Knowing how to allocate your search spend is a critical component of maximizing your return on investment (ROI). With numerous keywords, audiences, and assets to consider, navigating your budget can be overwhelming. Use this guide to help you as you create effective paid search campaigns to get the most out of your investment.
Why Allocate Your Search Spend
Search advertising is one of the most competitive, and potentially expensive, digital marketing channels. Without a clear strategy for how to allocate your search spend, it’s easy to waste money on irrelevant clicks, underperforming keywords, or audiences that don’t convert.
Properly allocating your search spend ensures that your budget goes toward the campaigns, audiences, and keywords that deliver the highest return. Instead of spreading your resources too thin or guessing what will work, you’re making data-informed decisions that maximize impact.
When done right, smart budget allocation can lead to:
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Lower cost-per-click (CPC)
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Higher quality leads
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Increased return on ad spend (ROAS)
- More control over campaign performance
Start With Clear Goals
Before you even begin thinking about budget, identify what you want to achieve with your ads. Are you looking to drive traffic to your website? Generate leads? Boost sales? Whatever your goal may be, define it before you get started. This is important to consider because different goals may require more budget.
For instance, awareness campaigns typically include broader targeting. This may require a moderate budget to reach a wide audience. Lead generation campaigns require higher budgets to reach users further down the sales funnel. This could involve higher cost-per-click (CPC) keywords due to higher competition.
Understand Your Audience 
Forming a deep understanding of your target audience can set the foundation of a successful paid search campaign. Knowing who they are, what they need/want, and how they behave, you can assign your budget strategically.
How can you begin to understand your audience? That is where analytics tools come in. There are a variety of platforms, such as Google Analytics, VWO, and CRM systems, that provide valuable information about your audience. These platforms can reveal:
- Traffic Sources – Where are your users coming from?
- Device Type – Are your visitors coming from mobile or desktop devices?
- Geography – What countries, cities, and states are driving traffic and conversions? Are they the ones you want to be reaching?
- Behavior – What does their journey on your website look like? At what point do they drop off?
Prioritize High-Performing Keywords
Including the right keywords ensures that your ads are being shown to the right audience. This may take time and research, but is necessary in order to serve your ads to the most relevant users. Platforms like Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, and Moz Keyword Explorer are excellent tools to utilize for keyword research.
Campaign Segmentation
Dividing your campaigns into focused groups plays a big role in allocating your search spend. This makes it easier to identify high-priority segments against lower ones. It also helps in polishing your messaging and targeting to appeal to the right audience. The goal is to make the campaigns hyper-relevant to the users viewing them. If campaigns are too general, the risk of wasting budget on irrelevant audiences is very high.
To avoid this, break your campaigns up by:
- Product or Service
- Audience Demographics
- Location
Implementing this strategy can lead to higher engagement and improved conversion rates.
Monitor And Adjust
Monitoring your performance will give you insight into which campaigns are resonating best with your audience and where you should allocate your budget. Key metrics like CPC, cost per acquisition (CPA), and conversions are among many that can indicate the strength of your performance.
End Note
Effectively allocating your paid search requires persistent monitoring, testing, and refining. By defining your goals, understanding your audience, prioritizing high-performing keywords, and campaign segmentation, you will be able to maximize your ROI and outperform the competition.
Ready to perfect your paid search strategy? Corkboard Concept’s campaign management team is well-versed in supervising paid search campaigns and can assist you in taking your campaigns to the next level! Contact us today!
