In our latest post, Castle’s head of E-Commerce, Edward Potter will inform you about what are the key success metrics for PPC.

PPC is such a powerful tool to grow your brand awareness and overall sales. If used and monitored correctly, you can create some special campaigns. In this post, I will shed some light on what are the key success metrics for PPC beginners.

How do you advertise with PPC?

Usually, with PPC, you’re looking for a direct end goal. That end goal is usually having customers ultimately buying something or perhaps leaving their email addresses so they may become a lead in the future, as they have expressed interest in your brand.

But regarding this particular topic of what are the key success metrics for PPC? The narrative will always change depending on your business and the services or products you provide. You are still using PPC, but the change in the narrative comes from your perception of what the customers are now searching for. So instead of running Ads around products, you may instead want to shift your narrative around your overall brand.

For instance, perhaps they have spotted your brand before and they want to know more about you? Maybe they are trying to figure out what makes your brand unique and if your brand is right for them, and ultimately – what does the brand offer?

In order to run a campaign like this, extensive keyword research will be needed so you will need to lookup search terms that people are already looking for about your brand. So for instance, if you were a sock manufacturer – rather than focusing on generic searches like ‘buy white socks’ you would want to shift your campaigns on a more personal and brand-driven level.

Should your brand be called ‘mightysocks.com’ there may be search terms around your brand. These search terms could be ‘what is mighty socks’ or ‘what are the reviews like for mighty socks’. Search terms that are based around either branded search terms or search terms that are focused on your vertical.

A person holding their credit card preparing to purchase a product of interest. This is to demonstrate what are the key success metrics for PPC.

What kind of businesses should be using PPC?

Any kind of business can use PPC. If you are interested in starting a PPC campaign and are unsure as to where to start. The best place is to conduct research towards what search terms people are generating around your niche and brand. Using tools like:

Use these tools to find out what questions or queries people have about your brand and the products or services that you sell. And then as a wider subject, look at what questions people are asking around your vertical.

So it might be what is the best and then whatever your vertical is. I’d suggest looking within your brand and see if there are search terms that are questions people are asking, and then get your campaigns towards them.

A screenshot of the Google AdWords website showing what are the key success metrics for PPC.

What are the key success metrics for PPC?

Regarding what are the key success metrics for PPC, the main metrics to focus on would be:

These are the general metrics you will want to analyse but you may want to look deeper than that, so how long are your visitors spending on your website, what’s the bounce rate percentage like? So, if they leave straight away – you know they’re not very interested.

This may result in you wanting to assess various pages on your website, gaining an understanding as to why they are leaving on that particular page. Maybe the page takes too long to load, or perhaps they have the information they need but are falling short by not filling the contact form at the end.

The main pages we would target would be various product pages, the About Us page and the Contact Us page. If you start with these three recommendations, you will start to see what future customers or clients are interested in with your brand. And that would be the success of the campaign.