discount, the landing page should clearly highlight this offer.
- Is the landing page optimized for mobile? Many users in the Philippines browse on their smartphones, so your landing page must be mobile-friendly and load quickly.
- Does the landing page encourage conversions? Make sure your landing page has a clear CTA, is easy to navigate, and encourages users to take the next step (e.g., making a purchase, filling out a form).
Well-designed landing pages that match the user’s intent can significantly improve your conversion rate and overall campaign performance.
6. Assess Bid Strategy and Budget Allocation
A key part of your PPC audit is analyzing your bidding strategy and how your budget is being allocated. Check:
- Are you using the right bid strategy? Google Ads offers various bid strategies, such as manual CPC, automated bidding, or target CPA (cost-per-acquisition). Make sure you’re using a strategy that aligns with your campaign goals.
- Is your budget distributed properly? Review how much you’re spending on each campaign. Adjust your budget to prioritize campaigns and ad groups that are performing well, while reducing spend on underperforming areas.
- Are you hitting your target CPA? If your cost-per-acquisition is too high, you may need to adjust bids or improve ad relevance to lower costs.
Optimizing your bids and budget allocation helps you reduce wasted spend and focus on the parts of your campaign that deliver the best ROI.
7. Analyze Audience Targeting
To ensure your ads are reaching the right people, review your audience targeting settings. Check:
- Location targeting: Are you targeting the correct regions in the Philippines or internationally, based on your audience and business goals? Adjust your targeting if needed to focus on areas where your ads perform best.
- Demographic targeting: Ensure your ads are reaching the right age, gender, and income groups. You may find that certain demographic segments perform better than others, allowing you to fine-tune your targeting.
- Device targeting: Check how your ads are performing on different devices (desktop, mobile, and tablet). If mobile users are converting more, you may want to allocate more budget to mobile targeting.
Refining your audience targeting ensures your ads reach the most relevant users, increasing your chances of conversion.
8. Measure Conversion Tracking
One of the most important parts of a PPC audit is ensuring that conversion tracking is set up correctly. Conversion tracking allows you to measure the success of your campaigns by tracking actions like purchases, sign-ups, or downloads. Ask:
- Is conversion tracking set up properly? Double-check that all the necessary tracking codes are in place and working correctly.
- Are you tracking the right actions? Make sure you’re tracking the actions that are most valuable to your business, whether that’s online purchases, form submissions, or phone calls.
- Are your conversions being attributed accurately? Review your attribution model to ensure that conversions are being properly credited to the right ads or keywords.
Accurate conversion tracking helps you measure the true impact of your PPC campaigns and make informed decisions for future optimization.
Conclusion: Regular PPC Audits for Better Campaign Performance
For businesses in the Philippines, conducting regular PPC audits is key to ensuring your campaigns are running efficiently and delivering the best results. By reviewing your goals, keywords, ads, landing pages, bids, audience targeting, and conversion tracking, you can identify areas for improvement and optimize your campaigns for better performance.
With a well-structured audit process in place, your business can reduce wasted ad spend, increase conversions, and maximize the ROI from your PPC efforts. By regularly checking and refining your campaigns, you’ll stay competitive and continue driving growth through PPC advertising.