How to identify untapped opportunities in PPC

You’ve optimized your PPC accounts to run efficiently, generating conversions at a low cost.

However, with additional budget available and a desire from business stakeholders to increase sales, it’s time to shift focus.

While prioritizing efficiency is important, it can sometimes limit your volume of sales and leads.

When tasked with boosting your campaign’s performance, where can you find new opportunities for growth?

This article presents several strategies for identifying untapped opportunities that can help you expand your PPC reach and drive more sales or leads.

Analyze search terms

In paid search campaigns, sometimes the most obvious ideas for expansion come from mining search term reports from existing campaigns. 

For a brief definition, search terms are the actual queries matched to the keywords you’re bidding on. They can often vary greatly, particularly in a world where much of the matching is based on intent more so than the precise keyword.

While loose matching tactics can cause angst for any paid search manager, they also provide an opportunity to identify efficiently converting queries you’re not directly bidding on. 

In addition to adding these search terms as keywords, you can also research related keywords to add. 

If you’re running a Performance Max campaign, check the search terms to find new keywords to use in regular search campaigns.

Dig deeper: What to know about PPC keyword research tools and match types

Test new channels and campaign types

You might be focusing only on search campaigns, reaching people who actively search for your product. However, this means you’re missing potential customers who fit your target profile but aren’t yet aware of your product.

Think about where you’re not running and take a few minutes to browse through targeting options. 

If you offer pool maintenance, use social and display channels to target higher-income homeowners likely to own a pool.

If you’re only running traditional search, use existing data to build targeting for other campaign types. 

Incorporate your top converting search terms and keywords into custom audiences for use in display or Demand Gen in Google. You can then reach people who have shown intent for themes related to those keywords.

Additionally, you can test a Performance Max campaign using those search terms/keywords as initial audience signals. 

Try higher funnel messaging and targeting

If your current campaigns are focused primarily on direct lead or sales generation, you’re likely missing out on reaching people who are in earlier consideration phases for your products or services. 

Say you’re running LinkedIn Ads for a SaaS business selling calendar scheduling software and all your ad CTAs are to schedule a demo. 

Somebody who’s just heard about your product is less likely to be ready to get on a Zoom call with a salesperson. Still, they could be willing to read a blog article about how to manage an executive’s calendar.

You can then retarget blog readers with mid to lower-funnel messaging. Perhaps they are not yet in-market for a demo but are willing to attend a webinar.

In line with the previous section, consider how additional channels can tie into higher-funnel branding efforts. 

If you make bike accessories, perhaps running YouTube ads targeted to cycling-related audiences could help establish familiarity with your brand name, which in turn could support conversion in other channels.

Dig deeper: How to use always-on marketing in paid search

Look at competitor tactics

Take some time to review what your competitors are running in their online advertising efforts. While you shouldn’t copy everything your competitors do, you can get ideas for offers, messaging and creative from them.

First, review their creative and ad copy. Thankfully, most major ad platforms make finding competitor ads simple. You can search for brands and view active and recent ads with the following ad libraries.

• LinkedIn Ad Library
• Meta Ads Library
• Google Ads Transparency Center
• Microsoft Ad Library
• TikTok Ad Library

For example, if you notice that your competitors include pricing in their ads while yours only say Request a Quote, consider being more transparent about your prices.

Also, you might have overlooked a channel, assuming your target audience isn’t active there. Perhaps you’ve excluded Instagram from social advertising for B2B software, but you see competing brands running Stories ads highlighting their products. This could be a sign that the channel is worth testing for your brand.

Running a competitor’s website through a keyword tool, like Google Keyword Planner, can reveal relevant keywords they use that relate to your products. You can then test these keywords in your campaigns.

Dig deeper: How to do PPC competitor analysis

Review what you’ve turned off

Look at campaigns, ad groups and keywords that you’ve paused in the past. 

Perhaps you were experiencing budget cuts and needed to pare down campaigns, or there was an intense focus on ROI that caused you to be aggressive in pausing keywords with high CPAs.

If you have some budget available, consider selectively re-enabling past low performers to see if you can achieve better results now.

You may have updated your offers and landing pages or user intent might have shifted due to external factors.

That said, you should review ad copy, URLs and other elements before blindly relaunching a campaign or ad group that’s been paused.

Monitor closely after getting back off the ground and watch the quality of leads that are coming through.

Tweak your bid strategies

While ad platforms have enhanced automated bid strategies, they can sometimes restrict performance. 

For example, if a campaign is struggling to gain traction, a tightly capped Target CPA bid may limit its reach.

To improve results, consider loosening the caps on your current bid strategies, such as Target CPA or Target ROAS or test a new approach.

If your campaigns are significantly constrained by these strategies, it may be worthwhile to cautiously try a Maximize Clicks strategy.

Use Google Ads experiments to split test a new bid strategy against your original campaign and after a period of significance, you can decide whether or not to continue with the new strategy.

Start finding opportunities

Now, that you’ve read these ideas, consider how you can research and test new strategies in your accounts.

Whether you explore different channels, try new campaign types, analyze competitor tactics or experiment with alternative bid strategies, start implementing fresh tactics and measure their impact on your bottom line.