Erika is an Internet Marketing Specialist at WebFX. She is passionate about helping clients achieve digital marketing goals through PPC and SEO strategies. When she isn’t crafting winning campaigns or diving deep into analytics, you’ll find her cooking new recipes, crushing her fitness goals or soaking up the sun at the beach.
Are your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns feeling stale and not producing the results you hoped for? This can be a common feeling around PPC advertising, and you are not alone!
With the cost of PPC and the competition on the rise, it can be difficult for businesses to see strong PPC results, especially in competitive industries. That means it’s time to get creative with your PPC strategy, and start using some different PPC targeting strategies!
This blog post explores how you can get creative with your PPC strategy by targeting applications of your product, the problem your product solves, and alternatives to your product.
Expert insights from
Colton W.Lead Consultant at WebFX
“In today’s market, consumers have more choices than ever before which makes it even more important to clearly communicate three things as quickly as possible:
Who you are
What you do or provide
Why they should choose you over the competition.
By focusing targeting and messaging around how your product or service solves their problems, you’ll do a better job than most at connecting with your target audience more effectively. Creativity is key in a saturated market!”
PPC targeting strategy #1: Target applications of your product
A simple yet effective way to drive leads and revenue through PPC is by targeting popular applications and uses of your product. Look beyond what your product is and focus on how your product is used. This strategy can work for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.
How to implement this strategy
To implement this strategy, follow these steps:
Brainstorm all the uses of your product
Research related search terms and target audience behaviors. How would users search for this product and its uses?
Create ad copy that speaks directly to these uses and applications. If there are several applications for a product, you should create an ad group for each one.
Examples of application targeting
Let’s say you are a B2B business selling project management software and potential uses of your product include managing remote teams, tracking development progress, and organizing team tasks. You could create ads for users searching phrases like “team collaboration tools,” “team project tracking,” or “agile project management.”
In your ad copy, you would highlight how your product is used for remote team collaboration and project tracking.
In another example, if you are a B2C brand selling noise-canceling headphones, some uses of your product include wearing the headphones to travel, in an open office, or to sleep.
You can create ads for each of these applications and target phrases like “travel essentials,” “focus in open office,” and “block out snoring.” For these ads, you should highlight how individuals can use your project for traveling, focus and sleep.
PPC targeting strategy #2: Target the problem your product or service solves
Another unique way to drive leads and sales through PPC is by targeting the problem your product or service solves. Every product acts as a solution to some sort of problem or challenge, so why not find these problems and offer your solution? You can use this as a targeting strategy for your paid advertising campaigns.
How to implement this strategy
Implement this strategy by:
Identifying the problems your product solves. What pain point does your business alleviate? Why do people need your product?
Completing research to see how users are looking for solutions.
Creating ad copy that speaks to the pain points that potential customers face and highlight how your solutions will resolve these issues.
Expert insights from
Kayla J.Internet Marketing Specialist at WebFX
“When you want to show users how your product or service solves their problem, I always recommend going straight to the source: Your customers! Try skimming customer reviews or asking your customer-facing teams (like sales teams) for insights into why people ended up purchasing your product. Then, use what you find to create ad copy that resonates.”
Examples of problem/solution targeting
If you are a B2C company offering meal kit delivery services, you could target searches like “save time grocery shopping,” “healthy eating made easy” and “dinner planning stress.” In your ad copy, you could highlight how your meal kits help users achieve their health goals, eliminate grocery shopping, and save time cooking.
For a company selling customer relationship management (CRM) software, potential keyword targets could include “sales team inefficiency” and “lead management problems.” The ad copy could focus on how the CRM helps businesses be more efficient and nurture their leads effectively.
PPC targeting strategy #3: Target alternatives your product can replace
One more way to get creative with your PPC campaigns is by targeting alternative products that your product replaces. This strategy works great for B2B and B2C products that have clear advantages over standard products.
How to implement this strategy
You can implement this strategy by:
Researching your direct competitors and their products.
Researching indirect competitors and their products (is there a different product that does the same thing as yours?)
Identifying the weaknesses of these competing products and identifying the benefits of your product.
Creating ad copy that speaks to the weaknesses of competing products and highlights the unique advantages of your product.
Examples of alternatives targeting
Imagine you offer a social media management platform that can replace virtual assistants, manual posting, and native platform scheduling. Potential keyword targets could include searches like “social media planning template,” “social media assistant” and “social media virtual assistant alternative.”
In the ad copy, you could compare your product to the alternative. For example, you could use “vs.” in the ad copy and highlight how your platform is a better alternative to a template.
If your product is a home workout fitness app that replaces personal trainers and gym memberships, you could target searches like “gym membership alternative,” “personal trainer replacement,” “cheap personal trainer” and “home workout vs. gym.”
Your ad copy could focus on how your app is better than a personal trainer or better than having a gym membership.
Additional tips for success using these PPC targeting strategies
If you’re going to leverage these creative PPC targeting strategies, follow these tips to ensure success:
1. Create custom landing pages for each application, problem or alternative
To ensure success with these strategies, make sure you have custom landing pages in place for each alternative, application, or problem you target.
Creating landing pages dedicated to each facet listed above will help users understand why they need your product, which can lead to more conversions. This will also help boost your Quality Score, allowing your ads to perform better.
Go back to the home workout fitness app example — if you are targeting searches about personal trainers, but do not have anything about personal trainers on your landing page, your ads probably will not perform well.
Instead, a landing page showing how your app is better than a personal trainer can help users convert and delivers the information they wanted in the first place.
2. Audience targeting
As you would with traditional search ads, be sure to take advantage of audience targeting options. You can take this a step further and target different audiences for each application, solution, or alternative you target. This will help your ads show to the right users and improve performance.
For the project management tool example, you may want to target specific job titles, industries, and company sizes. You can layer these audiences to best reach your target audience of the ad group.
3. Continual A/B testing
Be sure to A/B test different components of your copy, landing pages, and targeting so you can determine what works best for your different applications, solutions, and alternatives that you target. You can take your findings from A/B tests and apply them to your other ads (are there certain calls-to action that perform better? What unique selling points perform the best?).
Test out these creative PPC strategies
In an increasingly competitive landscape, it is essential to make your paid ads stand out from your competition. Getting creative with your PPC strategy can help you reach the right audience while lowering your costs and improving your return on ad spend. Test out some of these strategies for your campaigns!
P.S. Need extra help with getting the results you want from your PPC campaigns? Connect with our team to get your free, no-obligation quote to see how our PPC services can help you elevate your revenue!
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Erika is an Internet Marketing Specialist at WebFX. She is passionate about helping clients achieve digital marketing goals through PPC and SEO strategies. When she isn’t crafting winning campaigns or diving deep into analytics, you’ll find her cooking new recipes, crushing her fitness goals or soaking up the sun at the beach.
