There are many kinds of software out there that allow people to manage their PPC campaigns. From Searchforce - which builds and manages advertising campaigns to Opteo - which offers improvement suggestions based on monitoring an existing AdWords account, there are pretty well as many ways to manage your Pay Per Click advertising as there are keywords on which to bid!
PPC can be bewildering - it has its own vocabulary, isn’t particularly good at customer-facing communication and moves faster than human thought. Like the stock market and the Internet of Things, it’s both mysterious and unavoidable - if you want to be in business online, you need to have a good handle on PPC. That’s why many small and medium sized enterprizes choose to make the leap to PPC management software.
So what is popular and why, and is PPC management software all you really need to make a success of your PPC campaign? We’ve created a roundup of some of the more popular stoneware tools and looked at their advantages and disadvantages to help you establish what you’re e-commerce venture will need to be an ongoing success.
Searchforce
Used by both agencies and businesses, SearchForce claims that it can allow you to mange your PPC campaigns ‘with just a few clicks’. Like all the tools we’ve examined, it’s a paid for service. It is an ad management system that works across multiple platforms. It says bids can be optimised based on seasonality and device to offer a fully customized appraoch, but it’s also based on an auto campaign designer that will inevitably limit customization. What’s popular with this software is the capacity to report on and change searches on each of the major engines simultaneously.
While customers value Searchforce for its customer service options, they also report that the system doesn’t always get numbers right - a major problem if you’re relying on their supposedly ‘robust analytics’ to define your bid strategy.
Wordstream Advisor
Another PPC tool that has a high popularity rating is Wordstream, specifically the Advisor level system which is popular with those who have multiple and omni-channel marketing online. Wordstream’s toolkit gives its customers the opportunity to create, measure and then optimise their PPC searches as well as social media campaigns and it operates across Google AdWords, Bing and Facebook from a single screen. Once again, Wordstream Advisor’s helpful customer service team give them a high ranking with users.
On the minus side, a lack of functionality is commented on by several users with the social media interface being considered clunky. For business to business users there are small but invaluable niche markets like LinkedIn that don’t fit into the Wordstream package. Even more annoying for those who’ve made an investment in this system is the inflexible report window structure which doesn’t allow you to edit the time frame in which you receive reports. Finally, the landing page tools only allow users to edit pages within a registration form structure which again limits the flexibility of the system.
Opteo
A quite different approach is taken by Opteo - a purely AdWords management tool. It’s a system which requires you to have an established AdWords account and a reasonable degree of data for that account, after which it will offer improvement ideas based on a continual monitoring of the account. New recommendations are offered in effectiveness order and can be actioned with a single click. Opteo also provides an advert tool where users can draft an advert for their own use or drop in a competitors advertisement and interrogate the copy for negative keywords as well as for new keywords.
While the interface is seen as user-friendly, users also report that it’s not easy to use on mobile devices which can be a substantial limiter for executives on the move. Another problem that’s commented on by more than one customer is the lack of exportable reports - a major glitch if you want to share information with a management team.
Optmyzr
Optmyzr claims to be able to help businesses manage their PPC campaigns effectively - we’ll come back to that in the pros and cons. Essentially it’s a software program based around a single, central tool, called One Click Optimization, which automates the process of optimizing ads. The great advantage here is that by removing the time-consuming process of ad optimization, Optmyzr gives account holders more scope to spend their time advantageously, engaging in the many other areas of online commerce that bring business benefits. Another nice feature is the ability to keep records of quality scores at various levels from campaign right down to keywords.
So what’s the downside? There are a couple of things that need to be borne in mind. First the system requires a certain level of data to be worthwhile - probably around 1000 ads or keywords, which means it’s not particularly useful either for startups or for niche organizations. Second, customers often comment on the unwieldiness of the report tool which can be not only difficult to interpret but also lacks the kind of customization tools that accounts of 1,000 ads and up would be expecting and indeed, needing. Finally, while the software claims to work across platforms, the functionality is nowhere near as sophisticated for Bing as it is for AdWords, for example, so while it’s a good solution, it doesn’t cover all the parameters for an online business that wants to have total mastery of a range of channels.
Clicksweeper
ClickSweeper is popular piece of the PPC marketing puzzle for many organizations. Used by both businesses and advertising agencies servicing clients, its unique selling point is its focus on getting the greater Return on Investment (ROI) from campaigns. Based on an algorithm that automates the bid process based on the goal defined by the user, it can help deal with issues like bring down cost per lead expenditure. This ‘smart bidding’ feature defines a bid strategy according to the agreed goals with can be ROI, rank or even conversions.
Again, while software like Clickspeer could seem to be all that you need to successfully navigate the world of PPC, the advertising claims are only half the story. The other half is the user experience. Having an automated bid strategy only works if a business is in a position to clearly define goals and be confident they are the right ones - which is where this kind of system begins to fall down, because there’s no expert input at the highest level to help an organization look at the entire field of online commerce, deal with current challenges and predict future trends. That kind of service only come from engagement with skilled professionals whose entire work life is spent watching the PPC industry and engaging with its subtleties. The biggest downside to ClickSweeper is its lack of integration of social media; few e-commerce ventures can afford to ignore the social channels and software that doesn’t factor Facebook, for example, is more likely to inhibit business growth than to encourage it. Others complain about the old fashioned interface which can not only feel unintuitive to use but can actually slow down the very processes it’s meant to speed up.
PPC Management Software, dedicated PPC Management Agency, both?
In summary, all and any of these tools can help you ensure you PPC campaigns are improving, but none of them are sufficient in themselves to give you total mastery of the PPC landscape. Some tasks, like bidding, are much better performed by software whilst others, like copy for landing pages, really require the input of creative minds that understand the PPC arena and grasp the nature and ambitions of your business.
Every piece of software has its limitations - every human mind does too. We’re not claiming that there’s one ‘perfect’ way to manage PPC, simply that while automation is essential for business growth in this area, human inside is also vital to make the creative leaps that software simply can’t devise.
So what’s the ideal solution?
We believe that in a business area of such sophistication and rapid growth, the answer is always going to be to hybridize the best of the potential solutions to provide a potent and personalized approach that puts your business center-stage. And by that we mean a blend of highly-developed PPC Management Software and dedicated agency support is most likely to provide the optimum route to business success online.