It’s inevitable, there will always be someone out there able to splash more cash than you, that’s just how it is in the world of digital marketing. 

And when you want to drive great results from PPC advertising for your business, having less budget than your competitors can seem like you’re pedalling just as hard but not getting very far at all… 

Well, don’t let your competitors get you down when they start driving your cost per clicks up…  

Learn how to compete with your competitor’s budgets with clever ad strategies in this week’s episode of GIANT Wednesday.

Hi, I’m Beth from Sleeping Giant Media and I’m here today to talk to you about working with smaller budgets than your competitors when it comes to your PPC advertising, and how a little can get you a long way, if you’re clever about it. 

If you like what I have to say in today’s video then make sure to subscribe to our channel where we release digital marketing skills-based videos every week! 

So, you’ve found yourself having to compete with competitors who have a much larger PPC budget. 

You’re starting to feel uneasy at the thought of how much money they are spending compared to you – there’s no way you can even begin to think about beating them and their seemingly bottomless budget?! 

Well, before you start to feel hopeless, relax! And take comfort in the fact that we are here to share with you how to compete with the big dogs who have seemingly invaded when you check your auction insights one morning…

So, without further ado:

Number 1: Stop trying to get your ads to appear above your competitors

Wait a sec, Doesn’t this go against everything we work for?! Actually no… 

This might seem counterintuitive. And it might be super tempting to try and beat them at their own game! 

But – chances are you don’t have concrete proof that your competitors are actually getting any return on investment with those ads. And if you do… how? 

Worst case scenario, they’re totally crushing it. But in the event, they’re not (which is much more likely!) don’t go wasting your budget trying to get your ads to appear higher than theirs. 

Sit under them, just because your ad might be lower than theirs, doesn’t mean that it isn’t the one that catches the user’s eye first – optimise your ad and try to attract the user in a way that screams you’re just as good.

Besides, the better your click-through rate, the better your quality score which can eventually mean a better position than those annoying competitors who are paying more than you…

Budget and what you can afford to pay for your clicks isn’t everything, relevancy and user experience is… and Google will recognise that! 

Number 2: Get more specific with your ad copy

As we all know with marketing, getting specific and appealing to your audience is usually the best step forward. 

 By getting more specific with your ad copy, you give your potential customers greater value.

 Ad copy that is value-driven will always perform better and can help highlight why opting for your business might be better than that other brand who has more generic ads and landing pages.

 Well written ad copy can be the difference between a click for you or a click for a competitor, it’s one of the most important deciding factors in a users click decision. 

 This is your chance to show off a bit, tell them about the great offer you have going at the moment, highlight the fact that your customer service is amazing, let them know about the unique product or service you have! Show your customers what it is about your brand that’s so special with enticing language and strong call to actions. 

Number 3: Focus your ads, target long-tail keywords rather than shorter broad terms

Having a bigger account with a bigger budget typically means a lot more work and time is needed to optimise everything.

The big dogs are likely to have a team looking over huge accounts with tons of keywords, running multiple ads directing to who knows how many landing pages.

As a smaller business, with less budget, you can take the time to target specific keywords and key terms that your bigger competitors might miss because it’s not as obvious or is a little too niche.

In fact, there’s even value in targeting low volume keywords (which we’ve covered in a previous episode of Giant Wednesday) and that might be something that gives you an advantage over competitors.

Number 4: bid on high-volume keywords, but it’s all about the timing

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be bidding on high-volume keywords. 

In fact, high volume keywords can help you build out those super targeted and specific campaigns of yours, they expose those high converting keywords that your competitors might be missing.

But, we all know how quickly that budget can be spent if you’re not hot on it. Which is why you need to be strict on when and how long you bid for. 

 Spend some time analysing the data of your ads account. What time of the day do you see the most success? What are the most engaging days of the week? Google ads have some super clever targeting settings which allow you to adjust bids and ads being served based on different days of the week and even time of day, you’ll get that all-important exposure by just being more clever about how and when your ads serve without running your budget dry.

Being heavy on the negative keywords that are applied to your campaign can help too, cutting out any potential waste of budget on users who aren’t looking for what you offer. It’s super important to keep your account tidy, so do those checks and negative out irrelevant terms. 

Number 5: Don’t forget about your landing pages

It can be so easy to get caught up in getting those clicks and competing against the big boys that you forget about what happens once you DO get in front of the right people.

The user’s journey once they arrive at your site is so important! After all, just because they’ve clicked, doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing that they’re going to convert…

By having the freedom of choosing the landing page especially for your PPC audience, you have the ability to send users to your highest converting landing pages, encouraging them over the conversion finishing line. Having this freedom also allows you to create specific PPC landing pages, if you want. To include some great unique selling points for your business, it gives you the ability to show off a bit, add reviews, testimonials and other engaging content to show the user that you really are the right fit for them.

 Remember, the better your quality score gets over time, the less your overall campaign costs will be which means more budget to spend across other keywords!  

Your landing pages don’t have to be perfect from the get-go. You can experiment with them and run A/B split testing to see which page works best before you adjust your campaign according to your findings. 

In fact, I’ll link in the YouTube description below to an episode on making unbelievable landing pages AND split testing so you can keep on learning today, lucky you! 

And there you have it, five pieces of advice from me to you on how to match up (if not better) than your competitors that may have a larger PPC budget than you. 

Remember – it’s not always about how much budget you have to spend, it’s about how you spend it that matters.

So, hopefully, you’re now ready to go optimise everything you’ve been doing and adapt your PPC strategy to compete successfully. !