Don’t Have a PPC Brief? Write One.

A PPC brief should be considered different from the full marketing brief - sure it will be influenced by the latter but it should stand alone and provide all the detail for a thoroughly researched and well structured PPC Campaign. The ‘restrictions’ in place on PPC platforms like Google and Microsoft in terms of copy length show us how it differs from Social Media content, or blog content, or email content. So we should treat the brief accordingly.

There are three main areas in a PPC brief: Definition, Planning, and Measurement.

Defining your PPC Campaign

• Be specific about the product/service that you’re offering. How can you categorise and group them together so that one advert or one keyword would be enough to explain what you’re offering? The point is not to force your services or products into groups, but rather to understand that everything you offer is unique and should be treated as such.

• What are your Unique Selling Points (USPs)?

• Clearly state the overall goal of your campaign, whether it's to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales. PPC Marketing can help you with all of these goals and you can create an advertising funnel to take your potential customers through each of these steps.

• Identify your target audience, including demographic information such as age, location, and interests. Build a profile of your ideal customer, what are their problems, how can you fix it for them, what are they searching for in trying to find a solution, what are their purchase habits. By building a character profile you’ll find it easier to picture someone when making decisions in the build stage.

• Research keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business and that your target audience is likely to use when searching for products or services like yours.

Planning the Execution of your PPC Campaign

I like to complete this step away from the PPC dashboard. I wouldn’t be looking to build campaigns straight away - it’s worth sitting down and planning your structure. You’ll identify flaws in your logic and be able to quickly reshape without having to move dozens of keywords and adverts around.

• Organise your campaign structure, how are you defining a new campaign? Is it location based? Funnel based? Does it match your website menu?

• Create ad groups that are organised around specific themes or products. The more specific you can be the better your Quality Score will be. Quality Score alongside your bid price are the main factors that determine where you’ll be positioned on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

• Write compelling ad copy that will grab the attention of your target audience and encourage them to click through to your website. Don’t forget to use your USPs from earlier.

• Determine the best times and days to run your ads, based on when your target audience is most active online.

• Set a budget for your campaign and decide on a bid strategy that will help you maximise your return on investment.

• How are you going to manage testing advert assets? New ads, landing pages, images, etc.

Measuring the Success of your PPC Campaign

• What do you define as success? Volume of enquiries/sales? Increased clicks? Maximising impressions?

• What metrics need to be set up through analytics tools to track the performance of your ads? Conversions on your website such as purchases, form submissions, etc.

• How often will you measure performance? Daily, weekly, monthly?

• How much time are you prepared to give the campaigns? This can help you navigate a period of time with poor performance. Say you have a week without any enquiries - you know not to panic because you’re looking at the whole picture of a month.

Overall, a PPC marketing brief is a crucial tool for creating a successful PPC campaign. By clearly defining your goals, target audience, and budget, planning the execution of your campaign, and measuring the success of your campaign, you can ensure that your PPC efforts are effective and generate the results you want.

Not sure where to start with your PPC Management? I offer a free 30 minute consultation where we can discuss the problems you’re facing and how my solutions could help you. Click here for more information and to book your session.