/ Sean Connolly

AdWords with Branded Links – 5 Essential Tips to Optimize your PPC Campaigns

AdWords “owns” a large amount of the paid visibility on the web, and it can be tough to decide on the right message for your text ad to get the most out of your PPC investment. A well optimized PPC campaign with AdWords links can be a really effective way to promote your business, but depending on a number of variables it can also come with a significant price tag.

One fast, actionable way to increase spending efficiency is by using branded links – and luckily enough, that’s something we know a thing or two about here at Rebrandly! We gathered together these 5 key tips to help you get the most out of your AdWords campaign, with the benefits of branded links. 

 

#1 – Branded Links Increase Your CTR, Lowering Cost

Image via Landerapp

As Adwords experts will know, Google assigns a ‘Quality Score’ to your keywords and PPC ads. This decides how relevant or useful it is to any potential searcher. If your ad is of a high quality, it will place higher in rankings and lower the amount you have to spend. 

It mostly comes down to the click-through rate – the more people that click your ad, the more Google sees that ad as being relevant to its users. Google obviously favors the ads that will make them the most money – so the more clicks your text ad gets, the more Google likes you!


We carried out experiments to see whether branded links could make a difference when it came to click-through rates, and as it turns out – they do! Branded links could boost your CTR by 39%. This is due to a number of factors – chief among them that your brand on your link increases customer trust, because your brand name is recognizable from the start. 

Moral of the story: the higher your CTR, the higher your quality score – and the less you spend on your PPC campaign. You end up with a far higher return on your investment. It’s a no-brainer! 

 

#2 – Stand Out From The Crowd 

Every day, users are bombarded with similar looking ads across the web – what can you do to be the one that leaves a lasting impression?

Using AdWords with a branded link is one way to differentiate your message.  Take a look at the example below – the link is the important part. It’s green, and it stands out. Instead of being a long, ugly link it’s a short, simple message – the link itself is the call to action.

Why is this important? Because in PPC text ads, efficient use of space is vital. Every word counts – especially the link. This communicates who or what your brand is, while also standing out from the generic-looking links in other text ads. 

Branded links are shortened URLs made up of 3 key sections:

  • A company’s brand name
  • A unique domain extension
  • A custom keyword after the slash

Branded links are built around your brand and feature a powerful message. With the wide variety of TLDs available, you have a wealth of options to convey your brand identity here too, be it quirky, playful, or more formal. 

 

#3 – One Dashboard, Every Platform

From Google Adwords to Facebook, to Twitter or Linkedin, a PPC campaign can stretch across several platforms all at once. This means a lot of switching between various dashboards, layouts and keeping track of your stats through many screens.

Image via OnlineMarketingGuys

However, by using a custom branded link with your PPC campaigns, you can keep the stats on a single dashboard. Simply create your link, and use this across whatever campaign platforms you need (You can also add UTM parameters to your links for data more compatible with Google Analytics.)

Once this is done, you can see all the stats and clicks on this link, across all your campaigns, within the one dashboard – instead of having to check each site (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc) individually.  Having a comprehensive view on one screen saves you time, and as the old saying goes – time is money! 

 

#4 – Change The Destination URL, WITHOUT Losing Stats

Whatever URL you decide to use, once your PPC campaign goes live that’s it –  you will have no chance alter it. This could lead to issues in the future – what if the link was incorrect? What if the landing page needs to change? In any of these cases, you’re going to have to change the link in the text ad itself. 

To edit, you have to create a new version of the ad. This has to be reviewed and then it takes more time to be approved once again and republished. Once this is done your Adwords stats reset to 0, separate from the ad in its previous form. 

Image from Swotdigital

Now does that sound ideal? Of course not! However, combining your AdWords with branded links gives you an alternative: the ability to alter the destination URL at any stage, without changing the short URL itself. This gives you greater control of your link during a PPC campaign while retaining all your stats from beginning to end. 

 

#5 – The ability to route traffic depending on device, location, time and more

With link management, you can control where a visitor is directed to when they click, based on a number of deciding factors. These can include what time of day it is, where the visitor is located, or the device they’re on.

Image via Unsplash

By doing this, we can skip the tedious steps of sending users to a page to select their country or language. This can then lead to an increased conversion rate – people are far more likely to click on something that feels familiar straight away!

 

Conclusion

AdWords campaigns can be a benefit to your brand, with the possibility of reaching a large base – but it’s important to be both smart and efficient with your spending. With branded links, there are significant advantages. Bringing together the benefits of a custom branded URL along with link management can get you the most out of your campaign while getting more value for your money too. 

Rebrandly offers you all the benefits listed above. Have you tried combining your AdWords campaign with branded links? Tell us how it went, or ask our advice for trying it for the first time in the comments below! 

 

Further Reading:


This Article is About:

  • Adwords links
  • PPC campaigns with custom short links
  • How to use branded links with AdWords
  • AdWords with branded links
  • PPC URLs

 

Sean Connolly
Sean works on helping put together the digital & social content for Rebrandly. When not swimming through social media feeds, he can be found creating video content for Rebrandly customers to enjoy.