Paid Search Optimizations: The Quick-and-Dirty Guide

Paid search optimizations involve ongoing adjustments to keywords, ad copy, targeting, bids, budgets, and landing pages to improve performance. But it’s important to revisit your account structure and goals before making any optimization decisions.

Optimizing paid search campaigns is like tending a garden: You can’t just pop seeds in the dirt and expect a bountiful yield.

Even in the best conditions, plants require nurturing — but too much sun or water and they’ll fail, too.

Similarly, paid search campaigns require thoughtful optimizations to bear fruit.

Knowing how to build your proverbial garden beds, assess what’s thriving (and wilting), and make adjustments accordingly is essential to pay-per-click (PPC) campaign success.

In this complete guide, we’ll walk you through the most effective optimization strategies every digital marketer should use.

Optimizing paid search campaigns is like tending a garden. (Image: Unsplash)

What is paid search optimization?

Paid search optimization is the practice of making adjustments to your campaign settings that improve its performance.

Whether you run Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or Amazon Ads, the PPC optimization process involves revisiting target keywords, adjusting ad copy, modifying bids, and improving landing pages.

Top paid search optimizations

There are several pillars to check on a regular basis to optimize your paid search campaigns:

1. Revisit your goals

While “spend less, make more” is a perfectly reasonable expectation from your paid search campaigns in the long run, you’ll need to channel more specific metrics to measure success along the way.

Think of it as smaller steps to reach that bigger goal: maybe you’re a startup that needs better brand awareness before you can get more sales.

Or maybe you’re a business with a long customer lifetime value (CLV), so a higher cost per acquisition pays off further down the line.

Whatever success looks like for your business at this moment, it’s important to translate those goals into measurable KPIs for your paid search campaign before making any optimization decisions.

Common paid search KPIs include:

• Impression: The number of times your ad has been seen.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The number of clicks per impression
• Cost per conversion: The amount of money spent on a campaign divided by the number of conversions in that period.
• Cost per click: How much you pay for a click.
• Conversion rate: How often a click or interaction leads to a conversion (number of conversions divided by the number of interactions with your ad).
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): The amount of revenue generated for each dollar spent on advertising.
• Cost per acquisition (CPA): The cost of turning a lead into a conversion.
• Impression share: The percentage of impressions your ads received compared to the number of impressions that your ads could get.

Once you identify which metrics matter most to your digital marketing strategy, make sure those goals are defined inside Google Analytics and connected with your Google Ads.

2. Audit your account structure

You’d be surprised by how many PPC campaigns aren’t set up properly.

This leads to a whole lot of wasted time and money when you could be focusing on more high-level optimizations.

Even if you’re a paid search pro, take a look through this checklist to make sure your campaign settings are in place first:

Account-level setup

• Ad suggestions: We recommend turning off auto-apply to maintain more control over your ads.
• Content exclusions: Did you exclude your ads from showing on sites that don’t match your brand?
• Customer lists: Do you have a customer list to exclude those users from seeing your ads? Alternatively, do you have a list of prospects to target?
• Campaign/ad group structure: Do you have campaigns set up to target hyper-focused ad groups?
• Conversion tracking: Accurate conversion tracking is essential to effective optimizations and overall PPC success. Is Google Tag Manager installed and firing properly? Are you tracking every conversion type?

Campaign-level setup

• Locations: Do you target geographic regions where people are more likely to convert?
• Languages: Are your ads targeting English only? Or are your ads open to users who might search in English but whose browsers might be set to other languages?
• Demographics: Are you targeting your audience based on their unique demographics, like age and income?
• Devices: Are your ads showing on all device types? Do certain device types fail to bring in conversions? Should you exclude or add a negative bid modifier for devices? Or are those devices early predictors of intent (research on phones, purchase on computers)?
• Ad scheduling: Can your ads appear on any day of the week or at any time of the day? Should you limit when your ads appear depending on when your audience is more likely to convert?
• Bid strategy: It’s usually a good idea to start with manual cost per click (CPC) before bumping to maximize clicks, maximize conversions, target CPA, or target impression share.
• Keywords: Do you leverage search terms people actually use to find relevant products or services to yours?
• Negative keywords: Do you have a list of keywords you don’t want to match with?
• Networks: Early on, we recommend running campaigns on the Google Search Network and Partner Networks. Over time, you may consider pulling back on the Partner Network if performance is not up to par.

Privacy policy and data protection

• Privacy policy: You absolutely need one on your site. You can easily find a template, but make sure it includes information on Google Analytics and Google/Facebook remarketing if you plan to run remarketing campaigns.
• Data protection contacts: Google will send notices about the Google Ads Data Processing Terms and the EU General Data Protection Regulation to your primary contact. If your organization has a data protection officer or an EU representative, add their contact information.

3. Strengthen your ad foundations

The foundational components of your search campaigns, like keywords, ad copy, and formats, will be the primary focus of your optimization efforts.

These optimizations focus on relevance — ensuring the right message reaches the right audience at the right moment.

Keywords

Keywords organize our campaigns, guide the copy in our landing pages and search ads alike, and identify users’ level of intent.

So it’s imperative to review your keyword list regularly to keep up with what your target audience is searching for at every stage of the funnel.

Prospects often use different language than brands, so use keyword research tools like Answer the Public, iSpionage, Keyword Planner, and Semrush to uncover keywords you might miss otherwise.

Finally, keep your negative keyword list updated to save your budget.

Further reading: How to Do Keyword Research: Tools to Use + Proven Tips

Ad copy and formats

Review your ad copy and formats to identify which are high-performing and which aren’t.

Ask yourself:

• Does your copy match the search query?
• Do your ads have a clear call to action (CTA)?
• Do your headlines include the keyword your ad group targets?
• Will the user catch on to the benefits that set you apart?

Regular A/B testing is essential here. Small changes to headlines, CTAs, or value props can make a measurable difference over time.

Assets and extensions

Assets (formerly extensions) help your ads take up more real estate on the SERP, are more visually appealing, and provide additional context to searchers.

Ask yourself:

• Are you actively using sitelinks, callouts, images, or videos?
• Are your images and videos high-quality and relevant?
• If you’re an ecommerce business, are you leveraging lifestyle images of your products?

This is especially important with Google’s Performance Max, which uses assets and audience “signals” the same way traditional search relies on keywords — testing, targeting, and segmenting super qualified users.

Landing pages

Your landing pages and website should be extensions of your ad. Your visitor should feel comfortable and in the right place as soon as they arrive.

To accomplish this, ask yourself:

• Is your landing page consistent with the ad?
• Is the CTA in your ad copy immediately available?
• Does your visitor understand your value proposition?
• Can they easily navigate the rest of your website?

Pro tip: SEO and paid search marketing are very intertwined. Improving your user experience and organic search results will directly impact your paid search efforts.

Quality Score and performance impact

Your Quality Score is a rating from Google that gives a sense of how well your ad quality compares to other advertisers.

The better your score, the more likely your ads are to appear for your target audience (at a lower cost).

It’s best practice for every advertiser to check in with your Quality Score regularly and make any adjustments to give it a boost. No matter your KPI, a better score will help achieve that goal.

In fact, many of the paid search optimizations you make to improve your score will cover a lot of your optimization bases (like improving your landing page, ad copy, and clearly defining your ad groups).

4. Refine budgets and bidding

Budget optimizations are personal.

That said, it’s a good idea to allocate more budget to the campaigns that are performing the best and lower the budget for campaigns that aren’t performing as well (or campaigns that are fresh in the experimentation phase).

Keep in mind that some campaigns, like YouTube ads, might not be a high-converting campaign on paper, but can play a big role in the buyer’s journey.

The lesson here? Don’t completely pause or deplete the budget for these campaigns. Know which ad types play what role in your conversion funnel.

Bidding optimizations

Your bidding strategy and optimizations will depend on your unique goals and performance. However, we recommend starting with manual CPC early on. Here’s why:

Google wants you to get as many clicks as possible — but mostly because that’s how they make money. Google cares less about if those clicks come from qualified leads.

So, if you just want to get the most clicks for your budget, you can use the traditional automatic cost-per-click bidding system.

But if you want more control over your campaigns and less automation, especially in those early stages, manual bidding is a better option.

This option allows you to increase your ad visibility and prioritize high-converting keywords, all while lowering your CPA.

Although manual bidding is great when you need more control over bids, this strategy also requires more time and energy to make sure you bid the right amount at the right time.

5. Align performance goals with specific KPIs

As we’ve discussed, your specific campaign optimizations will depend on your goals and performance.

If you’re feeling a little aimless at first, we recommend running Google Ads Experiments to A/B test your optimizations because it easily tracks the results for you and tells you whether or not there’s statistical significance.

But in an effort to provide a little extra guidance, we’re going to show you optimizations you might make for some of the most common KPIs in paid search:

Optimizations to increase CTR

The best optimizations to improve CTR come down to your ad copy and keywords. (Image: Unsplash)

The best optimizations to improve CTR come down to how closely your ads align with user intent and how compelling your message is at a glance.

Here’s how to optimize your campaign to increase CTR:

• Refresh your ad copy with a single, clear call-to-action
• A/B test headlines and descriptions to identify top performers
• Use assets and extensions to increase visibility and engagement
• Tighten keyword targeting and negative keywords to filter low-intent searches

Optimizations to reduce cost per conversion

Sure, paid search is measured by conversion actions. But if you those conversions cost you more than they’re worth, you might want to focus on lowering your cost per conversion with some of these optimizations:

• • Make sure your keywords are relevant to your high-intent target audience
  • Keep your negative keywords list up to date
  • Review your website and landing pages:
    • Is it easy to navigate?
    • Is there a clear call to action?
    • Would a visitor know your value proposition right away?
    • Are they consistent with your ad?

Optimizations to reduce cost per click

If you’re getting an abundance of clicks without any conversions to show for it, it’s time to reduce that CPC. Some optimizations include:

• Keywords:
  • Try long-tail keywords that are more intent-based
  • A/B test keyword variations
  • Make sure your ads are highly relevant to the search terms
  • Lower your keyword bids
  • Update your negative keywords
  • Try new match types
• Play with your bidding strategy
• Pay extra attention to your Quality Score

Optimizations to increase conversion rate

If you’re getting the clicks and the impressions but lagging on your conversions, it’s probably time to look at your website for conversion rate optimization (CRO).

Here’s what to check for:

• A/B test your landing pages to see which performs stronger
• Check your landing page design and copy:
  • Is it consistent with your ad?
  • Is it aesthetically pleasing?
  • Are your value propositions and CTAs clear?
  • Do you focus on the benefits of your solution?
  • Do you include social proof, certifications, reviews, badges, case studies, and other tangible sources of trust?
  • Is it specific to your target audience?
  • Do you feature concrete numbers (facts and figures)?

Optimizations to improve return on ad spend (ROAS)

This is a big one, but here are some paid search optimizations to get you started toward a better ROAS:

• Check your website for CRO:
  • Is your website easy to navigate with a clear CTA and value proposition?
  • Is your website mobile-friendly and conversion-ready?
• Run remarketing campaigns
• A/B test:
  • Pause any ads or landing pages that perform poorly
• Check your languages and locations:
  • Are you targeting geographic locations that are going months without sales? Consider excluding those locations for now.

It’s important to translate your big goals into measurable KPIs for your paid search campaign. (Image: Unsplash)

How often should you optimize your PPC campaigns?

Your new or recently optimized campaign should run for about a week or two before making adjustments. If your campaign isn’t getting a whole lot of impressions right away, give it more time.

“Optimize when you have enough data to learn from, not just enough data to panic over,” says HawkSEM co-founder and CEO Sam Yadegar. “Essentially, aim for a point of statistical significance.”

There’s a lot of guesswork involved in the initial setup (what keywords you think your target audience uses and what campaign types probably deserve the most budget).

But as time goes on — and more users convert — search engines get better at identifying who your target audience is and seek to find more lookalike buyers.

Optimizations are our way of nudging the search engine in the right direction and learning those buyer behaviors more effectively.

But it’s important to remember that the learning process takes time. And if we make too many changes too soon, we can stunt the learning altogether.

When not to optimize paid search campaigns

“Don’t optimize drastically during the learning phase,” says Yadegar. “You may be training the algorithm on noise instead of valuable conversion signals.”

It’s also important to avoid making too many changes at once.

If you don’t know which changes made a positive impact, you can’t recreate your success. And worse, if you don’t know which changes led to a drop in performance, it can be even harder to get back on track.
And finally, is your campaign doing exceptionally well? Make sure to minimize your optimizations.

The takeaway

A well-organized and high-quality paid search campaign should always be your primary objective when it comes to making optimizations. From there, you can make adjustments along the way that align with your unique KPIs.

If you’re thinking paid search optimizations and management sound like a full-time job, you’re right.

Reach out for a free consultation and see if we can take over the heavy lifting — and give you a bigger ROI.

This article has been updated and was originally published in September 2022.