I’ve spent a decade delving into PPC strategies and what I’ve learned is that chasing ‘best practices’ often limits true performance potential. Real growth stems from daring to deviate and experiment with new methods.
PPC conversations frequently revolve around sticking to best practices. These mandates include maintaining clean account structures, controlling match types, scaling budgets incrementally, ensuring campaigns don’t overlap, and keeping everything logical and easy to explain.
While these fundamentals do promote consistency and prevent inefficiencies, they are not the secret to achieving significant gains.
Looking back, many of the most impactful improvements came from testing unorthodox ideas that didn’t neatly fit into the established frameworks, but instead aligned with how platforms like Google Ads and Meta actually operate. These platforms don’t optimize for best practices, but rather for signals, prompting a rethink in approach to performance.
Control Still Matters: Revisiting SKAGs
In several accounts, reintroducing Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs) for high-intent, high-revenue keywords led to improved performance. Ad relevance shot up, conversions grew, and query matching became more precise. It’s not about reverting to old structures, but recognizing where control adds value.
The narrative that machine learning abolishes the need for such control is overly simplistic. My experience shows that precision matters, but only in contexts where the intent justifies it.
Harnessing Broad Match with Control
Historically, broad match has been met with skepticism due to its expansive nature. However, combining broad match with aggressive negative keyword management allows Google to explore broadly while you shape the output through strategic query mining.
By continuously refining query inputs, broad match can expand reach without compromising relevance, redefining how control is applied.
When Visibility Trumps Efficiency: Target Impression Share
Target Impression Share often supports defensive strategies, but applying it to high-value, non-branded terms can boost SERP dominance even at the cost of efficiency. In such cases, ensuring visibility can outweigh concerns over cost efficiency, especially when aiming for market dominance rather than mere competition.
Focusing on Conversion Quality: Weighting Over Tracking
Most lead generation accounts capture multiple conversion actions, but treating them equally can lead to suboptimal interpretations. In one instance, assigning different values based on conversion likelihood—like prioritizing phone calls—shifted optimization to improve conversion quality rather than volume.
This approach emphasizes what’s truly valuable, ensuring platforms optimize effectively based on input.
Competitor Bidding: Leveraging Existing Intent
Despite their reputation for inefficiency, competitor campaigns succeed by capturing existing intent. Users searching for competitor brands often convert thanks to their advanced position in the decision process, proving crucial when strategically managed with clear positioning and relevant landing pages.
Rethinking Top-of-Funnel Keywords
Although often removed for low conversion rates, top-of-funnel keywords can indirectly enhance account performance by strengthening remarketing pools and audience signals, thus supporting high-intent campaign efficiency.
These queries play an unseen but vital role in driving conversions across the account.
Trusting the Data Over Assumptions
Initial audience hypotheses frequently miss the mark, whereas data often pinpoints the most efficient converters. By trusting data and adjusting strategies accordingly, accounts can improve performance by aligning with audience realities.
Revisiting Account Structure’s Role
While clean setups simplify management, they’re not always the most effective. Controlled overlaps between campaigns can leverage shared signals for better auction outcomes, challenging the notion that rigid structures lead to optimal performance.
Treating Product Feeds as Dynamic
In Shopping campaigns, product feeds are often overlooked. Yet, revisiting and adjusting feed details—like product titles and attributes—can significantly enhance product visibility and click-through rates, underscoring their strategic importance.
Retargeting: A Hub for Testing Strategy
Retargeting is not just about conversions; it’s ideal for testing variations in messaging and creative content due to its high-intent audience. Successful test results can then be confidently scaled, reframing retargeting as a strategic testing ground.
The Real Secret Behind Top Account Success
Over the years, I’ve realized that outperformance doesn’t stem from strictly adhering to playbooks, but from understanding and influencing platform signals and stepping beyond conventional boundaries to outperform beyond expectations.
Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
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