To scale PPC campaigns, advertisers must gradually increase budget while expanding targeting, optimizing landing pages, and investing in remarketing. Learn how to scale, when the time is right, and mistakes to avoid along the way.

When it’s time to scale PPC campaigns, simply increasing your budget won’t lead to sustainable growth.

Instead, it takes meticulous optimizations and strategic budget allocation to steadily earn a higher return on investment (ROI).

Keep reading as we explore actionable steps to kick your PPC campaigns into high gear — without burning through your budget — along common mistakes advertisers make when they try to move too fast.

hand holding a tablet with text that reads PPC

To truly scale your PPC efforts, you need to identify the revenue you’re leaving on the table due to budget limitations. (Image: Adobe)

How to scale PPC campaigns

Scaling pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns starts with identifying your specific conversion goals, then adjusting your budget and bids accordingly, investing in remarketing, optimizing landing pages, and outsourcing your PPC management.

1. Increase your budget

To truly scale your PPC efforts, you need to identify the revenue you’re leaving on the table due to budget limitations.

Thankfully, Google Ads provides a metric to assess this situation: Search Lost Impression Share (budget). This metric reveals the percentage of instances your ad wasn’t displayed to people using a search query with relevant keywords due to budget constraints.

Let’s say you’re an ecommerce business that sells stone jewelry, with an amethyst promotion running.

Your ads might rank for the “affordable amethyst jewelry” keyword, but if your Search Lost IS (budget) is 30%, you’re missing out on people typing in search terms with that keyword 30% of the time.

Similarly, the Search Lost IS (rank) metric shows lost visibility based on poor ad rank. In this case, an increased budget could help your ad placement improve and outperform competitors in the SERPs.

2. Expand your keyword targeting strategically

Balancing your keyword strategy is like walking a tightrope. You don’t want to waste money on irrelevant keywords — but you can’t scale without expanding your keywords to capture more audiences.

Finding that sweet spot is the key to success, and digital marketing expert Steven Dang says you’ll find it if you balance quality over quantity:

“Often, when we decide to scale up, adding additional keywords is important, but we always need to ensure that every additional keyword we roll out adds value and can justify its own existence,” says Dang.

“Simply expanding for the sake of it ultimately becomes a liability or a crutch.”

Don’t forget to reinforce this with an updated negative keyword list to avoid unnecessary PPC ad spend. This helps you use your budget efficiently and effectively, targeting only the most relevant, valuable audience for your campaigns.

Here’s how to make smarter keyword and bid decisions as you scale:

A/B test previously ruled-out keywords

Think about what informed your original keyword choices. Some keywords may not have made the cut simply because competitors drove bidding costs too high at the time — not because they lacked ROI potential.

Revisit those keywords now. If your returns still outpace cost-per-click (CPC), consider boosting your budget to rank for them.

The payoff? Your target audience will be exposed to your ad more often, driving more traffic as a result.

Target long-tail keywords your competitors are ignoring

Long-tail keywords are more specific, which means they attract traffic from potential customers further down the buyer’s journey — closer to conversion.

They’re also less competitive than short-tail keywords, so you won’t burn through your budget targeting them.

Dang says long-tail keywords are often missed by the competition.

“Longer-tail keywords are important for scaling PPC campaigns because there is strong underlying intent behind these keywords and a lot of times, competing advertisers may have overlooked them,” he explains.

“Because they are lower in volume by nature, sometimes they are ignored or overlooked by advertisers, even if they can pack a powerful punch if properly harnessed.”

Use a keyword research tool (like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, or Ahrefs) to consistently identify high-intent long-tail keywords.

3. Expand your geographic targeting

If your current PPC campaigns are limited to certain geographic regions, expanding your targeting to more cities or countries could allow you to unlock untapped demand — without a large overhaul on your campaigns.

If reaching a wider geographic audience makes sense for your business, then first analyze your existing performance data by location.

You can use Google Ads’ location reports to determine which regions are converting well and which ones you aren’t targeting — this will give you an idea of the lowest-risk opportunities for growth.

Here are a few tips for expanding your geographic targeting:

  • Use location bid adjustments to increase bids in higher-converting regions and lower bids in lower-performing areas.
  • Create localized ad copy that reflects local language, pricing, and identifies the region being targeted to boost relevance.
  • Add new geographical targets slowly over time, testing each before committing to a full budget. Only expand where there’s proof of demand.

4. Adjust your bidding strategy with Smart Bidding

Manual bidding is a good starting point for PPC campaigns — it gives you more control and helps your campaigns accumulate valuable performance data.

However, switching to Google’s Smart Bidding strategies can help your campaigns scale when the time is right.

Smart Bidding uses machine learning to adjust bids in real time.

More specifically, Google uses contextual signals to predict how likely a click is to lead to a conversion.

Contextual signals include things like browser, time of day, location, device type past performance, and user behavior.

Common Smart Bidding strategies include:

Pro tip: You must have conversion tracking set up properly for Smart Bidding to work. So make sure your Google Ads conversion tracking is airtight.

5. Invest in remarketing

Remarketing is one of the most effective strategies to scale a PPC campaign because you’re targeting an audience that is already engaged with your brand.

By adding tags or pixels to specific sections of your website, you can identify those engaged users and serve them targeted ads designed to bring them back.

Think personalized ad copy, exclusive offers, or display ad images of the exact products they viewed on your site.

For ecommerce businesses, abandoned cart retargeting is a powerful place to start.

At HawkSEM, we saw this firsthand with Swimsuits Direct. By investing in remarketing across both Google Shopping and the Display Network, their conversions surged by nearly 20%, while their search engine marketing (SEM) revenue increased by 110%.

Pro tip: Consider expanding your remarketing reach through Performance Max campaigns, which lets you retarget across Google Search, Display, Shopping, Gmail, YouTube, and Discover.

6. Optimize your landing pages

As you scale your PPC campaigns, you also need to ensure each ad has a corresponding landing page to match.

“We want to make sure our landing pages are custom-tailored to the product/service categories or keywords we are running traffic through.”

Here are a few ways to optimize your landing pages:

Increase loading time: Even a two-second delay can increase bounce rates by 100%. Invest in the services of a reputable web developer or UX specialist to ensure your landing page load time is as fast as possible.

Personalize page copy: Leverage powerful data like demographics, past user behavior, and location insights of your target audience to craft more personalized landing page copy. Speak in their language, acknowledge their pain points and offer your solution by highlighting the benefits.

Leverage dynamic content: Match your landing page headlines with PPC keywords and ad copy automatically. Dynamic landing pages display the keywords that trigger your search ads, adding an extra element of personalization and aligning the ad destination with search intent.

Use one clear, consistent CTA: Throughout your landing page, use only one call-to-action that gives clear direction for what the visitor should do next. Make sure the CTA matches the offer from your ad and is a bold button with actionable language.

7. Expand to other PPC channels and platforms

Depending on your industry and target audience, other platforms can offer substantial growth opportunities.

Microsoft Ads, for example, can be a lucrative platform for businesses with an older audience — whereas Amazon Ads are essential for ecommerce brands who sell on their platform.

If you have a social media presence, leveraging LinkedIn or Facebook ads can have a massive impact on your search engine marketing campaigns, too.

Monitor your performance

To ensure your scaling efforts yield a strong ROI, you’ll have to track performance for every scaled (improved) PPC campaign.

Scaling often means spending more, but it’s only justified if you’re seeing a return. (Image: Unsplash)

Here are key metrics to keep close tabs on:

  • Conversion rate: Are you tracking app installations, online purchases, newsletter signups, or phone calls from ad extensions? Whatever conversions you aim to scale, be sure to track them in Google Analytics.
  • Clickthrough rate (CTR): CTR tells you how often people click on your ads — and the proportion should increase as you scale your PPC campaigns.
  • Return on ad spend (ROAS): Scaling often means spending more, but it’s only justified if you’re seeing a return. ROAS measures how much money you get back with every dollar spent on advertising.
  • Quality Score: If you notice a dip in Quality Score, it’s likely an ad relevance issue. Review your ad and landing page copy, making tweaks until your Quality Score improves — a score between 8 to 10 is optimal.
  • Cost per acquisition (CPA): Notice more web traffic but higher CPAs? This might mean your ads are driving more audiences to your site, but your landing page just isn’t sealing the deal. If this is the case, you’ll want to audit your landing page to see where you can improve.

Further reading: 8 Important PPC KPIs to Track (& Why You Should)

8. Outsource PPC management

Scaling campaigns effectively requires specialized expertise and strategies.

Without the right PPC strategy, you risk wasted ad spend, misfired ad groups, and undesirable results. Bottom line? You don’t want to limit your success — and scaling PPC campaigns is a team effort, even for the pros.

“Putting up new campaigns from an initial starting position vs. scaling an account up are two quite different exercises and disciplines,” says Dang.

“Scaling up is often a more difficult exercise since you might not start out by reaching for the lowest hanging fruit.”

On top of that, you might not have access to cutting-edge performance monitoring tech to assess and capitalize on progress across multiple campaigns and PPC platforms.

That’s why we recommend partnering with a qualified PPC agency with demonstrated results and success in your industry.

When to scale PPC campaigns

“We typically scale PPC campaigns when we perceive that we are reading a state of diminishing returns or plateauing when it comes to existing PPC campaigns,” says Dang.

“Another reason could be the desire to expand into additional keywords, product or service categories, or geographies.”

Dang also points out scaling can mean both adding new campaigns or improving existing ones:

“We can, for example, scale out existing PPC campaigns with an additional budget, more aggressive bids, or even additional ad types or different targeting parameters. An expansion of ad schedule would also qualify as a scaling effort if it is currently limited in that manner.”

Mistakes to avoid when scaling a PPC campaign

Perhaps the most common mistake advertisers make when scaling campaigns is trying to grow too aggressively.

Here are missteps to avoid — and what to do instead:

Scaling without a solid foundation

Before scaling your PPC campaigns, make sure your foundations are in place and running smoothly: conversion tracking is accurate, landing pages are optimized, and your cost-per-acquisition is stable.

Increasing your budget too quickly

A sudden budget spike can throw off your campaign’s learning phase. Instead of rapidly increasing your budget overnight, take a more gradual approach and give the algorithm time to adjust before making the next move.

Risking ad fatigue

When you increase your budget, you’ll start reaching the same people repeatedly. When this happens, ad fatigue is likely to hit harder — so it’s essential to rotate and test new ad creative.

If your audience is getting oversaturated, expand targeting and introduce new audience segments before performance drops.

Prioritizing the wrong metrics

While an increase in clicks, impressions, and conversions can be exciting, don’t lose track of whether the numbers are benefiting your business goals.

When scaling, it’s generally best to keep an eye on metrics like ROAS and cost per acquisition (CPA).

Scaling multiple campaign elements at once

Increasing your budget, target keywords, and testing new audiences simultaneously makes it nearly impossible to know what’s actually working. Instead, scale one variable at a time.

The takeaway

Scaling your PPC campaigns is a delicate balance between introducing new ad campaigns and optimizing existing ones. Unfortunately, today’s brands struggle to find that equilibrium and end up squandering their marketing budget on inefficient scaling strategies.

That’s why so many of our clients turn to us when it’s time to scale. Our expertise in scaling PPC campaigns extends to SaaS, ecommerce, and various niche businesses in generating conversion success.

Picture your current campaigns achieving a 4.5X ROI. That’s our average client’s reality after partnering with us. Want to tap into that pool of success? We’ve got you covered.

Let’s scale your PPC campaigns.

This article has been updated and was originally published in September 2023.

Christina Lyon

Christina Lyon

Christina Lyon is an entrepreneur and writer from sunny SoCal. She leads Lyon Content, a tight-knit team of bold creatives, and crafts engaging written content that helps brands sparkle and scale.