30-Second Summary:
With fierce competition in the SERPs and potentially high costs, having an effective PPC campaign hinges on the right budget. For businesses looking to get as healthy an ROI as possible and achieve their goals, your approach to PPC budget management is crucial.
With 40% of advertisers saying their PPC budget is lower than they would like, proper budget allocation is more than just about setting aside funds for campaigns though. It involves strategically distributing advertising spend across channels, campaigns, and ad groups to ensure every penny works towards specific objectives. Budgeting a PPC campaign well can make or break the success of your marketing efforts, regardless of business size.
Below, we’ll look at some of the key aspects of PPC budgeting you’ll want to focus on, including how to calculate a PPC budget effectively. You’ll need to have a good understanding of your business goals and target audience so that you can carry out effective keyword research and bid strategies, as well as how to set campaign budgets and ad scheduling.
If you want to reach the right audience at the right time and drive measurable results, your budget is the first place to start.
Before allocating your PPC budget, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your business goals and target audience. These will shape your entire PPC strategy and ensure that your ad spend is aligned with the outcome you’re looking for.
You want to define your specific business objectives – are you aiming to generate more leads for your sales team? Drive direct online sales of your products or services? Increase brand awareness and reach? Or a combination of each? Clearly outlining your objectives at the start will help you prioritise your PPC efforts and allocate your budget accordingly.
You then want to identify your target audience – who are the ideal customers you want to attract? What are their demographics, interests, pain points, and behaviours? Developing detailed buyer personas will allow you to create more relevant and compelling ad campaigns that resonate with your audience.
So, if your goal is lead generation for a B2B software company that’s targeting mid-sized businesses, your audience might be decision-makers like IT managers, operations directors, or business owners at companies with 50-500 employees. With this specific audience in mind, you can tailor your ad messaging, targeting, and budget allocation to reach and engage these potential customers effectively.
Understanding your goals and audience is the basis for all other PPC budgeting decisions. It informs your keyword strategy, ad copy, landing page optimisation, and ultimately, how you distribute your budget across different campaigns and ad groups for maximum impact.
By aligning your PPC budget allocation with well-defined goals and a deep understanding of your target audience, you’ll be on the right track.
Thorough keyword research means you can identify the most relevant and high-performing keywords for your business, products, or services. You want to evaluate the competition level and cost-per-click (CPC) for each keyword to prioritise those that align with your budget and goals. Google Keyword Planner and Semrush can provide invaluable insights into search volumes, competition metrics, and suggested bid amounts.
Once you have a list of targeted keywords, you’ll want to decide on your bid strategy. Manual bidding gives you complete control over bids but requires continuous monitoring and adjustments. Automated bidding strategies like target CPA or target ROAS can help optimise your bids for better cost efficiencies. Allocate your budget across different keyword match types (broad, phrase, exact) based on your objectives too – broader matches for awareness, more specific for conversions.
Conducting comprehensive keyword research and developing a solid bid strategy are essential for ensuring your PPC budget is well-spent on the most relevant, high-converting keywords for your business.
After identifying your goals, audience, and keyword strategy, it’s time to determine your overall PPC campaign budget. So, how much should you spend on PPC? Well, you need to consider factors like your marketing objectives, industry competition, business resources, and expected returns. From this overall budget, you’ll want to divide your spend across different campaign types such as search, display, remarketing, or social media ads.
Strategically adjust daily budgets based on peak traffic times and consumer behaviour patterns. For example, if you run an e-commerce store, you may want to increase budgets during evening hours or weekends when online shopping is generally busier. Ad scheduling allows you to control when your ads are displayed for optimal visibility and cost efficiency.
It’s also crucial to monitor your campaign performance regularly and reallocate budgets as needed. High-performing campaigns or ad groups may warrant increased investment, while underperforming ones could have budgets reduced or paused, for example.
Calculating your PPC budget effectively across campaigns and ad scheduling can significantly impact your PPC success, ensuring your ads reach the right audiences at the most opportune times.
Like with any element of your marketing campaigns, continuous testing and optimisation are essential for maximising the impact of your PPC budget. Regularly conduct A/B tests on your ad copy, landing pages, and audience targeting to identify which variations perform best.
Don’t be afraid to reallocate budgets based on performance data. You can shift more spend towards top-performing campaigns, ad groups, or creatives, and scale back on underperforming parts. Staying agile and making data-driven adjustments is key to improving ROI over time.
This approach to testing and optimisation ensures your PPC budget is continually invested in the most effective strategies aligned with your goals.
Many businesses know that effective PPC budget allocation is critical – no one likes to waste money at the end of the day. Maximising the impact of your advertising spend and achieving your goals all comes down to your approach to PPC budget management.
By keeping in mind the above, you can ensure that your investment in PPC is working towards driving measurable results. It’s an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring, analysis, and agility, so if you need any help whatsoever with doing so, don’t hesitate to contact us to speak with our PPC experts here at Absolute.
For more insights, please visit our blog, where you can discover 5 factors that influence your rankings, as well as the importance of white space in your web design.
