Paid Search (PPC) marketing is getting more and more competitive. Opposition for keywords is intense, the user journey is more complex than ever, and the growing influence of AI and data-driven signalling has introduced new layers of nuance for even the most experienced marketers to navigate.

It’s no longer enough to just show up on the search results page. A successful strategy depends on being visible to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. Which is why it is important utilise as many relevant optimisation techniques as possible to help deliver effective results, at cost-effective prices.

At Space & Time, we have been managing successful Paid Search property marketing for years. We’ve ridden the waves in the industry, constantly refining our approach and making the most of the exclusive new features we get our hands on through our Premier Partner status with Google.

We could have listed countless tips in this article (and our team would love to tell you more…), but for now, here are our top 5 PPC tips to help build high-performing campaigns that stand out and deliver real results.

Location, Location, Location …

As the famous saying goes, location is everything when working in property, and your PPC strategy should be no different.

Location-based search terms often make up a large share of terms used when potential buyers are researching properties. Bidding on keywords related to your development’s location, along with surrounding neighbourhoods, ensure you target people who are actively in the market for a new home in that area.

Geo-targeting can also help advertisers focus on serving their ads in the areas where they are most likely to find the right type of customer. Geo-targeting ensures your ads only appear in the locations you choose, be that in specific countries, cities, or even a radius around certain locations.

When using geo-targeting for specific housing development, you would typically target within a radius of that development, in order to get the best and most relevant audience. In this case, you would have a geographical net around the development in which all search queries you are bidding on would be picked up and your ad would be served there. This can enable you to target a customer who is more likely to be engaged with your website as it is relevant to their location.

Invest in Quality (& Relevant) Creative

Once you’ve nailed down the keywords and targeting you want to use, the next point is to create compelling ads.

Use messaging designed to grab attention and drive people through to your webpage, and take the time to adapt your copy to include your search term locations – it is often vital when it comes to making sure your ads are clear and relevant. Users are far more likely to click when they feel the ad speaks directly to them. Always include your locations within headlines and descriptions, and make sure to use the rest of the ad copy to highlight core USPs of the development such as the number of beds, price and offers.

Making the most of sitelinks along with other ad assets such as callouts, snippets, price extensions and location extensions is also recommended. Not only do these let you add more detail, but it’s widely known that including additional ad assets will noticeably increase the size of your ad, as well as improve your click through rates and quality score.

And while your copy will often do a lot of the heavy lifting, the visuals elements matter too. With more and more searches being conducted on mobile devices in a social forward world, it is often just as important to also consider your image and video creatives when building your campaigns. Include high quality images, as well as short, engaging videos in multiple sizes (landscape, portrait & square) to give your visual lead campaign types, like Performance Max, Demand Gen and YouTube, the best chance to reach your target users, and stand out no matter where what device they are searching on.

Get To Know Your Audience

With data signals, smart bidding, and the increased influence of AI optimizations across pretty much all types of PPC campaigns, the power of knowing exactly who you are trying to reach has never been more important. While platforms like Google are getting smarter about how they optimise bidding strategies in real time, the more information you can give to steer things in the right direction, the better the chance your campaigns will drive results you want.

Keep your audience front of mind when considering your keywords, and use audience signals strategically. Include relevant in-market audiences, affinity audiences, custom audiences, and demographic filters when building out your campaigns to help guide who your ads get served to. The more aligned these audience signals are to your target audience, the higher the chance that the right person is viewing your ads.

Once you’ve defined your audience, don’t forget to think about your messaging. If you have meticulously chosen your targeting to align with a particular audience, make sure your ad copy speaks to them too! Think about the language you’re using, your visual creative, calls-to-action, and even the devices your audience may be using.

Exploring the connection between your audience signals and how these people are interacting with your ads can also give you valuable insight into how your campaign is performing. Are particular in-market users converting better than affinity groups? Is there an age range generating a lot of impressions but not clicking through?

Use this information to refine your campaign targeting, expand or limit your audience mix, or even test different creative and messaging. Over time, this approach can help your campaigns to deliver more relevant, and higher quality leads.

Always Be Testing

PPC campaigns aren’t just ‘set-and-forget’. The ways in which people search for information is constantly changing, and how search engines reach these users is changing in step.

To stay ahead, you need to be constantly testing. And while responsive ads do allow for an element of asset combination testing within campaigns, this isn’t enough to ensure your ads are always performing as effectively as possible.

But, what to test? When deciding what elements of a campaign to test, keep your primary goals in mind – what is this campaign aiming to achieve? From there, you can work through testing things such as:

  • Ad Copy – Testing different messaging styles to find what resonates better with your audience.
  • Creative – Testing which styles or formats of images and videos have higher engagement rates on your campaigns.
  • Keywords and Match types – Experimenting with different keyword themes and keyword match types and continually refining your negative keyword lists.
  • Audiences – Testing if different audience signals and targeting has an impact on campaign performance.
  • Bidding Strategies – Testing different bidding strategy approaches such as Target CPA, Maximise Conversions, or Manual CPC to see which delivers the best results for your budget.

By testing consistently, and refining your campaigns based on your learnings, you’ll develop a clear picture of what is working and what isn’t. This approach not only helps improve performance, but helps you adapt to a constantly changing market.

Be Clear About Your Goals … and How You’re Tracking Them

Buying a home is a long, considered process. Unlike more impulsive purchases, property buyers often visit a website multiple times to browse the houses that are available; get more information; enquire about a home or even book a visit to go see things in person.

That’s why an understanding of how your potential customers interact with your ads – and more importantly, what they are doing once they click through to your website – is one of the most valuable resources you can have.  Setting clear and measurable goals for each of your campaigns helps you focus on which of the many metrics really matter.

Make sure you have a robust and effective tracking set up to measure the actions that you deem to be the most valuable – whether it’s brochure downloads, phone calls, or enquire form submissions. The more accurate your tracking is, the easier it is to spot what’s working, and what needs refining.

Ultimately, data drives decisions. High-quality tracking helps you separate valuable leads from low value traffic, and allows you to optimise campaigns based on the things that are actually delivering results, not just what looks good on the surface.

Final Thoughts

PPC campaigns, when implemented with the right strategy, tools and optimisations, can be an incredibly effective way reach property buyers in the moments they are actively searching for their new home. These are just a few tips to get you started on the path to paid search property marketing success.

Want to know more? Reach out to our dedicated PPC Specialists  – we’d be delighted to talk to you!