8 Free PPC tools to manage and optimise your campaigns
There are a whole host of PPC software and management tools you can use to monitor your performance, enhance your ads and generally improve your ad campaign in order to boost your visibility. However, although by its very nature PPC does require some form of monetary investment from you, that doesn’t mean you should be paying through the roof for useful tools as well.
Read on to find out how you can advance your PPC strategy and maximise your budget without breaking the bank.
1.
As the powerhouse of the advertising industry – and let’s face it, of internet search engines all together – Google Ads Editor is a great tool to start with if you’re looking to improve your PPC by optimising your ads.
This tool enables you to make quick and easy edits to your already existing ads without having to delve into the full Google Ads user interface. As we’re seeing an increase in the use of mobile devices to browse the web and carry out searches, we think it makes sense to be able to edit what your leads are seeing from your mobile as well.
2. Wordstream by LocaliQ Free Google Ads Performance Grader
Before we look further afield than Google then, we may as well talk about the free Google Ads Performance Grader. In order to ensure optimum ad performance, it’s important that you’re carrying out frequent monitoring of your campaigns. With this PPC tool, that’s never been easier.
Gone are the days of wasted spend and poor optimisation resulting in low conversion rates and minimum ROI. Using PPC metrics, such as account activity, wasted spend, compression share and mobile optimisation, this tool grades your performance and produces a report so that you can evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and improve your overall PPC.
3.
Throwing in one last Google tool for good measure, Google Trends helps you understand the current state of the search engine results pages by identifying search trends and configuring how they vary across different regions and platforms.
Using this tool you can use search data to make comparing terms much easier to better understand how much search volume your keywords have been getting within your targeted locations.
Head of PPC Cal says:
“We regularly use Google trends to assess demand and to anticipate key moments through clients seasonality curvers, its important to assess overall market demand month to month, as its impossible to be constantly improving every single month back to back. Google trends allows us to plan for key windows for larger investments, and potential market lulls to anticpate and plan accordingly.”
4.
Another one from Wordstream by LocaliQ, their Free Keyword Tool is great for identifying profitable keywords before you even think about analysing comparative search volume. This tool allows you to manually search keywords. Once you’ve carried out your search, you can use the data from relevant keyword suggestions and estimated search volume and competition as the basis for your keyword research.
5. Keyword Tool.io
Keyword Tool.io is another excellent tool for identifying new keywords, especially if you’re searching for long–tail keywords for a more specific target audience who are further along in the buying process.
Unsurprisingly, (when we say Google is the cornerstone we mean it) this tool makes use of the Google feature Google Autocomplete to generate hundreds of relevant long-tail keywords for any topic.
6. Oracle Moat
An important part of developing your own PPC campaign is to understand how well your competitors are performing in terms of their ad campaigns. That’s where Oracle Moat comes in. This tool allows you to gain insight into the display ads of other businesses, whether to draw inspiration for your own campaigns, or to work out what’s going wrong and what you should avoid.
Oracle Moat also allows you to verify your own ads to ensure that they’re seen as you intended them to be, and that they’re seen by real people rather than by robots. Through mobile, digital and CTV verification you can also identify high-performing channels which help you to optimise your spend.
7. Facebook Text Overlay Tool
As paid social is becoming an increasingly popular element of paid advertising, it seems only right to include a social media PPC tool in our list. If you have a Facebook business account, this tool can streamline your client communications and improve the chances of your ads achieving a higher volume of impressions.
By uploading your ad images to this tool, you can ensure that they don’t contain more than 20% of text, meaning that they’re far more likely to do well as per Facebook advertising preferences.
8.
And lastly, ending with a splash (of colour), Canva is a free online graphic design tool. While you might not automatically associate Canva with PPC or marketing, it’s incredibly useful for creating captivating ads, especially on social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
Within this online design suite there are a range of free templates you can use as a base for your ads, as well as a range of options for fonts and colour schemes to create content that perfectly reflects your brand. Although there is a free platform that you can use very effectively, there is an option to splash out for more features if you wish.
Don’t leave it TOOL-ate
As the world of digital marketing continues to rapidly evolve, PPC tools are becoming an essential means of keeping up and staying relevant when it comes to your own ad campaigns.
Through the use of algorithms to process data much faster, PPC tools allow you to automate other time-consuming tasks in order to see the highest ROAS from your campaigns.
