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Coming in at over 300 pages in length and almost 120,000 words long, Econsultancy's newly-updated Paid Search Marketing (PPC) Best Practice Guide covers everything you need to know about paid search advertising.

The guide will help beginners and experts to plan, create, launch and optimise paid search campaigns and maximise their return on investment.

It has been thoroughly updated to include best practice around mobile paid search, integrating paid search with other channels (including offline), and takes into account Google's new Enhanced Campaigns function. 

Built on the foundations of our previous report, this document has been created and updated using insight, tips, strategies and tactics from those working every day in the paid search field and generating profits for their clients.

This guide contains actionable, real-world insight with detailed explanations to help you start and improve your performance within paid search.

Topics covered

Sections covered include:

The guide is also available as individual reports covering each of the above separate areas of paid search, enabling you to quickly access the information you need to start improving your marketing efforts.

Contributing authors

This guide has been put together and updated by James Gurd, an experienced digital marketing consultant and owner of Digital Juggler, with the assistance of leading agencies and practitioners working at the coal face of paid search. They have kindly contributed their time and effort in producing this guide.

They include:

  • Chris Camacho, Head of Paid Search, SMG Search
  • Peter Whitmarsh, Head of PPC, Search Laboratory
  • Net Media Planet
  • Matt Whelan, Head of Search, The Digital House
  • Sandra D’Onofrio, Head of PPC, LBi
  • Mike Fantis, Head of Paid Search, Make It Rain
  • Jonathan Beeston, Director, New Product Innovation, Adobe
  • Tom Lewis, Head of Professional Services, DC Storm

Table of contents

  1. Introduction
    1. Features of this guide
    2. About Econsultancy
    3. About the contributors
  2. Paid Search Basics
    1. What is paid search marketing?
    2. Market context for paid search
    3. Recent developments in paid search
      1. Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance
      2. Enhancements to Universal Search
      3. Google encrypted search
      4. Google Knowledge Graph
      5. Google Shopping moves to a paid search model
      6. Changes to Google AdWords
      7. Google launches Enhanced Campaigns
    4. Key terminology
      1. SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
      2. SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages)
      3. PPC (Pay Per Click)
      4. Google Quality Score
      5. CPC (Cost Per Click)
      6. CTR (Click-through Rate)
      7. ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
      8. ROI (Return On Investment)
      9. Landing page
      10. Sitelinks
    5. The 95 characters that changed advertising history
    6. Why detail matters in paid search
    7. Identifying search volumes
    8. Opportunities and challenges
      1. So what’s the big challenge?
      2. Increasing competition
      3. Balancing SEO and paid search
      4. The relationship between brand and generic keywords
      5. Making the most of content networks
      6. Learning what works
    9. Paid search success factors
      1. Which factors control the success of your paid search campaigns?
    10. Keyword level efficiency controls including cost-per-click and Quality Score
      1. Cost-per-click (CPC)
      2. Quality-based positioning
      3. Keyword matching criteria
      4. Creative
      5. Landing page
      6. Use of content network
      7. Time of day
      8. Position in sponsored listings
    11. Campaign level effectiveness controls
      1. Return on investment goals
      2. Search engine networks used
      3. Keyphrase analysis and targeting
      4. Campaign structure
      5. Budget allocation
      6. Listing position and bidding strategies
      7. Campaign integration strategy
    12. Where do I start?
      1. The natural or organic listings
      2. The paid or sponsored listings
      3. Content network listings
    13. Types of paid search marketing
      1. Content network paid search advertising
      2. Paid for directory inclusion
      3. Pay-per-call
      4. Shopping comparison engines
  3. Planning and Strategy for Paid Search
    1. Defining goals, objectives and KPIs
      1. Goals versus objectives – understanding the difference
      2. Setting SMART Objectives
      3. The value of KPIs for paid search
    2. Budgeting for paid search
      1. Budgeting strategy
      2. Listing position strategy
      3. Positioning strategies
      4. Bidding strategy
      5. Dayparting strategy
    3. Resourcing and agency strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. Do you hire a plumber and a carpenter?
      3. Alternative resources
      4. Software tool selection
      5. Agency fee models
      6. Briefing agencies or internal teams about your paid search requirements
      7. Switching account management between agencies
    4. Paid search ad network strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. Reach of search ad networks
      3. Benefits of using a range of search engine ad networks
      4. Different levels of search networks
      5. International search engine networks
      6. Content network strategy
      7. Social networks with Pay Per Click options
  4. Setting up Paid Search
    1. Account and keyphrase creation
      1. Account set-up considerations
      2. What is keyphrase analysis and why is it important?
      3. The relationship between keywords
      4. Five stage approach to keyphrase research
      5. Guidance on using match types in keyword selection
      6. Expanding your keyphrase list
      7. Creating a keyphrase repository
      8. Understanding search behaviour
      9. Grouping and categorising keyphrases
      10. Keyphrase variants
      11. Keyphrase analysis tools
      12. Considerations for enhanced campaigns
    2. Campaign structure for paid search
      1. Introduction
      2. Managing campaign structure in Google AdWords
      3. Defining campaign structures
      4. Options for structuring ad campaigns
      5. Structuring by audience type or segment
      6. Structuring by buying behaviour
      7. Managing international campaign structures
      8. Targeting through local mapping facilities
      9. Structuring by performance
      10. Duplicate keywords in different ad groups
    3. Local paid search marketing and geo-targeting
      1. The evolution of local search
      2. Targeting local audiences through Google and Bing
      3. Local ad extensions
      4. Targeting through directories
      5. Local paid search resources and tools
    4. Ad creative and copy strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. Searching for your ads
      3. Different ad formats
      4. Basic advice before you start
      5. Writing ad creative
    5. Campaign tracking
      1. Introduction
      2. Effectiveness of ROI tracking
      3. Tracking sophistication
      4. Comparing paid search with other online media
      5. Tracking and reporting granularity
      6. Tracking system options
      7. Tracking methodologies
      8. The importance of cookies in determining results accuracy
      9. A note on web analytics
  5. Paid Search Optimisation
    1. Bid management tool strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. Reducing inefficiencies by using portfolios and rules
      3. Setting performance objectives for bid management tools
      4. Issues with bid management systems
      5. Most popular bid management tools
      6. Paid search bid management systems: requirements and features
      7. Bid management rules and targets
      8. The downside of bid management tools
    2. Ad extensions
      1. Sitelinks
      2. Enhanced sitelinks
      3. Location Extensions
      4. Call extensions
      5. Mobile app extensions
      6. Seller ratings
      7. Social Extensions
      8. Product extensions and product listing ads
      9. Dynamic Search Ads
      10. Extensions on limited release
    3. Testing and optimising creative
      1. Warning – what is the impact of changing ad creative?
      2. Improving ad headline creative
      3. Improving description creative
      4. Mobile Ad Creative
      5. Dynamic ad creative
      6. Improving the display URL
      7. Ad rotation and optimisation
      8. What to optimise against – dependent variable
      9. Structured testing programmes
      10. Testing landing pages
      11. Summary - twenty testing ideas
      12. Examples from a structured testing programme
    4. Destination or landing page strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. What is conversion efficiency? Why it matters
      3. What is a landing page?
      4. Defining landing page objectives
      5. Measuring landing page effectiveness
      6. Different types of landing page
      7. Different referrer types
      8. Selecting the relevant landing pages for paid search
      9. Twelve Landing Page Success Factors
      10. Improving the Quality Score of landing pages
    5. Campaign review and optimisation strategy
      1. Account or campaign performance review process
      2. Ad group and keyword performance review and optimisation
      3. Reporting and visualisation approaches
      4. Auditing current performance
      5. Troubleshooting a campaign
    6. Click fraud strategy
      1. Introduction to click fraud
      2. Know your enemy - how are fake clicks generated?
      3. Preventative measures from the search engines
      4. Identify metrics to audit at ad group and individual keyword level
      5. Consider use of specialist software for tracking these metrics
      6. Audit metric values to create a benchmark
      7. Review current metric values against benchmark values
      8. When benchmark thresholds are exceeded present audited data to search engines
      9. Is it really click fraud?
      10. What to watch out for with click fraud
    7. Paid search and web analytics / reporting
      1. Introduction – why web analytics is essential
      2. What analytics tools are available?
      3. How should web analytics tools be used to measure paid search activity?
      4. Attribution modelling – looking at the wider effect of paid search in assisted conversions
      5. Using analytics tools to evaluate retargeting campaigns
      6. How do businesses report on paid search performance?
      7. Useful resources for paid search web analytics
  6. Mobile Paid Search
    1. Introduction
    2. Growth and trends in mobile usage
    3. Why mobile is important for paid search
    4. An introduction to Enhanced Campaigns – how it will change mobile paid search campaign management
    5. Differences between mobile and desktop paid search
    6. How mobile is influenced by other marketing channels
    7. Mobile paid search good practice approaches
    8. Maximising the ‘local’ opportunity through mobile paid search
    9. Using mobile paid search to drive app downloads
    10. The future for mobile paid search
  7. International and Multilingual Paid Search
    1. Introduction
    2. Global opportunities
    3. Competition overseas
    4. A brief intro to Google’s competition
      1. Bing Ads
      2. Yahoo! Japan
      3. Baidu
      4. Yandex
      5. Naver
      6. Seznam
    5. Managing international search engine marketing
      1. Devices users will be searching on
      2. Payment methods and currencies
      3. Legal and compliance issues
      4. Landing pages and content
      5. Translation / localisation of paid search campaigns
    6. Tools and resources for international paid search marketing
      1. Desktop editing tools
      2. Keyword tools
      3. Ad preview tools
  8. Marketing Campaign Integration Strategy
    1. Integrating paid search with SEO
      1. Advantages and disadvantages of SEO
      2. Advantages and disadvantages of paid search
      3. Developing a search engine marketing strategy
    2. Integrating paid search and display advertising
      1. Why is the relationship between paid search and display important?
      2. Good practice approach to paid search and display advertising integration
      3. How marketers can use Google to create and manage display advertising campaigns
      4. Measuring the effectiveness of paid search and display advertising integration
      5. The future for paid search and display advertising
    3. Affiliate integration strategy
      1. Introduction
      2. Types of affiliate marketing for paid search
      3. Affiliate payment models
      4. Defining an affiliate marketing strategy for paid search
    4. Integration with overall media communications
      1. Plan paid search as a starting point, not an after thought
      2. Always on vs. campaign-based search strategy
      3. Updating always-on paid search strategy to reflect marketing campaign activities
  9. Appendices
    1. Glossary
    2. Paid search digital marketing template files
    3. Briefing / request for proposals template
    4. Useful resources and further reading
      1. Econsultancy resources
  10. Acknowledgements
    1. Lead author
    2. Expert contributors

A free sample of the report is available to those who want to know more.

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