PPC Management Workflow Checklist Pt. I

Pay-per-click marketing is an enormous and complex job filled with dozens of tasks. It’s easy to lose track of something, and when you do, disaster can result. That’s why we’re spending the next couple posts going over a few basic PPC management checklists — things that you need to do, and when you need to do them.

Daily PPC Management Tasks

• Open up and take a look at each of your PPC accounts. Take note of anything out of place, and put out any fires you come across immediately.
• Check on your budget for each account, and be aware of how much of it is going out on average each day. If you need to dial your budget down a little in order to make your money last for the rest of the month, don’t hesitate.
• Check on the stats of your PPC-promoted social posts. If a post got promoted, update it. If a post is visibly underperforming, pause that ad. (Obviously, pause posts that are outdated or no longer relevant — being current is the currency of social PPC.)

Weekly PPC Management Tasks

• Update your keyword lists. Use the Search Query Reports function to see which keywords are performing, which are underperforming, and so on. Look at your match types to ensure they’re correct.
• Perform basic keyword research for both positive and negative keywords. If you find anything that looks good on paper, work it in for a test week. Check your last weeks’ test keywords and see if they’re worth keeping.
• Look over any test ads you have up and see how they’re doing. Pause the tests that aren’t working out, develop new tests, and put them up.
• Review your Quality Scores. If you see any keywords at QS 3 or lower, look at them in details to see if their cost-per-conversion is still worth your time. If the CPC is OK, see if there’s any other ways to improve the QS of those ads.
• Look at your overall performance this week compared to last week. Look for trends you can use to predict future movement and take advantage of them.
• If you have ads on the Display Network, go through and exclude any low-performing placements that are serving your ads.
• Break your results up by device, and check to see if you need to add any bid modifiers to more closely match your display rates with the devices that give you the best success.
• Read up on the latest PPC news from a few of the industry big boys.

If you think we’re done, you’re very wrong — come back next time for ongoing lists discussing monthly and quarterly tasks for PPC management experts.