What makes Vertical Leap different from other PPC agencies?

This year, Google made it much harder to become a Google Premier Partner, only awarding the badge to the top 3% of agencies. Naturally, we were delighted to qualify as it signifies we are a PPC agency that, in Google’s words “stands out based on their commitment to developing product expertise, building new client relationships and helping their current clients to grow“.

What also sets us apart from other agencies though is the way our PPC team thinks and approaches campaigns. Below, our Head of PPC, James Faulkner, explains why we are so successful at helping companies achieve PPC excellence.

Q1. How do you approach campaigns at a strategic level to ensure long-term success for your clients?

James: First things first, it’s crucial we understand the client’s business needs and align with key objectives. This helps us understand and share opportunities or risks so that we can prioritise our strategy accordingly. Business insights form a large part of our strategies so that we can determine revenue drivers and where ROI is likely to be high. We take time to understand clients’ entire lead-to-sale journey, and lifetime value, and we then try to maximise visibility for the most relevant audiences, where ROI is greatest.

Q2. How do you decide which products are best for a campaign?

James: This differs massively depending on the company, industry, objective etc If we take a Google lead gen campaign as an example, we might do something like:

• Google Search using ‘Maximise Conversions Smart Bidding’ which helps us pinpoint ideal customer audiences whilst aiming to exploit as much volume and as many leads as we can, within specific ideal CPA limits.
• Smart Display campaigns to help potential customers discover the brand whilst they browse online with Google’s Display Network. This is a powerful tool to reach a wider audience for upper and mid funnel activity.
• YouTube TrueView For Action which provides huge levels of visibility amongst audiences in market or who have an affinity with our customer’s products and services. YouTube has become mainstream and benefits a wide range, if not all our clients.

Google Ads works throughout the marketing funnel and we apply multiple threads to our roadmaps, with campaigns and channels collectively supporting the overall objective. Each channel aims to drive different types of engagement or conversion point. Many Google products drive high levels of visibility to ideal target audiences such as YouTube , whereas others are targeting bottom of funnel ROI across Search or with Performance Max.

Q3. How do you use technology to improve campaign performance?

James: Google measurement protocol has helped us import key business data into our campaigns, allowing us to optimise using automated bidding and with great digital maturity with target ‘return on ad spend’ (ROAS).

We also make use of telephone tracking systems so that we can again import key conversion points which give Smart Bidding the signals it needs to expand and increase ROI. These are employed at conversion stages to track revenue from leads allowing us to attribute revenue back to keywords or campaigns.

Other examples include:

• We automate checks and forecasting to maximise efficiency and ensure we’re working on the areas that will make the biggest difference to the account.
• We use bespoke quality score analysis tools to identify the biggest areas for improvement.
• We use Google scripts and automated rules to help with efficiencies.
• For Smart Shopping campaigns we use third party feed optimisation tools to better optimise feeds that aren’t in good condition. This not only improves the feed but also ensures we are working efficiently and following Google’s best practices.
• We create bespoke, automated reports using Google Looker Studio, saving significant amounts of time.
• We use our own intelligent automation software, Apollo Insights, for keyword research and to unearth new opportunities.

Q4. How do you measure success for your clients?

James: As before, this depends on the client’s objective, but if we take the lead gen example above, I’d say cost per lead is important for some fixed value products and services. ROI is increasingly more important to understand converted sale value, so that we can then bid towards lifetime customer value.

We also monitor totals sales and percentage of media spend over all channels so that we can push harder and know that when we increase our media spend, sales see an uplift from all contributing channels, such as direct or brand.

Success metrics will differ for short and long term solutions. Buying cycles for higher value services, such as accountancy software, are typical much longer in duration, involving multiple stakeholders over many months from awareness to consideration and ultimately completed sales. These can be harder to track and therefore success metrics here look very different to short term solutions such a leads for locksmiths.

Need an awesome PPC agency on your side?

Whether you’re new to PPC or need help getting your campaigns back on track, we can help. We have specialists in all areas of Google Ads, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube and many more. Contact us on 02392 830281 or [email protected] or submit your details here and we’ll call you.

In the meantime, here’s what some of our customers say about us 🙂