Buyer intent: The goal or objective of the buyer.

Building your ads around buyer intent is a quick way to elevate your ads from average to astounding. When you're shopping for new shoes, you're not interested in reading some article about the invention and evolution of the sneaker— you're interested in buying some new kicks. 

Building your ads works the same way. Even though both examples might target the same keywords, their intent and approach set them apart. Thankfully, Google is pretty smart about detecting intent, which means the type of lead you generate will match your ad. 

Long-Tail Keywords: Keywords with high search volume but few competitors. 

While it'd be awesome to target sweeping keywords (ex. cars, shoes, grocery store), it's often unrealistic, especially if you're a local business. We have found much more success by targeting long-tail keywords (ex. 2017 Honda Civic, blue and black AJ1s, Leestown Rd. Kroger) that inherently share a lot in common with the buyer's intent. 

By searching for more specific keywords, you’re more likely to show intent. Looking not just for grocery stores but for a specific grocery store on a specific road, our hypothetical person clearly intends to travel to that location. These are the people we want to capture with our ads. 

Quality Score is a measure of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing pages are to a user's search query. It's a tool used by Google to determine who will receive their limited ad space. 

Google uses this data to create the keyword auction system that determines where your ad appears in relation to other advertisers' ads. That means if you have low quality scores, you may see your ad placed lower on page one than someone else with higher scores despite having bid more for their keywords or having a better CTR (click-through rate).

So how do we improve quality score? Three different factors affect quality score: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Factors one and two are directly tied to PPC, while the third factor can have ties to SEO, web design, and behind the scenes web services (wouldn’t you know it, Creekmore offers services to all three 😉).

With as many ads as we all get served a day, it's easy to let them fade and blend into the background. If we're going to stand out, we need to employ engaging ad copy— the easiest way to do so is to talk like a normal person. Corporate jargon is prevalent across many ads, companies, and PR statements when most people want to be talked to like the human that they are.

• Use a conversational tone.
• Write short, catchy, and relevant headlines for the ad group.
• Use sitelink extensions to link out to what you offer in your ad copy. This will make it easier for people to understand what they can get from your business and increase click-through rates on your ads. 

You can also make your ads more relevant by creating ad groups that are related to each other. This will help you to:

• Create a common theme across your ads, which is important for building trust with users.
• Ensure that each keyword has the same purpose, tone, and goal throughout— you’re using a keyword targeting shoes, make sure that the page the consumer lands on is about shoes (not shirts, pants, or super cool designer socks). We want the process to be as easy as possible for any potential customers.

Testing is a critical part of the process of increasing your Google leads. You should be testing different keywords, ad copy, and landing pages to see what will work best for your business. Other options include: 

• Test different bidding strategies
• Test the impact of negative keywords (e.g., "used cars" vs "new cars")
• Test the impact of ad extensions (e.g., callout extensions)

How often should you test? To get meaningful data, you need at least 2-4 weeks, so we’d advise waiting that long between changes; Beyond that, the changes you make can be as aggressive or passive as you desire; the decision should be made based on your industry and the market around you. 

You can't just throw money at ads and expect results to come rolling in. There is a lot of competition out there, so you need to know what you are doing, or else your paid ads will not be effective for your business.

Know what keywords people use when searching for products or services like yours: If someone searches "how do I get rid of bed bugs?" then they probably want information on how they can get rid of bed bugs (and we all know how annoying those little critters can be!). 

The last thing to note is that it's important that you keep track of who else is bidding on similar keywords. A large variable in determining the price of your ads will be how competitive and dense the market around you is. 

If you're looking for a way to increase your Google leads, paid advertising may be the right fit. Still trying to figure out where to start? That's where we come in! Creekmore has a talented PPC team that ensures you're getting the most bang for your buck. Contact our team today and get a free competitor analysis!