In the world of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the tension between following Google’s best practices and meeting client expectations is a common challenge. On one side, Google advocates for a more automated, broad approach to campaign management, while clients often desire granular control over their campaigns. At Amin Digital, we believe there’s a way to harmonise these conflicting priorities, ensuring that both Google’s optimisation strategies and our clients’ specific needs are addressed effectively.

Google’s Approach: Automation and Broad Strategies

Google’s best practices have increasingly leaned towards automation and broad targeting strategies. The search giant promotes the use of:

1. Full Control and Black Box Marketing: Google encourages advertisers to rely on automated bidding strategies that use machine learning to optimise campaigns for specific outcomes, such as maximising conversions or value. This “black box” approach minimises manual adjustments, relying heavily on Google’s algorithms.

2. Broad Match Keywords: Google recommends using broad match keywords to capture a wide range of search queries. The idea is to reach as many relevant users as possible, letting Google’s algorithms determine which searches are most likely to convert.

3. Optimised Landing Pages: Google also suggests providing broad, high-quality landing pages that cater to a range of keywords, aligning with its broad match strategy to enhance user experience and improve Quality Score.

While these strategies are designed to streamline campaign management and leverage Google’s advanced technology, they often conflict with the preferences of many clients.

Client Expectations: Control and Specificity

Clients, on the other hand, typically want more control over their campaigns. They often prefer:

1. Granular Control: Clients usually desire the ability to fine-tune their campaigns, managing bids, keywords, and targeting parameters to reflect their specific business goals and market conditions.

2. Specific Landing Pages: Rather than broad, catch-all pages, clients often prefer creating tailored landing pages that match closely with particular keywords or ad groups, ensuring a highly relevant user experience.

3. Transparency: Many clients are uncomfortable with the “black box” nature of automated strategies. They want to understand how their campaigns are performing and to have the ability to make adjustments based on real-time data and insights.

This desire for control can sometimes be at odds with Google’s more hands-off, automated approach.

The Balance: A Hybrid PPC Solution

At Amin Digital, we recognise the value in both approaches and have developed a hybrid PPC strategy that strikes the perfect balance:

1. Granular Control with Broad Match as a ‘Catch-All’ Campaign: We prioritise granular control in our PPC campaigns, setting up tightly themed ad groups, exact and phrase match keywords, and highly specific landing pages that align with our clients’ goals. This allows us to tailor campaigns precisely to our clients’ needs.

   However, we also implement a broad match ‘catch-all’ campaign that adheres to Google’s best practices. This campaign runs in parallel with the more controlled campaigns, capturing additional traffic that might be missed by the more specific targeting. By monitoring this campaign closely, we can adjust the strategy to ensure it complements rather than competes with the primary campaigns.

2. Automation with Transparency: While we leverage Google’s automated bidding strategies, we do so with full transparency. We keep our clients informed about how the automation is performing and provide them with detailed reports. This way, they can see the benefits of the automation without feeling out of control.

3. SA 360 Integration for Feed-Based Ads: For clients looking to maximise their PPC performance, we recommend using Search Ads 360 (SA 360). This tool allows us to create feed-based ads, which can be incredibly effective for e-commerce and other businesses with large inventories. By integrating SA 360, we can manage campaigns at scale while maintaining the granularity our clients expect.

The Amin Digital Advantage

At Amin Digital, our approach to PPC is all about balance. We respect Google’s best practices and leverage its powerful tools to optimise campaigns, but we never lose sight of our clients’ need for control, specificity, and transparency. By combining granular management with strategic use of Google’s automation, we deliver PPC solutions that drive results while keeping our clients in the driver’s seat.

If you’re looking for a PPC strategy that balances cutting-edge technology with hands-on control, Amin Digital is here to help. Contact us today to learn how we can tailor a PPC campaign that meets your unique needs.

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