Are you getting the enquiries your Google Ads budget deserves?
Investing in PPC can be daunting, especially in the care sector where competition drives up click costs and reduces impression share. However, with the right strategies and management methods, you can maximise your budget and see significant performance improvements. Here are our top tips to help you get your account back on track.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) or paid search is one of the most powerful tools available to marketers. Driving immediate traffic to your website or app, it works in tandem with other long-term marketing strategies like SEO and content marketing.
For care homes and retirement properties, particularly, where we see a highly competitive market within localised areas, having a multi-faceted marketing approach helps you to attract and engage with potential residents and their families who are actively searching for care homes in your area.
Where does paid search fit into your marketing strategy?
Anyone with an ounce of marketing experience will know by now that SEO takes time. It can take anywhere from six months to a year to see meaningful results. That can be a tricky thing to explain to the Board!
When you’re being measured on your website traffic, engagement and MQLs - often on a monthly basis - PPC is your Knight in Shining Ads (particularly Google Ads, having the lion’s share of the search market, although you may also find some value in Bing Ads).
In its most basic terms, you bid on a keyword, a searcher sees your ad on Google, and clicks through to your website. You’re paying for the click, so it’s a fast, effective way of generating traffic. So it’s important to use it wisely to glean all the potential insights to inform the wider marketing strategy, while keeping costs as low as possible.
“PPC campaigns can be one of the most effective ways to drive immediate and measurable results, while your organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) begins to take form. I would go as far as to say PPC is one of the most essential components of any marketing strategy - helping businesses reach new audiences, while reengaging existing ones, quickly and efficiently.”
- Luke Terzino, Digital Marketing Lead, Versantus
If you’re already using Google Ads in your care home marketing - high five to you! If you’re feeling that should be more of a quiet, understated low five, we understand. Unsustainably high click costs, fierce competition in your area, and the constant challenge of generating leads are things that keep marketers up at night.
But take heart. With smarter targeting, efficient budgeting and continuous optimisation of every step - from account structure to ad copy to landing page, paid search can result in a high ROI even in the tough care home sector.
Here are the common mistakes we see when care sector clients first come to us to help them with marketing. It’s not exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start if you want to try and improve performance.
Common PPC mistakes
- Incomplete or broken tracking: Without accurate tracking, it’s impossible to measure your campaign’s return on ad spend (ROAS). Google lets you skip the tracking stage to come back to later, but we recommend you set it up correctly right from the start. It’s the only way you’ll know which campaigns are ultimately driving leads - and it’s needed for any conversion-related bid strategies.
- No focus! Don’t cover too many topics in each ad group. It’s too easy to start your campaigns off this way because you don’t yet know the search volumes of each keyword, or how popular they’ll be. Better to plan this out before you even start, to keep each ad group (and its ad copy) tightly focused on a single topic, such as specific care needs, and target smaller, more precise locations. This ups your ad relevance (in turn, reducing click costs and increasing impression share).
- Ad copy challenges: It can be a tough gig, crafting ad copy that meets Google’s quality score recommendations while staying true to your USPs. Resist the urge to follow suggested headlines or descriptions that don’t align with your brand message. Use all available ad space to highlight your best bits; include ratings, reviews and awards where possible.
- Not optimising your landing pages: Your landing pages should be as focused as your ads. Give each single-topic-ad-group (STAG) its own landing page that aligns with the keywords and ad copy, and includes a clear call to action that is appropriate for this stage of the funnel and the audience. (If you’re looking for extra help with Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) this is something we’re really good at.)
- Cutting budgets before you optimise: This is a very common mistake, and one that marketers often make in response to rising costs from clicks. But before you hit that “change budget” button, take a step back and see if there’s a way to optimise spending first. Setting bid limits for particularly expensive keywords, or adjusting bids according to location or time of day, or device, or improving quality score will help to reduce the spend without limiting your potential visibility across the whole campaign.
- Ignoring insights: So much data! Use the insights from your PPC campaigns to inform other marketing activities such as SEO, social media and what collateral you need to create to convert users. The best PPC campaign is one you won’t need in the future, because it’s done its job and made your other activities more effective.
How Versantus can help
We have a proven track record in the care sector, backed by lovely testimonials from valued clients like Sue, the Marketing Manager for Allegra Care:
“Versantus consistently exceeded my expectations, delivering results that have significantly boosted Allegra’s online presence.”
At Versantus, we’re more than just PPC search and display management (and are happy to be a Google Certified Partner).
We provide a comprehensive suite of digital marketing services including paid social (think Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin ads, for example), SEO, CRO, email marketing, UX design and web development. With extensive experience in these areas we can ensure your PPC campaigns are integrated seamlessly into a wider marketing strategy.
Our values - quality, learning, collaboration and being good - drive us to deliver results that make a real difference for our clients. We prize those long-term partnerships with our clients that mean we review and refine their campaigns. It delivers greater value for them, and gives us immense satisfaction in a job well done.
If you’re stuck in an advertising rut, drop us a line and let’s talk about how we can work together to pull you out of it.