PPC offers great opportunities for businesses of all sizes to reach new customers. However, enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face very different challenges when developing and optimizing campaigns.
Smaller budgets, limited data and an emphasis on quick ROI mean that SMBs cannot simply replicate the strategies of big brands. Instead, they need a personalized approach to make every dollar count.
This article outlines the key differences between businesses and SMBs when it comes to PPC and specific optimization tactics to maximize ad spend.
Companies vs. SMEs: Differences in PPC strategy
budget
One of the biggest differences between SMEs and larger organizations is the amount of money/budget available.
Smaller businesses might have an ad spend budget of $5,000 per month, while larger businesses in the same space might spend $5,000 per day.
This significantly affects the marketing strategy. To deal with lower budgets, targeting should take a narrower focus to prioritize the most important audiences. Some strategies to strengthen coverage include:
Exact match and phrase keywords
The performance of broad match keywords may have improved in recent years (for some advertisers), but they still tend to struggle in smaller accounts due to limited budgets, data, and the number of searches that they can match
While exact match and phrase keywords are still eligible for similar variant matching, you retain much more control over the queries they match compared to broad match.
Localized geographic orientation
Start by targeting your core service areas or a specific region. You can then test expanding your footprint more intentionally once those campaigns are performing efficiently or if more budget opens up.
For example, you are working with a local ice cream shop that can ship anywhere in the United States. Targeting the entire country would probably eat up the budget without significantly affecting their sales. Instead, I would recommend targeting a 25 mile radius around the store so that they saturate the search engine results page for any ice cream related search in your area. From there, they can expand into neighboring counties and move on to the rest of the state, region, etc.
Local and/or long-tail keywords
Longer, more specific keywords will help eliminate some of the extra noise that comes with query matching. Combine that with exact match or phrase types and tighter geo-targeting, and you’ve got a well-refined audience that maximizes your budget.
For example, targeting “ice cream” is very open and likely to result in wasted spend. Despite this, [ice cream store near me] it makes it much clearer what the user’s intent is and would be very relevant to a local store.
Small and medium-sized B2B companies are another important segment to highlight. These companies often deal with search terms that overlap with a broader, unrelated audience, and can benefit greatly from longer-tail keywords.
For example, an ingredient supplier that wants to sell its products to corporations like Coca-Cola, not to an individual consumer. Targeting something like “bulk sweetener” can drive traffic from people looking to buy for their own kitchen or office. Instead, I’d recommend targeting more specific terms like “wholesale stevia supplier” and “commercial grade sweetener distributors.”
Dig deeper: PPC budgets 2024: How to plan and secure your ideal budget
volume
Another difference is that many SMEs deal with a lower volume than large companies. This can be due to various factors such as lower budgets, smaller service areas, longer sales cycles or offering more niche products/services.
One of the main problems with having low volume is that it makes it harder for automation to work in the account’s favor. At the very least, it will take more time to gather data and learn the systems, but not all companies are willing or able to expect something that will work for them.
For example, a construction company with a limited budget and a long sales cycle gets an average of 5 leads per month from Google Ads campaigns. However, the more data you collect, the faster the ad platform’s algorithm will learn and the better your campaigns will perform. Since this business doesn’t receive a lot of data each month, they may struggle to see results if they start with a Maximize Conversions bid strategy. Another example is Target CPA bidding. Google Ads has historically recommended testing this strategy with a daily budget of 10x your CPA. SMBs with a $50 tCPA likely won’t be able to set up a campaign to spend $500 per day.
Manual bidding strategies are a good starting point to combat lower volume. This allows you to maintain more control as data is collected rather than handing the reins over to companies incentivized to spend your money.
That’s not to say automation can’t help smaller accounts; it’s just important to know what the system needs to succeed. Higher quality data feeds will allow algorithms to learn better, such as offline conversions and CRM imports.
Emphasis on ROI
Finally, SMBs want to get a return on their investment quickly and cannot afford to wait a long time to start seeing leads, sales, etc. As a result, focus first on capturing existing demand.
Search and remarketing will likely be more impactful to begin with, as these users have a much higher conversion intent than those who would be targeted in an upper-funnel awareness campaign.
You also need to ensure that all conversion tracking is reliable and accurate to clearly determine what is and isn’t.
Deeper: Setting PPC Goals: How to Tailor KPIs and Metrics for Each Stage of the Funnel
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PPC Optimization Tactics for SMBs
When dealing with lower budgets and volumes with an emphasis on ROI, I recommend prioritizing refinements before expansion.
We all want to grow and scale our accounts, but first it’s important to make the most of your existing budget. This ensures you reach the most relevant audience possible, setting up any future expansion efforts for success.
Below are optimization tactics focused on refining spend and improving audience/traffic quality:
Review your search terms and location reports regularly
Do this at least once a month to identify and prevent irrelevant traffic. Adding negative keywords is critical to any search campaign, especially for SMBs. If the account runs on the display or video networks, consider excluding mobile apps, kids’ YouTube channels, and other sites/channels/etc.
Avoid unnecessary networks to ensure your ads appear where you want them
For search campaigns, disable the Google Display Network and consider disabling its Google search partners. Although Microsoft Advertising no longer allows advertisers to turn off the Audience Network for search campaigns, you can still exclude websites at the campaign and account level. For social campaigns, consider opting out of platforms’ external networks, such as the LinkedIn Audience Network for LinkedIn campaigns.
Test bid modifications, ad schedules, and exclusions based on performance analytics
For example, you looked at your Google Ads day and device data and found that weekends from 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM and all tablet devices have a CPA at least 5x higher than average of the account From there, you can try a -25% bid change from 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM, a -10% bid change for tablets, and only run campaigns on weekdays. Then you did location and audience analysis and found that college students and current people in Montana never converted. To limit spending in these non-converting segments, you can exclude current college students and try a -50% bid modification in Montana. On LinkedIn, you compared the demographic report to the actual targeting of your campaign and found that 80% of your impressions came from people with a Sales job role (even though that’s outside of your target audience) . You can then exclude the sales function from all campaigns.
Make sure your website is optimized for conversions
Finally, if you’re running campaigns for an SME, the website needs to be ready for traffic. If you’re directing people to a page with minimal information, no conversion tracking, poor speed and/or design, etc., your PPC campaigns won’t be set up for success. The above optimization strategies and tactics will be much less important if your landing pages are not optimized.
Dig deeper: 5 tips for effective PPC bidding on a budget
Making every PPC dollar count for SMBs
Small and medium-sized businesses face different issues compared to businesses that have more than 1,000 employees and significantly larger revenues. PPC is no exception, as many SMBs face the reality of limited budget, less data, and increased pressure to deliver results.
Paid media can also be intimidating for smaller organizations when they see big brands competing in the same space. However, it can quickly become a key component of the marketing mix by implementing tighter targeting, maximizing control over ad spend, implementing robust and accurate conversion tracking, and testing for continuous improvements.
The views expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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