Seeking Critique on PPC Campaign Gameplan

[kirmeliux]

Background:

We're a home service business with potential for recurring clients. In the past, I've run PPC campaigns for a much larger company, and was profitable, but the business model was vastly different. The campaign also took place during their busy season, allowing flexibility I won't receive here.

Campaign Details:

• AdWords only
• SERPs only (not partner network)
• Desktop users only

Data Available:

Lots of past data was incomplete, prompting my best estimates and judgment calls. For past leads data, I'm using Google as lead source (organic + local pack rankings), generated specifically from our quote form.

Since our quote form doesn't render on Mobile/Tablet, I omitted those visits from our Analytics data, and only target Desktop in the campaign.

I wound up with the following statistics:

Organic (any web search), Desktop visitors who viewed our quote form page:

1. Number of overall pageviews
2. Number of overall leads generated from our quote form
3. Number of overall leads which converted to sales

And for our sales/numbers end of things:

1. % our clients choose targeted package
2. Revenue of initial sale on that package
3. Profit generated from sale on that package

Using these numbers, I calculated the % of clickers likely to bounce, complete the form, convert to clients, etc. Using our sales records, I calculated revenue/profit expected from each. And with that, I calculated the highest CPC to break even (unacceptable, obviously), as well as the projected ROI from lower, more reasonable CPCs.

Notes:

• We're a home service business. Not all homes are created equal. Through data, I found our clients average home size and the average estimate for that home.
• Due to incomplete records, I can't know which Google _clients _are specific to our quote form. Some likely called through the local pack or manually dialed and said "Google" if our staff asked. To combat this, I found the % of Google _leads _who completed the quote form vs. phone call, email and applied it to clients for a reliable estimate (our system removes the quote form identifier upon lead to client conversion).
• I'm not factoring in the % of clients who become recurring customers as I don't have this data. Given that it's much higher than 0%, I think this allows a LOT of breathing room on my estimates. Many of our clients have stayed with us for years. If only a small number convert to long-term status, the current ROI shoots WAY up.
• Similar to above, I'm also not factoring in the % of clients who don't choose the initial package, but instead choose a lesser package. Again, I think this provides breathing room.

Any PPC campaign will have a plethora of variables, especially intangible issues (damages, refunds, etc). I feel I have the important things down, but I'm far from an expert. I'd love to receive any advice or things I'm overlooking.

Thanks.

[kirmeliux]

Thanks for that. This is definitely something for us to consider. We're pretty high up organically in the local pack already, but running a mobile-only call campaign would definitely interest us. Thanks for the suggestion.

[kirmeliux]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for your help.

1. Why is an AdWords campaign more effective with those additional marketing campaigns in place? Beyond the quality score/ad rank going up, is there an additional direct benefit with those marketing facets occurring?

FWIW, we are in top 3 in a large city for many of the biggest KW's. Our local SEO is very strong, many of our organic hits are people typing in our brand name, we have 2 locations, etc. We don't do much  by way of articles/videos/social as we haven't seen much benefit in those. Our social is mainly to promote whatever campaigns we're running for whatever reason.

2. For sure. Thank you.

[alankoen123]

Looks like you've given it a lot of thought and have a process in place to determine CPC bid. Couple other things to keep in mind:

1. AdWords is most effective when the other digital marketing components are in place -- strong SEO including local SEO, growing brand awareness, marketing automation tools and content marketing campaign and assets such as video, articles, etc. and of course, social media engagement. See marketing.grader.com from HubSpot.

2. Key addtional figures to track/monitor are Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and CTR (which obviously includes the quality score as well as the bid).

These are some of the conversation points that come up often with clients. Wishing you success.

[Jono_M]

I'd also recommend setting up an Adwords call-only campaign, targeted specifically at mobile. This way if the site isn't hitting the local pack on broader terms, you can still get in front of potential leads while you work on making the form mobile-friendly. https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453991?hl=en

[kirmeliux]

Hi Alan,

1. We are. We lagged before because we couldn't facilitate the amount of leads then. We're in a better place now.

2. We'll do mobile later once we have organic stats to the loaded mobile pages. Since our pages display much differently on mobile (as do ads within SERPs), I'd rather jump into that with a bit of foresight as to how our users interact. I suspect the data will be quite different.

3. Yes, definitely. I have a comprehensive spreadsheet with the numbers above that I'll be plugging into the ad numbers as we go along. Will be on my toes comparing my estimates to a decent sample size of real campaign estimates to adjust and tweak.

5. I don't really think we're in need of that just yet unless my numbers are so wildly off that I'm completely screwed, hehe.

More looking for critique on how I derived my numbers and if I'm missing any glaring metrics to compose a plan as far as bidding, reasonable performance expectation, etc. I am acutely aware that I can't just set a bid and leave the computer for a month.

[alankoen123]

Some suggestions: 1 - Get your quote form to appear on mobile; 2 - Create a separate campaign for mobile and track just that data; 3 - test and test and do more testing. Identify the best combination of Settings, Ads and Keywords; 4 - allow enough time; 5 - this may not be the best forum -- consider hiring a PPC consultant to assist if you have the budget. Hope that's helpful. - Alan