MSP Marketing's 1O Frequently Asked Questions About PPC

The rule of thumb is that you should give your PPC campaign at least three months for Google to collect enough data to provide results. The more data collected, the more accurate Google’s suggestions, keywords, bid amount, ad quality, and more will be. PPC, like all marketing, takes time to gain traction, and a week or a month is not enough time for a campaign to gain momentum.

Google Ads can be expensive to run, even if you decide to dabble using the complementary funds they offer you to get started. One thing to consider is that we have seen keywords such as Managed IT Support or Tech Support, and their variants cost at least $25 per click and sometimes over $100 per click (depending on location and competition). As you can imagine, it won’t take long to burn through your initial $100. If you don’t constantly monitor your account and have everything configured correctly, you can find your $100 voucher depleted, leaving Google to tap into your credit card to cover the cost of your campaign before you stop it. And again, how long will your complimentary $100 last? A few days, a week, an afternoon—certainly not the three months needed to gain traction.

PPC simply doesn’t work very well if you don’t have the budget for it. You’ll burn out of your budget long before you start to see traction. Unfortunately, many businesses, not just MSPs, are stuck in the time when you could run PPC campaigns for a couple of dollars a day. If you’re in a competitive industry, those days are over. PPC often requires a serious investment to see results. Google Ads have a monthly spending threshold of $500, which they will charge you every 30 days.

A general rule of thumb when determining how much to invest in PPC advertising is how much your lead is worth. For example, if a lead is worth $1,000 a month, then you should be willing to invest at least that amount in your monthly budget to find a lead.

More often than not, after we do a PPC evaluation for a client in their area, we typically see required budgets over $2000 per month per campaign. Anything less and the campaign will fizzle out before the month is over. Of course, depending on your area and what you are targeting, it might not be as high but don’t expect PPC to be the cheaper option amongst other marketing tactics.

Google Ads provides a method to determine if your ads are well optimized, as well as a method to determine if your ads are more likely to succeed. The Ad strength rating lets you know the potential your ad has to attract an audience. The better your rating is, the more likely it is to convert. The rating ranges from poor to excellent. In addition, Google also evaluates your keywords for their quality, with a top score of 10/10. It would help if you strived to have your keywords at least 5/10. Finally, your ad quality score is affected by several factors, most notably your bid amount, landing page, ad, and how they relate to your keywords.

It’s not just about your ads though—the quality of the landing page you are sending prospects to comes into play as well.

One thing to consider is how the business model for Managed IT Services performs. The reality is that managed IT service agreements aren’t typically an impulse purchase. If you think about your usual sales process, you’re well aware of how long it takes to close a lead. Your PPC campaign isn’t going to be any different, and it will take multiple viewings of your ad before someone clicks on it. 

Next, are you giving your campaign enough time to gain traction? As we noted, advertising requires multiple touches before they resonate with your audience. While PPC is relatively easy to get up and running, its ease of use conceals that the rule of marketing still applies to it. 

One of the most important things to manage is the number of false clicks your ad may receive. As you pay for each click, any wasted click is wasted money. There are a few reasons why this occurs:

Human Error: Unfortunately, people are searching for a solution to their tech issue and don’t realize that an MSP isn’t designed to solve the problem of a single user. An example of this might be a residential user clicking on an ad.

Too broad: A best practice is to start your ads using broad search terms to get a feel for what potential leads are looking for. The downside is that you increase the chances for human error as you increase the number of search terms that trigger your ads. This can manifest as a broad search term such as ‘Tech Support,’ which can trigger people searching for anything (dishwasher tech support, Samsung tech support, etc.) that contains the keyword. Searchers would understand that you don’t provide technical support for Google in a perfect world, but people will often click on the first link they see. Unfortunately, you still have to pay for it, so it pays to reduce the number of times it happens.

Make your ads as focused as possible. For example, if you only want to have clients with 25 or more workstations, your ad should say that, but understand that the more focused your ad is, the fewer times it may show. Keywords to include would be business, corporate, and similar terms that tell searchers that you’re not interested in repairing iPhone screens.

Google Ads uses three keywords types, broad, phrase, and exact. Each option decreases the number of potential searchers, as it restricts the keywords which trigger an ad to be shown. Broad gives the largest number of potential impressions, while exact target searchers ask a specific question. For example, the broad term cybersecurity will provide you with a wide range of searchers (cybersecurity apps, cybersecurity jobs, and more). When you indicate you want the keyword to be a phrase, such as “cybersecurity for SMBs,” it will significantly reduce the number of possible results due to the context of the search.

Negative keywords effectively filter out search terms you don’t want to trigger your ads. While there are standard keywords you should automatically add to your negative keywords, each business is unique, and you need to ensure your keywords are as personalized as possible. Looking at your search terms, you can see which keywords were used to trigger your ads. If not applicable to your ads, these keywords should be turned into negative ones to prevent them from triggering your ads a second time, costing you money.

Google Ads provide a wealth of data that lets you know how your ads are performing, including the number of people who click on ads and the number of times your ad is displayed. However, the simple truth is that the only statistic that matters is whether or not your ad has generated a call or form completion. If your ads aren’t generating any leads after a reasonable amount of time and adjustments, then no, your ads aren’t working, and it’s time to try something else.