For those who aren’t familiar with the CPC, which means Cost-Per-Click (sometimes called PPC or Pay-Per-Click), it’s the fee that you pay Google or other search engines every time a user clicks on your ads that’s being displayed on the search results.
CPC is a great metric for agencies that offer PPC services to see how successful their ad campaigns are. At least in terms of cost.
Like any other business money that’s being shelled out, CPC also needs to be lowered as much as possible. That’s because lower CPC means that your ads are performing well in Google space.
Below are only some of the techniques that you can use to reduce your CPC and get better results at the same time.
1. Take advantage of SKAGs
SKAGS or Single Keyword Ad Groups are very specific keywords that are linked to ads. To take advantage of these ad groups, you must use as few and as specific keywords as possible.
According to the Google chiefs themselves, using an average of 10-20 keywords can reduce the cost of your CPCs.
It’s not just using 10-20 keywords. You also have to make sure that you specify them as much as possible. The reason behind it is that when you use specified search terms or the words that your users type when searching, it will only be shown to very specific people. Meaning, your ads will be more targeted.
Once you use general keywords, your ads will only be shown to random people who are not interested in your ads. The result: higher CPC, lower conversions.
2. Link your ad copy to your SKAG
Once you’ve come up with a unique set of SKAGs, you can use these keywords as ad copies to streamline your strategy. Take this situation for example:
You own a debt collection company that’s been using Google for displaying ads. On the other hand, Byron, who’s looking to grow his business, is searching for a debt collection agency. He goes to Google and types in “debt collection agency” then enters.
Google then gives Byron a ton of results about collection companies that are near to him. Fortunately, you also used the search term “debt collection agency” in one of your ads so Byron was able to see your ad as a search result.
This only goes to show that using the language of your target audience in your ads will help you be more visible on their search results. Doing this will also help you improve your click-through rates or CTR.
Keep in mind that having higher CTRs is synonymous with a higher quality score. And the better your quality score is, the lower the cost per click is.
3. Optimize your landing pages
Keep in mind that relying just on Google is not great for your business. You must do everything on your end to make your website more welcoming to customers, too. This means that you need to design your website in a way that it will get a better quality score.
Google computes quality scores by assessing your ads and landing pages. Google must see that there’s a value that’s linked to your ads and landing pages.
According to Google, this is how you can improve or optimize your landing pages:
- The content of your pages must be unique or original and useful to customers
- You must describe your product or services briefly.
- Make sure that the customers can find your contact pages easily
- The design of your website must work not only on desktop but also on mobile.
- Loading pages must be fast. But more than that, the design of your website must allow easy and seamless navigation
