Your Introductory Guide to PPC for Daycares
Learn how to use PPC for daycares to connect with parents, grow enrollment, and more with this mini-guide. Get our childcare marketing team’s insights now!
- insights from 61,900+ hours of childcare marketing experience
How do people find your daycare? When people look for somewhere to leave their kids during the day, what brings them to you? Well, given that 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, they’re most likely to find you through Google.
That’s only going to happen if you’re successfully marketing through Google, though. In addition to trying to rank in organic results, one of the best Google marketing strategies is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, where you display ads at the top of search results.
But what is PPC for daycares, and how can you put it into action for your business? We’ll answer both of those questions below.
Read on to learn more, and then consider partnering with WebFX — the agency with over 1,100 client testimonials — for our PPC services. Just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online to get started today!
What is PPC for daycares?
PPC is a marketing strategy that involves displaying ads for your daycare at the top of Google search results. These ads are different from the regular search results, as denoted by the “Ad” label in the top corner of each one.
To launch a PPC campaign, you typically want to use Google Ads. Within Google Ads, you can create your ads and optimize them to display for particular searches and audiences.
The idea is to find daycare-related searches and display your ads there for people to find. With an effective campaign, you’ll soon attract clicks from parents looking for a daycare, many of whom will hopefully end up bringing their children to you.
The best part about PPC is that, when done well, it can be incredibly cost-effective. That’s because you only have to pay for ads when they get clicked on, which means you’re not paying for the ones that aren’t attracting any interest.
How does daycare PPC work?
The next question you may have is this: What is the PPC process? What does it look like to launch a PPC campaign for your daycare? How do you go about that?
When you set up PPC for childcare, the first thing you’ll do is create a Google Ads account. That will enable you to get started crafting your first campaign.
Once Google Ads is set up, step one is to start finding some keywords to target. By targeting your ads to specific keywords — that is, search terms — you can ensure that your ads are only showing up for people who have an active interest in daycare.
Once you have a list of keywords to target, the next thing to do is bid on those keywords. That essentially means telling Google how much you’re willing to pay for ad clicks from each keyword. Don’t bid higher than you can afford, but keep in mind that you’re bidding against competitors.
Whenever someone searches for a keyword, Google will display ads from amongst the bidders based on bid amount and quality score (Google’s assessment of a campaign’s quality).
With your bids made, you’ll then create the ads themselves. That means not only developing the blurb that will show up in search results, but also the landing page where it will link.
A PPC landing page should be simple and compelling. Use a clean visual design, and keep text to a minimum. Center the whole page around a single call-to-action (CTA), probably one urging people to sign up their kids for your daycare.
At that point, you can begin launching your ads and driving results. The work doesn’t stop there, however. Once a campaign is up and running, you have to continuously monitor it, so you know what’s working and what isn’t. Adjust and improve as necessary from there!
How can you get the most from your daycare PPC?
Now, you have a basic idea of how to launch a PPC campaign, but there’s a difference between launching a campaign and making it successful. So, how do you make sure your childcare PPC is driving results like it should?
Fortunately, there are several things you can do to optimize the effectiveness of PPC for childcare. Here are four tactics that can help you get better results!
1. Use negative keywords
While bidding on regular keywords tells Google which searches to target, negative keywords tell it which searches not to target.
Imagine that you run a part-time daycare located in Omaha, Nebraska. As you set up your PPC campaign, you bid on the keyword “daycare omaha.” Now imagine that someone searches for “full-time daycare omaha” and your ad appears.
Since you don’t offer full-time daycare, that search is irrelevant to you, so you don’t want your ad showing for it. By adding “full-time” as a negative keyword in Google Ads, you’re telling Google not to show your ads for searches that include that term.
Using negative keywords gives you a way to ensure that your ad traffic stays relevant.
2. Create custom audiences
Another way to improve PPC for childcare is to create custom audiences in Google Ads. Custom audiences enable you to piece together different characteristics that you want Google to target.
You can pick features from among several categories, including:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Occupation
This means you can plug in the characteristics of your ideal target audience and have Google exclusively target that group. For instance, maybe your daycare’s customers are almost exclusively parents in Louisville, Kentucky, between the ages of 20 and 40.
By narrowing your audience, you can increase the relevance of ads you’re showing.
3. Harness RLSA
The goal of PPC for daycares is to get parents to sign their kids up with you, so it makes sense that the best people to target are those who already have an interest in you. After all, they’re the most likely people to be converted by one of your ads.
Enter remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA). With RLSA, you can have Google track traffic to particular pages on your website. Then you can direct ads to the people who visit those pages. Since they’ve already visited your site, that makes them prime candidates for converting.
By singling out people who are already on the road to signing their kids up with you, you can increase the overall effectiveness of your daycare PPC.
4. Use display ads
Not all PPC ads appear at the top of Google search results. While those ads are certainly where most of the focus is, you also have the option of creating display ads — that is, image- and graphics-based ads that appear in the margins of third-party websites.
The advantage of using display ads alongside your search ads is that they can help you reach a wider audience. Not everyone who needs a daycare will necessarily turn to Google. By targeting ads to relevant websites like parenting blogs, you can reach some of those other people.
Let WebFX help you boost your childcare PPC today
Ready to rocket your marketing to new heights with childcare PPC? We can help! At WebFX, we’ve been driving results through digital marketing for over 28 years, so we have all the experience we need to do the same for you.
With our PPC services, you’ll get help optimizing your campaigns using the tips listed above and more. You’ll also receive a dedicated account representative to keep you informed and involved with everything we do for your marketing.
To get started with us, just call 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!
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We Drive Results for Daycares
- 188+ education industry experts
- Renowned for our communication and transparency
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