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Here’s something you already know: paid search is a vital component of digital marketing, often taking up a hefty chunk of marketing budgets — sometimes as much as 80-90% of total digital spend.

Now, here’s something you may have overlooked: With competition intensifying and ad costs climbing, it’s crucial for brands to ask: Are your search dollars truly delivering value?

If your answer isn’t a clear yes, it’s time to reassess. As your business grows, sticking with the same strategies without regular performance evaluation won’t cut it anymore. Brands must focus on optimizing spending and reducing waste to ensure every dollar drives meaningful results. Here’s how to avoid wasted spend and maximize paid search impact while scaling your business:

Tackle click fraud head-on

One major hurdle that many brands need to overcome, especially those growing to the enterprise level, is click fraud, which involves the generation of fake clicks by bots or unethical competitors. This can significantly drain your budget without delivering any real value. For example, if your company is spending $100,000 monthly on paid search and experiences a 10-20% waste from click fraud, that translates to a potential loss of up to $20,000 — funds that could be better invested in attracting genuine results. By implementing click fraud prevention tools, you can unlock meaningful savings and reallocate them to higher-performing campaigns.

Detecting click fraud might seem daunting, but tools like ClickCease and ClickGuard are here to help. These technologies can identify and block suspicious clicks, safeguarding your budget from fraudulent traffic.

Clean up underperforming keywords

Seasonal deep cleaning isn’t just for your home; it’s also the perfect time to assess your keyword performance. The reality is that paid search campaigns often include a mix of high-performing and underperforming keywords, all with the goal of not missing out. Unfortunately, many companies allow low-performing keywords to linger unchecked and unproductive. For instance, an outdoor recreation retailer keeps bidding on a term like “affordable hiking backpacks” because it generates clicks. However, although low-cost hiking backpacks are a product the retailer sells, the term and the clicks fail to convert, resulting in a clear case of wasted spend and opportunity. By regularly analyzing and optimizing your keyword list, you can ensure that resources are funneled toward high-performing terms, significantly boosting your return on investment (ROI).

Connex®, Rise’s cross-channel and real-time media optimization platform, offers tools to streamline this keyword-cleaning process:

  1. Paid Search Keyword View:
    Connex® displays Quality Score alongside key metrics like CTR and CPC, helping to identify when performance issues stem from factors like ad copy rather than bid adjustments, reducing overspending.
  2. Cross-Channel Keyword Insights (CCI):
    Offers keyword performance analysis across channels so that you can shift budgets from underperforming paid search terms to more effective strategies elsewhere.
  3. Automated Keyword Mining and Management:
    Connex mines search terms and can create new keywords for high performers, focusing bids on proven terms instead of general groups.
  4. Connex Alerts:
    Proactively notifies you of low- or high-performing keywords, allowing for timely adjustments to maximize performance.

Enhance user experience with CRO

Reducing wasted spend in paid search goes beyond managing keywords and bids — it’s equally about optimizing what happens post-click. A well-optimized user journey, complete with tailored landing pages and engaging designs, is vital for significantly boosting campaign ROI.

Think about the entire user journey. Every interaction should be connected and engaging from the first click to the final conversion. Creating landing pages that align with the user’s intent and feature clear, compelling calls to action can transform potential leads into conversions. Design these pages with your specific audience in mind, using personalized messaging, relevant images, and intuitive layouts to keep visitors engaged and guide them smoothly toward conversion.

Inform all of those experiences with ongoing conversion rate optimization (CRO) that bases the design on data. Investing in CRO not only reduces bounce rates and increases time on page, but it also maximizes the return on your ad spend by ensuring that more clicks lead to valuable outcomes. Focusing on strategic user experiences strengthens engagement and can double as an investment in customer loyalty, increasing the lifetime value of acquired users.

Maximize your search dollar

Paid search remains a cornerstone of digital marketing, but you can’t just set it and forget it. It needs to be fine-tuned and routinely spruced up for maximum efficiency. By leveraging the right blend of technology, data-driven insights, and a commitment to innovation, companies can ensure that every search dollar delivers optimal value.

Ready to level up your paid search campaigns? Contact us today! We’re here to help you optimize your search spend for greater efficiency and performance, making sure your media investments work and scale smarter, not harder.

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