How To Improve PPC Performance With 6 Tweaks

ROAR | 21 July, 2021 | 5 minute read | Blog, PPC

When it comes to Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC), success isn’t about spending the most money, it’s about spending smart.

One of the biggest misconceptions around PPC advertising is that it only works if you have a large budget. In reality, some of the best-performing PPC campaigns come from businesses that focus on precise targeting, high-intent keywords, and clear messaging.

At ROAR Digital Marketing, the biggest lessons we share with clients asking “how can we improve PPC performance?” are simple:

• Get in front of the right people
• Deliver the right message
• Measure against the right goals

Do that well, and you can drive meaningful results without blowing your budget.

Below, we break down six practical ways to improve PPC performance, whether you’re running Google Ads, paid social, or a multi-channel PPC strategy.

Understand what you’re trying to achieve with PPC

Before launching or optimising any PPC campaign, you need absolute clarity on your objective.

Simply “wanting more leads” or “hoping for better results” isn’t enough. High-performing PPC campaigns are built around specific, measurable goals, such as:

• Increasing qualified website traffic
• Generating sales or enquiries
• Driving phone calls or form submissions
• Building brand awareness in a defined market

When your goals are clear, it becomes much easier to:

• Choose the right PPC platform (Google Ads, paid social, Display, etc.)
• Select the right bidding strategy
• Write ad copy that aligns with user intent
• Measure success accurately

Clear objectives are the foundation of strong PPC performance.

What is your target audience?

As well as knowing what you are trying to achieve, you’ll also need to know who you are trying to target. Whether it’s Google Ads or paid social media, leveraging digital technologies will give you the ability to tailor your marketing efforts to specific audiences from a broad range of different interests and identities. Whether it’s geographical location, age, gender or even interests, PPC is incredibly effective at getting your messaging in front of those you would like to speak to. The ability to target your ads allows you to get the most bang for your buck, developing audience personas that can help you understand who exactly you need to be targeting while enhancing user experience.

Understanding the full range of opportunities available to you can be challenging, which is why at ROAR Digital Marketing, we take the time to help you understand how pay-per-click marketing and our range of PPC management services can be honed to suit your requirements.

Investigate search habits

Effective PPC isn’t about guessing what customers might search for, it’s about understanding exactly how they search.

Search marketing goes one step deeper than traditional marketing. It focuses on capturing users at the moment of intent, when they are actively looking for a solution.

To improve PPC performance:

• Research high-intent keywords (not just high-volume ones)
• Focus on search terms that indicate readiness to buy or enquire
• Avoid broad, vague keywords that drain budget without converting

Even with a smaller budget, identifying cost-effective, high-intent keywords can dramatically improve results.

A PPC specialist can help uncover valuable search terms that:

• Cost less per click
• Attract better-qualified traffic
• Convert at a higher rate

Use your posts to inform your ads

Most businesses in 2021 have some social media presence already, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or any other platform with a sizeable community. This means you already have some understanding of what your audience likes to see, and you can use this to craft the most successful ad – even if the focus of your PPC budget lies with Google Ads. After all, regular social media posting teaches us all that some content – be it a visual, a slogan or a description – resonates more than others. Track what is being liked and shared from your page, as these high engagement posts will make the best candidates for a solid starting point to develop display ads and potentially relevant search terms.

Pay for what’s important

To improve your PPC performance, consider what is it you want from your PPC, e.g. clicks, impressions, landing page views or conversions. Paying every time someone sees your ads (impressions) allows your message to cast a wide net, while paying for engagement means you can specifically benefit from the people who are most interested in your organisation and offering.

Both can be valuable to your business, and you don’t need to choose just one. What you don’t want to do is pay for engagements that are not relevant to your business goals. The way you word and construct your ad (ad copy) should help people work out whether it’s for them or not.

Stop Click Fraud on your Google Ads account

While Google Ads tries its best to spot potential fraudulent clicks made by evil competitors and bots, it simply can’t keep up. And in my opinion isn’t enough to help businesses from losing money to fraudulent clicks from competitors and click farms (100’s of devices, all pointed at an ad in some cases 1000’s of times to waste spend). Thankfully there’s a simple solution, implement a PPC fraud protection software.

At ROAR Digital Marketing we offer this as a done for you service to complement our PPC management offering. However, there are plenty of top-quality platforms out there, such as Lunio, Click Guard, to name but a few.

Need help optimising your PPC and improving your Google Ads performance? Get in touch with ROAR Digital Marketing today, as a UK Google Partner Agency we support businesses of all sizes from SMEs to large multinationals with PPC and Google Ads account optimisation and management.