PPC Automation: Why and How to Implement It

“PPC Automation: Why and How to Implement It” is a guest post written by Tim Ferguson, a writer and editor of Marketing Digest. He enjoys writing about SEO, content marketing, online reputation management, social media, AI, and Big Data. When he is not writing and editing for Marketing Digest, he spends time learning more about content marketing and getting better at it.

Is your business struggling to reach out to the right audience? Perhaps you have not started using PPC ads yet.

PPC ads are designed to help you reach your targeted audience wherever and whenever you want to reach them.

Basically, it’s a method of purchasing visits to your website instead of earning the visits organically. One of the most widely used forms of PPC is search engine advertising.

Here are some stats that will make you realize the importance of PPC ads for your business:

• Google paid ads can increase brand awareness by up to 80%.
• For every $1 spent on paid ads, you will receive $2, i.e., an ROI of 200%.
• The traffic you get via PPC ads generates 50% more conversions as compared to organic advertising.

However, things are easier said than done. PPC campaigns demand you to perform plenty of tasks starting fromresearching keywordsto craftingad copies. Thanks to PPC automation tools and their capabilities, you can significantly boost your campaigns’ effectiveness and performance.

But what exactly is PPC automation?

PPC automation is when you use technology to manage and optimize your PPC ad campaigns and strategies. There are several PPC automation tools out there that will let you automate PPC research,bidding, and more to capture the right traffic by leveraging the data and generating better conversions while saving cost.

To have a clearer understanding, let’s discuss why your business should use PPC automation and how to implement it in detail.

Why should your business use PPC automation?

Many businesses are using PPC automation today. In a study, 4 out of 10 marketers said that they want to increase their PPC budget.

Here are the top benefits PPC automation can offer for your business:

• Save your time: A business needs plenty of time to manage. And it is especially true when you are implementing a PPC campaign.

One of the most significant benefits PPC automation can offer is the amount of time it saves for you while improving your results. The time you save from performing time-consuming tasks such as bid management, creating ads, and copy and reporting can be spent on achieving other essential tasks.

• Scale your PPC efforts: PPC automation gives you the opportunity to run more ads without having to invest more time. When you have more time in your hand, it makes scaling your PPC efforts more achievable.

• Improve your ad copy: It is not easy to generate compelling ad copy for different advertising platforms. This is especially true when you’ve to test a large number of creatives. The data collected using PPC automation can, however, help you to instantly improve your ad copy.

• Manage bidding effortlessly: Bid management is a time-consuming task. However, PPC automation can do the work done with accuracy and profitability. The tools are designed to use complex, proficient algorithms to improve your bidding strategy.

• Turn data from several sources into reports: Using PPC automation tools, you can gather data from several sources and turn them into easy-to-read reports. Since you will get a better view of your campaigns, you can analyze your data more precisely. Those valuabledata insights can be used to improve your campaigns.

• Increase your ROAS: PPC automation tools, if implemented correctly, can optimize your ads’ performance and increase yourreturn on ad spend (ROAS).

With automation, you are ensured of making more informed decisions as you have enhanced data in your hands. Also, there is more room for flexibility with automation while adjusting your strategies.

• Easily access tools: Not all advanced automation and AI software out there are made accessible to small businesses. But when it comes to PPC, many ad platforms offer built-in automation tools accessiblefor all. It makes it easy for any business to leverage PPC automation without making a large upfront investment.

Moreover, the ease of use that comes with these built-in tools is a bonus, not to mention the user-friendlythird-party toolsthat are made easily accessible.

The types of PPC automation tools include:

• Built-in tools to help automate certain features of your campaigns. They are user-friendly and easy to set up.
• Rule-driven automation allows you to manually configure your settings and create rulesfor automating portions of your campaign management.
• Scripts to automate your PPC management
• Third-party software for advanced PPC automation.
• Custom PPC automation solution.

Now that you are aware of the various benefits of PPC automation, let’s look at how you can implement it to scale your business.

Steps to implement PPC automation

Here are some of the ways you must consider while implementing PPC automation:

1. Have clear goals.

Like every other campaign, your PPC campaign, too, needs to have clear goals. Knowing what you want to accomplish by the end of your campaign will help you opt for the right automation tools and tactics. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you wish to increase traffic? Set your goals before you start automating.

2. Explore different automation tools and their built-in capabilities.

With so many automation tools out there, you would want to first explore different options and see which device will best serve your purpose.

Determine whether you can accomplish your goals with built-in tools or you would require a more advanced solution.

Many advertisers start with Google Ads as not only are they becoming more sophisticated, but the tool is scalable as well.

Have a look at some ways to use Google Ads for PPC automation:

• Universal App Campaigns:Universal app campaigns are designed to support more app installs, manage targeting, bidding, ad creative, among other similar functions. Creative elements are derived from the data accessible on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.

• SmartShopping Campaigns:E-commerce and DTC brands can easily access this automation and easily manage thousands of products. The best part is it automatically runs display ads, remarketing ads, and shopping ads. Conversions data gathered over a 45 day period are implemented to increase based on sales value.

• Dynamic Search Ads: Dynamic search ads is a way to find potential customers searching for your products. They assist you with your SEM efforts by using your website content to target ads and helping you leverage relevant keywords for your target audience. All product data is automatically combined, crafting new search ads founded on data of your product and copy.

Additionally, you can conduct A/B tests with Google Ads. It will be unwise of you to think the automation process alone will boost your campaigns. You will have to conduct A/B tests to confirm whether automation is boosting your campaigns and tweak your process accordingly.

3. Automate bid management.

When you use PPC automation, you will find that the bid management methods differ. Some are slightly more advanced compared to the rest. You can use Google ads automated bid management options for entry-level bid management.

However, it is recommended to begin with manual bidding. Start with a low CPC bid. As you produce more data, you can slowly increase the bid.

When you feel you have reached your optimal CPC, you can use the Google Ads Experiments feature to compare the results of automated bidding vs. manual bidding:

Here are the three bidding strategies you will find within Google Ads to increase conversion:

• Target CPA Bidding: Here, you can set bids to gather substantial conversions. It is done at a set target cost per acquisition (CPA).

• Target ROAS: You can increase conversion or revenue founded on a target return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).

• Enhanced CPC: You can find ad auctions that have more chances to convert. It then automatically increases your max CPC bid.

If this seems like an intimidating task to you, luckily, you can take assistance from an SEO strategist on the internet these days.

4. Layering auto bidding using relevant scripts.

Scripts, together with auto-bidding tactics, can help you to automate bid management. You can take into consideration data specific to clients like product-level profit margin. If you are using Google ads, you can determine how profitable the products are by using the custom labels feature within the Google Shopping data feed.

Furthermore, automation can help you increase or decrease the bids hourly to align with the cost-effectiveness of a product compared to the cost-effectiveness across all products on average.

5. Automate error checking.

A PPC account manager is responsible for detecting irregularities that may signal performance issues within an account. But it is impossible to manually search through larger accounts fast and fix all issues before they start to cause serious harm to your ad performance.

You can thus use Google scripts like Google’sAccount Anomaly Detector to spot general errors across accounts. Google scripts can automatically scan an account hourly and send you a quick email report. You can also use Google scripts to check for specific glitches within accounts.

6. Automate ad copy.

If you have a large account, creating ad copy will take you a lot of time.

Here are some ways to automate it and save time:

• Use DSA: Using Googledynamic search ads(DSAs), you can automatically target and create ads based on the content of your site. It is a great way to expand accounts. However, note that DSA’s lack the same level of targeting options as keyword-targeted campaigns.

• Use Google Scripts: For larger accounts, you can use Google Scriptsto create ads. Just ensure you have an updated product data feed and full knowledge of Google sheets in order to implement the method successfully.

7. Automate PPC reporting.

You will find different free options to automate PPC reports. Google sheetsis an excellent choice if you want to customize your report. You can customize it via a Google Analytics add-on.

The Google Analytics add-on for sheets will allow you to draw in selected metrics and dimensions. You can then customize data visualization via Google sheets charting functionality.

Other ways to automate your PPC reporting for free include:

• Using Google Analytics to set up and automatecustom reports.
• Setting upof PPC dashboards in Data Studio.

Additionally, most of the businesses these days are using Google’s Data Studio to create multi-page reports and analyze their PPC efforts. Reporting solutions in Data Studio go even beyond dashboards of Google Analytics. You can get advanced reporting options, along with features like live data, interactive controls, table pagination, etc.

8. Collect data and revise.

While you run your PPC automation campaigns, you should also gather data and review it on a regular basis. Only then can you adjust your strategies based on your findings. Don’t simply just set and forget all about your automation. Monitor and update it as required.

Automation tools are great for obtaining actionable data to ease campaign monitoring and analyzing. Also, consider setting up processes built on an effective SEM strategy.

Wrapping-Up

PPC automation comes with plenty of benefits. However, you need to start by setting clear goals and choosing the right automation tools for it to be effective.Don’t start automating your campaign right away. You need to first set up and run effective ad campaigns manually to get useful data. Try to get results without spending much. Only then can you expect positive results with your Google Ads automation campaign. Google ads will save you time, money, and brainpower while generating new leads, new revenue, and increased ROI for your business.