It is no secret that most advertising campaigns fail. That's because new ideas are an experiment,
and before they can become successful, optimization is required.

Not every losing campaign can be optimized. But many can.

Our experienced students are trained in the art and science of advertising optimization.
If you need to cut out the waste, improve ROI and scale profitable results, we are here to help.

PPC Campaign Strategies - Pros & Cons

A Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign should provide you with accountable, predictable results. After all, as the name suggests, you’re paying for each individual click and visit to your website. You know what you’re spending. But do you know what specific revenue those clicks are delivering? Can you predict the results your campaign spend will achieve?

Our PPC program provides customizable optimization services to lower your advertising costs while improving conversion rates. Only when you have the complete picture on the performance of granular campaign components, and their impact on conversion rates, will you be able to test and optimize each campaign for a higher probability of performing well.

Using a full suite of tools at our disposal, along with artificial intelligence, we optimize a myriad of intricate details to help your campaign achieve all it can. 

Our PPC expertise includes guidance on various campaign types for Google Ads.  Below we’ve identified the pros and cons of each. 

Search Campaigns

A search campaign targets specific keywords to bring traffic to a particular web page or product. For example, if someone searches to “Hire a plumber in Provo” or some variation of that search, your Provo plumbing business may show up in the list of results based on those keywords. If they click on your search listing there’s a higher likelihood that they will contact you or complete a form on your website.

Pros

Laser-focused targeting to bottom-of-funnel prospects using carefully selected keywords. This focus on the bottom of funnel facilitates higher immediate conversions for almost instant results.

Cons

The most highly competitive keywords can be quite costly. Also, campaign default settings can eat a big chunk of your budget so customization may be needed to preserve your capital.

Shopping Campaigns

A shopping campaign assists with the promotion of a specific product with plenty of detailed information provided to the shopper before they even click on your ad. Plus, thanks to the built-in reporting tools, you can track the progress of each product throughout your campaign. 

Pros

This method is much more effective for the retail industry, both ecommerce and bricks and mortar. It can target people with a strong intent to buy products now which often means online, but used well can also bring customers into your store.

Cons

If you have a small product list, you might attract very low traffic.

Your products might not fall into one of the listed categories so you may not reach the intended audience, resulting in very low conversion rates.

Doing a product feed update and further optimization can be very challenging.

Remarketing Campaigns

To stay connected with those who previously viewed your product pages, a remarketing campaign can keep your message in front of interested viewers. As these people search the web, your remarketing campaign can include your ads as part of the visual experience while they are using the search engine or visiting partner sites. This serves as a reminder that they viewed your product and that it’s a great time to make a purchase.

Pros

This is crucial for businesses that rely on the lifetime value of their customers.

Remarketing campaigns can give a second chance to convert those visitors that showed interest in your offer.

Upselling products with this method can be very lucrative.

Cons

It is hard to calculate the actual cost per conversion since most users in this audience could be people who clicked on your ads before, but your initial cost could have begun in a different campaign.

Some users may feel over-targeted by your ads across the web.

Dynamic Remarketing Campaigns

Much like remarketing, dynamic remarketing campaigns keep your message in front of previous viewers’ eyes. This goes a step further in that it shows ads on products that viewers previously saw on your site. Customized messages can get those viewers to return to your site and complete a purchase. 

Pros

Google will generate your ads automatically, based on your website content. This is the best strategy if you want to reach the most relevant users with the highest chance for conversion.

Cons

There is very limited control over your dynamic remarketing campaign.

The campaign is highly dependent on your website structure and crawler readability.

If run parallel with other strategies, a dynamic remarketing campaign can cannibalize their click volume.

Display Network Campaigns

A display network campaign can show viewers your ads while they are engaging in other online content, like visiting their favorite sites, viewing YouTube videos, or even just checking their online-based email. It is designed to target viewers who are most likely to be interested in your message so you can grow your list of new customers and returning viewers. 

Pros

Overall, display network campaigns are very cheap in terms of cost per click compared to other types of advertising. 

Targeting relevant websites can bring you solid results.

It can generate tremendous exposure through endless banner ad formats.

Cons

Some websites can be locked behind a much higher cost per click ceiling, thereby eating your budget.

By default, your ads will show on mobile apps, in most cases only resulting in higher costs and again causing a budget sink.

Ad Blockers will be your enemy, but the good news is, they won’t affect your budget.

Video Ad Campaigns

Video ad campaigns give you the opportunity to show viewers your message in a direct and informative way. Your videos can be set on their own or they can be incorporated into other streaming content for viewers to watch prior to or while they engage in the streaming that interests them at the time. 

Pros

This is a great strategy to generate awareness or present your product to a new audience.

Video ad campaigns can directly engage with your target audience.

A video can go viral, resulting in a spike of awareness or revenue.

Cons

This is the most challenging and expensive ad format to generate.

Video ads can be intrusive which causes viewers to skip them quite a bit.

The Facebook automatic optimization algorithm recognizes that in large groups, there are some people who are more likely to respond to your specific offer.

Over time (e.g. with enough responses to your ad), FB can recognize what makes those highly engaged prospects different from others in the group.

As an example, this might include factors such as recent response to another similar ad, registration for a certain type of events, and so on.

It takes a lot of data for a campaign to self-optimize (lots of money must be spent), so rather than relying on that auto-optimizing system, it is best to shoot for reasonable results even before self-learning can begin... Audiences must be well chosen based on tight niches. The complete audience selection list is not easily visible in the FB ad interface, so we use other tools to find niche audiences that Facebook has available.

Even then, a lot of campaigns fail, and in any case, most FB campaigns do not do well without rigorous optimization.