Franchise pay-per-click (PPC) is an essential element of the franchise marketing mix. Paid ads help franchisors in a dual way. Firstly, they can attract quality leads in the form of prospective franchisees. And secondly, they can attract new customers to their current franchise network to ensure that the business thrives.
Having the right franchise PPC strategy in place is therefore a good way of achieving this dual goal. To find out more about why PPC for franchises is important, what makes a franchise PPC strategy different from other businesses or how to approach your strategy, keep reading below.
In this article:
The importance of PPC for franchises
PPC for franchises cannot be overstated because it brings with it a number of important advantages, among which are:
- The ability to run relevant adverts
- It allows for targeted reach
- Increase brand awareness
- Gives you immediate visibility
- Improve conversions
- It’s easy to track
- It is cost-effective
- It’s intuitive and easily manageable
- It offers you a ton of flexibility (budget, audience, geography, pausing a campaign, etc.)
- Enables you to measure your results
- Gives you a competitive advantage
Why PPC is different for franchises
Whether it’s a franchisor-centric or franchisee-centric model, PPC for franchises differs from the standard business. That’s because franchises operate in multiple locations, require brand uniformity, and can have both a national and a local focus at the same time.
Franchisors have a dual role and purpose with their PPC strategy. They’re looking for both prospective franchise partners and they’re looking for new customers. With the former, they will usually run a PPC campaign from their headquarters.
As for the latter, there is a division of roles. This division can be either franchisor-centric where the franchisor creates the ad campaigns for their franchise network. Alternatively, ad campaigns can be managed by the franchisee in a franchisee-centric model.
How to approach PPC marketing for franchises
An effective franchise PPC strategy would not be complete without following the steps outlined below. Each one builds onto the other and once every facet of the PPC campaign is handled, you’ll be ready to launch and monitor the results. Here is a brief overview of how to create your PPC strategy.
1. Keyword research and selection
Much like keywords play an important role in driving organic traffic, they also play a key role in driving traffic from your ad to your landing page. Therefore, choosing the right keywords for inclusion in your advert is the first step in the process.
The goal of PPC keyword research is to find keywords that have high commercial intent and are likely to result in clicks that convert into sales or leads in the short term.
Pay attention to localised keywords relevant to a particular area, because this will show what your target audience is looking for when entering queries online. For example, in the real estate sector, terms such as “Accommodation,” “Apartments,” “Housing,” and “Residences” can differ not only between countries but also among cities. Therefore, geo-targeting plays a crucial role in choosing the right keywords for your PPC campaigns.
In addition, you will want to use brand-specific keywords to ensure that your brand gets the exposure it needs.
Furthermore, negative keywords should not be ignored either because by advertising “women’s shirts” and not excluding “men’s shirts” from your keywords, you will end up attracting the wrong audience, which will affect your bounce rate, the cost-per-click and, ultimately, your budget.
2. Don’t forget to conduct a competitive analysis
Studying what your competitors are doing in the paid advertising step is something that should not be ignored. If you are offering “pizza in London”, for example, you know that you will be competing with at least a hundred other businesses that offer pizza.
Study their keyword usage and current adverts, study their local presence and how they appeal to their consumers — this will enable you to see which keywords are performing well for them and which ones you can use for your business.
3. Segment your audience
Whether you choose to advertise your franchise business on Google, Bing or social media, you also have the option to segment your audience so that your advertising is more relevant to them. You can do so in four main ways:
- Device-based targeting: this is where you select what type of device you want your ad to appear on (mobile, tablet, desktop/laptop).
- Location-based targeting: here, you are targeting users in a specific geographic location. This enables you to regionalise your advertising campaign for a given area.
- Demographic-based targeting: with this targeting method, you are targeting your audience’s demographics through identifiable characteristics, qualities and even socio-economic background. Facebook and Instagram arguably offer some of the most diverse options for targeting demographics using parameters such as age, gender, ethnicity, income, parental status, employment status, etc.
- Time-based targeting: finally, with time-based targeting, you can have your ads appear only during certain times of the day/week. It’s a great strategy that will enable you to make the most out of your advertising budget. It’s also highly effective if your ads are targeting people in different time zones.
4. Write compelling ad copy and create a catchy design
Having your keywords ready and well-researched is one part of the process. Once you’ve got your keywords, they need to be incorporated into your ad copy.
You should write ad copy with your brand values and tone of voice in mind to maintain brand consistency. It is also highly recommended that you perform A/B testing, which essentially means running the same ad with different text or designs to the same audience to see which one performs better.
5. Optimise the landing page
Now that you’ve created your advert, you need to lead your audience to a place where they can find more information or take a certain action. This is where the landing page comes in.
You can lead your audience to a specialised page that’s been developed for this ad campaign specifically, to your website or to another page where you encourage them to take an action.
It’s vital that there is consistency between your ad copy and landing page copy because if there isn’t, your bounce rate and cost-per-click will start rising.
This means that if you’re advertising something at a price of £50 on the ad itself, your landing page should not show that the price is actually £100.
Your landing page should also have clear design elements, be simple and easy to understand and navigate and it should have a call to action button that encourages users to take the action you desire them to make.
6. Set up geo-targeting for desired locations
Franchises operating in different locations will want to set up geo-targeting for these areas. Geo-targeting is selecting a specific location where the ad will appear. An advert for Coventry will not be relevant for someone in Nottingham and that’s why local PPC through geo-targeting is a must.
7. Set the budget
Of course, clicks cost money. And you want your advertising pounds to be used optimally. That’s why you need to set a budget and once you’ve done so, it’s critical that you constantly monitor the performance of your ad and your A/B tests to see where improvements can be made.
Luckily, your budget can be limited to a certain amount per day, week or month so that you don’t overspend what is not within your predefined parameters.
8. Measure your campaign progress
Finally, you need to measure the success of your PPC campaign. This means watching out for key performance indicators (KPIs) and tracking your conversions.
Some of the most important metrics that you should be monitoring include the following:
- Clicks
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Clickthrough rate (CTR)
- Ad spend
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Conversion rate
- Cost per conversion
- Quality score
There’s something important to be said about your ad’s quality score (predominantly called this by Google). This is an important metric to keep an eye on because it will determine the positioning of your ad.
As you already know, different companies bid for the same ad space. The bids include the bid amount, ad quality, landing page quality, historical CTR, time of day, device, extensions and ad formatting, keyword-to-ad relevance, the quality of the landing page and more.
Although these are the general metrics that Google uses, Facebook and Instagram differ slightly in this score, which is given between 1 and 10. The score is basically determined by factors such as ad quality, ad engagement and ad relevance. With regard to each of these factors, they can be categorised as either average, above average, or below average.
Final thoughts
Executing a well-thought out PPC campaign for your franchise requires skill and industry expertise. And that’s exactly where we at Franchise Fame shine.
With our specialist PPC services for franchises and proven track record of success, let us help you and your franchisee network position your business in the best way possible on Google, social media and other prominent platforms.
Simply get in touch with us for an expert opinion and our friendly and helpful team will be more than happy to help.
Google Ads
Google Ads for Franchises – Benefit From Highly Visible Adverts that Convert
