Guide on How to Create Funnel-Based PPC Account Strategy

A funnel-based strategy is often used in the marketing and sales operations of enterprise companies.

This strategy works with companies that are dealing with thousands of leads at the same time.

The funnel-based approach helps the marketing and sales operations of the company segregate the good and the bad prospects for the business.

The funnel-based strategies can be applied to your PPC account and marketing efforts too.

Companies should invest in AdWords and PPC services today since statistics show that businesses make 2 dollars for spending 1 dollar on average on AdWords.  

Here is a small guide on how to apply this strategy effectively in your PPC marketing operations.

High-Level Funnel Characteristics

The amount of budget that you spend at the high-level funnel is biased towards the marketing. The sales operations do not play a major role here.

• Focusing on Every Lead: You cannot afford to operate selectively at the high-level funnel position.

Instead, you need to focus on generating more and more leads. Focusing on the quality of leads should be at the bottom of your priority list if you have enough budget to spend on PPC.

On the other hand, if you are dealing with a limited budget, you must keep the ROI in factor to capture a major segment of the market.

You need to define your target segment in a generic manner with a minimum number of filters to cast a wide net on the market space.

On average 41% of clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on Google. Therefore, the high-level funnel consists of a lot of leads especially if you are at the top of your game.

• Targeting Generic Keywords: Targeting the generic keywords will help you capture a large market segment.

Use a bunch of short-tail keywords to attract more audience with your PPC ad campaigns. These generic keywords will cost a lot of money.

Also, about 50% of clicks on mobile ads are accidental. Therefore, it is important that you have enough budget set aside for the high-level funnel.

While focusing on the generic keywords you must also not lose sight of the overall conversion ratio.

Note: This is the only stage in the funnel where you need to use the short-tail keywords.

In the next stages, we need to use the long-tail keywords that have more definition inbuilt into the overall structure.  

Mid-Level Funnel Characteristics

The spend on marketing and sales is almost equal in the mid-level funnel. You need to spend enough on both your sales and marketing operations to turn cold contacts into hot leads.

• Local SEO and Non-Branded Search:

The mid-level funnel is the place where you start defining the lead characteristics a little more.

One of the best ways to eliminate a lot of junk leads is to focus on the local SEO characteristics of the campaign.

This process works best for business models that are demographically limited to a specific region for operation. Studies show that 97% of people searching online are looking for a local business.

• Targeting Long-Tail Keywords:

The use of long-tail keywords will add more definition to the campaign and help you look for good prospects.

These keywords help you in segregating the good prospects from bad. They bring the sales-ready leads to your funnel.

The salespeople of your organization must focus on leads that come to your business using these keywords.

Low-Level Funnel Characteristics

The budget now rules in favour of the sales department. More focus and investment are required on the sales side of the operation to increase the conversion ratio of the marketing campaigns.

• Branded Search and Remarketing Campaigns:

The leads in the low-level funnel have an extremely high chance of conversion.

You can add multiple filters to the campaign to segregate the leads further. If you are promoting multiple brands with your business, you can easily segregate the leads on their interest in a particular brand.

You also need to focus on the remarketing campaigns during this funnel stage. Any leads that come to this stage and go cold need to fall back into the funnel for further segregation and nurturing.

The salespeople can treat the leads in this stage of the funnel as ‘hot leads.’

• Email Marketing:

Email is amongst the top 3 sources of influence for purchase-intent. With the marketing campaigns that run throughout the funnel, you acquire more and more information on the purchase-intent of your target customers.

The final stage of email marketing can help you directly close the lead in several cases, especially when the deal size is small.

You must bring your marketing and sales teams on the same page for this funnel to work flawlessly.

Both these teams are often conflicting with each other in large organizations.

To make sure that your PPC campaigns yield high conversions, your marketing and sales teams need to constantly share pertinent information with each other.