5 Easy Tips for Your Best Ever Local San Diego PPC Campaign

If you are a business targeting the California market, you can convert more leads with local search optimization. But a smart San Diego PPC agency often combines it with paid ads.

It helps raise brand awareness, drive traffic, engage your market, and generate sales while waiting for organic optimization benefits actualize.

But how do you complement local SEO with pay-per-click? This article shares five tips:

1. Choose the right ad group setup.
2. Aim for a high ad quality score (AQS).
3. Maximize ad extensions to provide more information.
4. Complement classic PPC with social media ads.
5. Take advantage of competitors’ branded keywords.

Learn how to execute each local PPC strategy below. Let’s go!

If you want to learn how Digital Authority Partners can increase your PPC effectiveness, watch this video!

1. Choose the Right Ad Group Setup

At first glance, setting up your PPC campaigns seems easy. You research the most popular keywords for your industry, target them with ads, and wait for leads.

In reality, you have several ad-group setups from which to choose. Each has its pros and cons.3

• The classic setup combines up to 20 similar keywords in one ad group. It quickly creates thousands of impressions for a more accurate ad test. However, it sacrifices the control of using smaller ad groups to maximize your budget and bid strategy.
• The single-keyword ad group (SKAG) setup creates a more focused campaign. It keeps your ads relevant to consumers' keywords and boosts conversions. However, managing what could potentially be hundreds of ad groups is difficult. Gathering data on which ads work also takes time because you do not quickly build impressions.
• The single-theme ad group (STAG) works better when you want to match keywords with user intent. You can increase impressions by letting your ads appear on close-variant searches. But unless you set up a negative keyword list properly, you end up with non-converting traffic.

Which PPC ad structure is ideal? It depends on several factors. These include the size of your budget, the relevance of the targeted keywords, and the user experience that you want. Working with an expert San Diego PPC agency can help you decide.

2. Aim for a High Ad Quality Score (AQS)

The ad quality score (AQS) is a metric that helps Google determine how your ad performs. It also impacts your ad rank, which is your ad’s position in the search results.

You can get a score between 1 and 10. And a high score makes your copy poised for high conversions and lower spending. 

But to get a good score, you should meet its three primary criteria:

• Expected click-through rate (CTR)
• Ad relevance
• Landing page quality

With these in mind, your local ad copies can get a higher AQS with these tips:

• Write compelling ad copy. Create short, impactful headlines, focus on the customer’s benefit, and include a unique value proposition.
• Match the ad message with its landing page. For instance, if your ad is about “San Diego web design services,” the landing page should contain information about San Diego web designs, not mobile app development. 
• Optimize your landing page design for mobile devices and tablets. Google looks for mobile-friendly pages to give you a higher AQS. Make sure your page loads quickly and is easy to navigate.
• Test ad variations. Besides doing A/B tests on your copies, take advantage of dynamic ads. One PPC trend for San Diego businesses is artificial intelligence, which creates more advertisements based on what you already have.

3. Maximize Asset Extensions for More Information

Although you can add asset extensions, they appear only when you have a high AQS and a good ad rank. The great news is that you can maximize more traffic and conversion opportunities once you can trigger them.

These extensions give you more space for additional information about your local pages or services. These include:

• Calls that let you add your phone number.
• Site links that point toward different locations you serve.
• Structured snippets that highlight specific products and services.
• Price or special offers that can entice visitors to click and convert.
• Callouts that emphasize unique selling points or benefits.
• Location extensions that appear on the map on mobile devices.

4. Complement Classic PPC with Social Media Ads

PPC, no doubt, brings in the majority of leads and conversions. But it is best to complement your campaign with social media.

One of the benefits of social media ads is that they create a longer-term online presence that attracts more customers. Besides exposing your business to new leads, it allows you to retarget those who have already interacted with you or visited your website.

These social media channels, which are available for free, also offer various features for your San Diego PPC campaigns. For example:

• Facebook lets you run event-response ads. You can use them to promote local events, such as grand openings or community events.
• With Instagram, you can launch visual or video ads that work on reels, stories, and feeds.
• LinkedIn has sponsored InMail, where you can deliver personalized messages to your target users. This feature is ideal for B2B PPC campaigns.
• You can run geofilters in Snapchat Ads and attract a younger crowd, from Millennials to Alphas.

5. Take Advantage of Competitors’ Branded Keywords

One common local PPC campaign mistake is avoiding bidding on competitors’ branded keywords. The logic is understandable. Why would you spend money to promote your rivals?

But unless you have a significant ad budget, it is hard to compete with established names. Take, for example, a modest coffee shop trying to beat Starbucks in PPC.

Instead of trying to outbid them, you can add their branded keywords to your ad groups. This way, your advertisement appears if someone searches for Starbucks in San Diego.

And while it is a long shot, with a high AQS and regular ad tests, you can even beat them in the auction. But more importantly, you can leverage their brand name to promote your business.

We Can Help With Your Next San Diego PPC Campaign

Local SEO and PPC can work together to drive organic and paid traffic to your website. Still, you need to know how to get the most out of them. These five tips can help you yield more leads, conversions, and sales.

To effectively manage your ad campaigns, though, hire a reliable San Diego PPC agency that can do the job for you. Digital Authority Partners (DAP) knows how to optimize your campaigns, reduce click costs, and improve conversions from day one. Contact us today for inquiries or to schedule a free consultation.