How To Do Pay Per Click (PPC) Budgeting 101

Whether you are taking the first steps in to the paid advertising world, or looking to revamp your campaign, deciding on a budget is one of the beginning steps. We have compiled a list of a few ways to make sure you are budgeting the appropriate amount and receiving the best ROI.

First things first, it would be a wise step to look into your competition. What are they doing that is working? What isn’t working? A good way to see which companies are doing things right is to go to Google and/or Bing and do a search using industry phrases and some of your potential keywords and see what companies show up at the top of those results. Take a look at their ad spends and use that information to help formulate a plan of your own.

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Secondly, create a plan for who you want to target, and where you want to target. Are you looking to target a local area, national, or even broader than that? Depending on the geo-targeting plan you choose, your budget will potentially need to be adjusted from your original estimations.

Once you have a general plan for your campaign, take a look at your current marketing budget and determine whether you can afford to increase the budget, or if you need to apply money from another area. If you are receiving great returns on all your current marketing endeavors, it may not be a wise choice to take away from those budgets only to start a new campaign that may take time to give you the returns you were receiving from the previous area. If you have a certain area of your budget that isn’t performing the way you want it to, and you feel comfortable transferring funds to your PPC campaign, that may be the right choice for you.

Another step is to create a list of keywords you want to run, and do some testing to see how they will perform. Using a keyword planner is a great way to test those keywords. When it comes to keywords, make sure to include some negative keywords that will help you direct appropriate traffic.

Finally, make sure that your budget is set to give you at least three months to see the return on your campaign. It will take about three months for leads to come to fruition and you don’t want to have to give up before then, without being able to see the rewards of your efforts!

The great part is, once you start seeing the return on your campaign, you can use that increase to reinvest into your marketing and give yourself the opportunity for more growth without having to worry about taking the money from another profitable area.