The fact still remains that a bigger budget makes it easier to achieve a wider audience reach. Lowering your ad spend means losing that ease and having to be more specific about your actions regarding keywords, target audiences, and ad placements.
Consider some of these expert-backed tips on how to decrease your ad spend below.
- Use very relevant, highly targeted keywords
Highly targeted keywords are powerful in that they are more likely to draw clicks from the exact audience you want, unlike keywords that are less targeted. This improves your Quality Score and affords you with a lower cost-per-click ratio. They also allow you to spend less over time, thereby lowering your ad spend.
The problem with highly targeted keywords is in their design. Unlike common broad match keywords, exact match keywords need to cater to a specific group of individuals, so they have to be worded differently and with more care.
PPC and SEO expert Neil Patel recommends a million dollar solution: that copywriters try to understand a potential customer’s intent when making a particular search engine request such that they can create copy that appeals to him or her directly.
Intent directly determines the words a customer uses in a browser, so copywriters have to predict and match them in their copy. The guide below can help in doing so, allowing you to create highly relevant keywords.
- Identify the customer’s intent. Their intent is influenced directly by their knowledge of what they are searching for.
Say the product in question is Huawei smartphones. A customer looking to find out basic information may search for “Huawei smartphones”.
Another customer may already have this information, but requires something more specific, usually for comparison purposes. So he may search for “Huawei Honor smartphones’.
Another customer may already know the brand and nature of smartphone he wants, so he may search for “Huawei Honor 7X unlocked”. His intent is clearly to buy.
- You then create highly targeted keywords for each of the three customers based on their level of knowledge on the topic and what they are likely to search for. You can also check out what keywords your competitors are using.
- Choose a group of ads to use for each customer group, and create a landing page for each ad with a message customized to match what the ad promises.
If the ad display says “Buy Huawei Honor 7X unlocked with free shipping”, it shouldn’t open a landing page displaying your whole collection of Huawei brand smartphones.
- Reorganize your bids
One smart way to take back control of your ad spend is by reorganizing your bids according to how their keywords are performing. Keywords with low conversions should have their bids lowered such that those with higher conversions can be increased. If particular keywords are performing way below expectations, their bids should be cancelled entirely. This entire process allows you to lower your ad spend while focusing on the keywords that convert the most.
- Limit your PPC ads to search only networks
Casting a wide net for your ad by using both Search Networks and Display Networks is a good way to advertise your product, business or service. But if you intend to lower your budget, one of them has to go.
Experts recommend sticking with the Search Network, which allows your ad to appear on search results page. The idea is that customers using search browsers are more likely to be searching for a particular product or service, and therefore more knowledgeable about what they want. The display ad network shows your ad to readers that might be interested, but not directly looking for a product or service like yours. Sticking with the Search Network allows you to streamline your ads to readers that are more likely to click on them, allowing you to lower your ad spend.
- Start re-targeting your audience
Rather than try to reach out to a wide audience with every new ad, retargeting older leads is a better plan and one that will save you more dollars and lower your ad spend.
Retargeting allows you to focus on a smaller, select group of individuals: those that clicked on your ad in the past and got to your landing page but never carried out any actions. The idea is that since these individuals have expressed interest in your ad, they would only need a slight nudge in the right direction to make the purchase decision. Additionally, since it’s a smaller group of people whose level of interest in your product or service is clearer, advertising to them becomes easier and more streamlined.
You get to choose more specific keywords and generate higher-quality leads, all while utilising less money than you’d have used on a wider ad campaign.
- Switch to manual bidding
Google AdWords gives campaign managers the option to switch between manual and automatic bidding, with the latter being the most popular option. Automatic bidding spares you the fuss of having to manage every tiny detail of your ad campaign, which can be a relief. The downside is that automatic bidding requires a higher budget because costs can accumulate even when conversions aren’t that promising.
So if you intend to lower your ad spend, manual bidding is the way to go. It gives you more control of your campaigns because you get to tweak any aspect of the ad according to your current goals. The best part? You get to control how much you’re spending per click and lead, so you can always lower your ad spend.
Final thoughts
Managing a successful campaign with a low ad spend is very possible. It calls for a lot more discretion in every aspect of ad management, which can be exhausting. But on a successful campaign, smaller budgets mean bigger profits – and who doesn’t want that?
