It is no secret that using Google Ads to promote your recruitment services is a great way to find more leads for your business. But did you know that you can spice things up further by creating different kinds of marketing campaigns on this popular PPC platform? 

If you want to change things up a bit to create unique ads that will capture your audience’s attention, here are several Google Ads campaigns that you should give a shot. But inorder to be successful you have to be creative and be very cautious when creating this type of Ads.

1. Brand defence

If you have been using Google Ads to promote your company and build brand awareness, chances are, you’re already ranking well for your own brand name. However, there is another way to attract more traffic and lead to your recruitment site. It can also help you clear any misconceptions about your business. This strategy is called running a brand defence campaign.

Managing a brand defence campaign involves using basic term matches for your company name. This includes misspellings and long-tail variations of your primary keyword, such as “[company name] + staff” and “[company name] + office hours.” 

2. Content amplification

In this campaign type, you need to select an existing piece of content from your website and then try to generate traffic from it. Not only can it help you attract more traffic, but it can also help showcase how you solve the problems of your prospects.

Here’s an example of running a content amplification campaign on Google Ads. Let’s say you have previously written an extensive article about finding jobs in the financial sector. Using this marketing platform, you can build a campaign around your piece using the keywords “finance jobs tips or “finance jobs information.”

To make your campaign more successful, consider Using Google Analytics to determine how job seekers and employers are finding you. Then, identify what’s working and use it to supplement your campaign. You can also add pop-ups or in-line calls to action to the content to facilitate more conversions. 

3. Event surfing

Event surfing is one of the most effective Google Ads campaigns. It allows you to capitalise on popular events, such as the Premier League Final, the Notting Hill Carnival, or Bonfire Night, to drive more traffic and leads to your recruitment site. As the name implies, you create ads that are semi-relevant to such events to improve your quality score.

To determine when you can expect an increase in searches about specific events, you can do a bit of research with Google Trends. Then, come up with a campaign accordingly. A quick warning, though. Make sure to set an end date for your event-related ads to avoid unnecessary expenses. 

4. Pop culture

It is no secret that celebrities and pop culture references get more online searches than worthwhile causes or important milestones. For instance, in 2019, Google’s “A Year in Search” report revealed that Caitlyn Jenner was the most searched person in the UK. James Charles and Prince Andrew followed in second and third places, respectively.

Fortunately, you can ride the wave these famous celebrities or pop culture phenomenons are creating to promote your recruitment services. You can start by finding pop culture references that might be relevant to your business and building a campaign from there. For instance, let’s say there’s a character in an ongoing TV series who is struggling with job hunting. You can use that character to build brand awareness and introduce the services your agency is offering.

However, keep in mind that such campaigns can quickly sap your budget. While they are great for creating awareness, they do not always provide many conversions. As such, make sure to be careful and do your research well before launching pop culture campaigns. 

5. Regional

If you serve clients across the UK and not just a single area or city, you should consider creating regional or local Google Ads campaigns. Not only will this make your ads more accurate and relevant, but it will also make it easier for you to fulfill the needs of employers who are looking to fill job placements in specific locations.

When running a local campaign, use geo-targeting and incorporate regional or local keywords into your ads. It also helps to create web content, especially landing pages, tailored for regional audiences. 

6. Seasonal

Because different seasons elicit different feelings, such as being cosy during winter or wanting to go on an adventure in the summer, you should also tailor your recruitment ads to match the time of the year. Similar to event surfing ads, seasonal campaigns can help you stand out and stay relevant.

Create messages that reference holidays and the changing of the seasons. However, as with your event surfing campaigns, make sure to set an end date for your seasonal ads. This will ensure that you’re not bidding on Christmas-related keywords in February. 

Take Advantage of the Power of Google Ads

Google Ads is a powerful medium for establishing an online presence and building brand awareness. It can provide you with an effective and inexpensive avenue for encouraging candidates and employers to enlist your services. As such, if you want your recruitment company to stand out and obtain more leads to potential clients, consider creating campaigns similar to the ones discussed above.

At Recruitment Traffic, we have worked with dozens of recruitment firms to help them take advantage of the opportunities Google can offer. If you need expert assistance when creating and managing a Google Ads campaign, we are certainly up to the task. Get in touch with us today, and we’ll create a bespoke plan for you.

These days, many recruitment agencies utilise pay-per-click or PPC ads to advertise job openings or even gain the attention of potential clients. This isn’t surprising considering that PPC advertising provides an inexpensive and efficient way to target the people you want to reach. What’s more, it levels the playing field for smaller recruitment companies, allowing them to compete against more prominent firms with a more significant marketing budget.

However, just because this marketing strategy is useful, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are guaranteed colossal PPC ROI every time. As expert marketers like us often say, the fastest way to lose your money is to spend them all on an unoptimised PPC campaign. For this reason, it helps to develop a sound plan before you launch a campaign for your recruitment firm. 

Make Your PPC Campaign Profitable

If this is your first time using PPC ads to advertise your recruitment services, you’re probably wondering when you will reap the rewards of your efforts. How long would it take you to make your campaign profitable? Based on our experience here at Recruitment Traffic, there’s no exact answer to this question. It depends on several factors, including the type of campaign you’re running and your target audience.

However, you can use certain strategies to ensure an excellent return on investment. First, you must remember that there are three stages of running a profitable PPC campaign for your recruitment business. They are:

• Planning and research
• Campaign creation and management
• Optimisation 

Planning and Research

As they say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Therefore, you must have a solid game plan to increase your chances of getting the results you’re expecting. 

1. Put conversion tracking in place

Before running Google Ads or other types of PPC advertisements, you should set up conversion tracking. You need to do this correctly so you’ll be able to measure your conversions and PPC ROI later on. Conversion tracking allows you to determine the performance of your campaign. Also, it helps you identify what you should do to improve your campaign’s performance since it lets you know where your conversions are coming from. 

2. Conduct keyword research and competitor analysis

Once your conversion tracking has been put in place, the next thing you need to do is perform keyword research. Researching your target keywords will help you determine how job seekers and business owners find recruitment agencies like yours online. Also, it helps ensure that you’re using all the correct and relevant terms in your ads.

As much as possible, avoid using keywords that are too generic. Before you decide which keywords to include in your ads, determine if they are just informational. To get a significant ROI from your campaign, ensure that your target keywords have the highest purchase intent possible.

Apart from researching your keywords, you should also learn as much as you can about your competitors. Performing a competitor analysis can help you identify the search terms other recruitment agencies are bidding on. Having a glimpse of your competitors’ strategies will make it easier for you to develop a better and more effective PPC campaign. 

Campaign Creation and Management

After planning and researching your keywords, the next step is to set up your campaign. Creating and managing PPC ads can be quite a challenge, particularly for beginners, because it is often a process of trial and error. 

1. Craft compelling ads

Make sure to create ads that will pique your target audience’s attention. Don’t forget to add relevant keywords and ensure that your ads match your web content and your business’s tone of voice. Add a strong unique value proposition and end each ad with a clear call to action (CTA). 

Also, make sure to create specific and relevant landing pages for your ads. For instance, if you’re running an ad to promote a job opening for an accountant, see to it that your landing page contains keywords related to the job opening. If your audience can’t find what they are looking for, they are less likely to take your desired conversion action. 

2. Group similar ads together

You might be tempted to run a PPC campaign for each job opening or service you’re offering. However, it’s less expensive and time-consuming to group similar ads together. For example, let’s say you’re looking for engineers. Instead of creating a separate campaign for each type of engineer, you can just run a single campaign for all of them.

By grouping similar ads, it will be much easier for you to manage your ads. Also, it is more efficient since you don’t have to apply the same strategy to different campaigns.

3. Use spreadsheets to manage your ads

Instead of building your ads or campaigns directly on Google Ads or your desired PPC platform, place them on a spreadsheet instead and then import them later. This way, performing quality checks is quicker and more comfortable. Also, it makes it easier for you to modify the ads if necessary. 

Optimisation

Monitor and optimise your PPC ads to boost their performance and ensure that they are reaching the right audience. 

1. Keep track of your search queries report

To improve your PPC ROI, you must ensure that your ads are functioning similar to a well-oiled machine. First, you must determine the current performance of your campaigns. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s my campaign’s cost per click (CPC)?
• What search terms my ads are showing are up for?
• How much traffic am I receiving through my ads?
• What’s my click-through rate (CTR)?
• How many conversions am I receiving?

If your CPC is high but your recruitment site is not receiving a significant amount of traffic, a more thorough analysis should be in order so you can determine the root cause of your problem. On the other hand, if you’re getting lots of traffic and your CTR is high, but your conversions are low, you must make the necessary adjustments to your campaign.

To determine which part of your PPC campaign should be improved, whether it’s your ad content, landing page, or CTA, take a closer look at your bounce rate metrics. Also, consider installing a heatmap tracker to determine what your target audience is doing after clicking on your ads and visiting your landing page. 

2. Find out when the best time to show your ads

Identify when your recruitment PPC ads are the most profitable. Once you determine when your ads are getting more clicks or views, focus on promoting your services during those specific times.

For example, if you want employers to call you for a free consultation, it would be wise to avoid running your ads after office hours. Business owners are less likely to pick up the phone and call you during those times. 

Start Improving Your ROI Today

When used correctly, PPC ads can help you generate a significant amount of traffic and leads to your recruitment site. However, they can also cause you to lose a considerable amount of money if you don’t have a good strategy in place. As such, follow the tips discussed above to improve your chances of getting a more significant ROI.

At the same time, it also helps to seek the services of experts. At Recruitment Traffic, we can offer you award-winning PPC solutions and strategies so you can attract more high-quality traffic and leads for your business. Contact us today, and let’s discuss how we can help you.

Your ad content is not the only thing you should keep track of when running a Google Ads campaign for your recruitment business. You also need to ensure that your landing pages are crafted well so you can get the results you’re expecting. Because you spend money every time a prospect clicks on your ads, you’d naturally want to be sure that you’re converting those clicks into leads. 

Stay Away from These Common Landing Page Pitfalls

To make sure that you’re converting qualified candidates and employers into leads or clients, you should avoid making the following Google Ads landing page mistakes: 

1. Inconsistent message between your ad content and landing pages

You might think that this is a no-brainer, but at Recruitment Traffic, we have seen a lot of advertisers and recruiters make this simple yet crucial mistake. When crafting landing pages, ensure that they have the same message as your ads. If your target audience can’t see the information that compelled them to click on your ad, they are very likely to leave.

For instance, let’s say you’re targeting job seekers with your recruitment ads, and you promised to give them an ebook on nailing job interviews. If the landing page doesn’t say anything about the ebook you promised in your ad, you can bet that your visitors will leave ASAP. Therefore, to ensure a successful conversion, see to it that the messaging between your ads and landing pages is consistent throughout. 

2. Asking prospects for too much information

Avoid requiring your visitors to leave too much information before you give them what they want. Otherwise, there’s a big chance that they will bounce, which will result in a missed conversion opportunity. 

To keep your bounce rates low and ensure that every click will result in a lead, you should use shorter forms on your landing pages. If you need additional information from your prospects, wait until you’re able to successfully convert them into a lead before you ask them more questions. 

3. Failing to optimise landing pages for mobile devices

Data showed that in 2019, 80% of people used mobile devices to look up information online. The same research revealed that businesses have been spending more on mobile ads over the last few years. As such, when running a Google Ads campaign, see to it that your ads are not the only ones that are optimised for mobile devices. You must ensure that your landing pages are also mobile-friendly.

Make sure that your landing pages can be rendered correctly regardless of screen size. Also, optimise your forms for mobile devices to ensure that your ads are converting prospects into leads even when they are on the go. 

4. Using a weak call to action

Calls to action (CTAs) can make the difference between a successful and failed Google Ads campaign. Even if you have compelling ads and excellent landing page content, they won’t matter if your CTA is weak and unconvincing. This is why not paying attention to your CTA is one of the most crucial Google Ads landing page mistakes you can make.

Ensure that your CTAs are powerful and convincing to entice candidates and business owners into taking your desired conversion action. Display your CTA buttons prominently so they are much easier to see. It also helps to use “possessive determiners” to give your audience the impression that you’re talking directly to them to boost your chances of converting them. 

5. Not using videos on your landing pages

Videos are engaging. They also allow you to explain a complicated idea to your prospects without the need for blocks of text. This is why adding a video to your landing pages is a great way to reinforce your message and branding while keeping them free from clutter. 

6. Forgetting to include keywords in your landing page content

Always make sure that your target keywords are incorporated into the content of your landing pages. Keywords make your landing pages relevant. At the same time, they help your landing pages rank on Google. Most importantly, Keywords also help assure your prospects that they are in the right place after they clicked on your ads.

As with your Google Ads content, it helps to utilise long-tail keywords on your landing pages. Although they are less popular, they are less inexpensive and more specific. What’s more, people who are in the final stages of the sales funnel tend to use them in their online search. 

7. Not testing your landing pages

Conducting tests is crucial to the success of your Google Ads campaign. If you don’t test your landing pages, how can you identify the steps you need to take to improve the results you’re getting?

Therefore, you should conduct A/B or split tests on your landing pages. Test everything, including your headlines, the main body, CTAs, and forms. It also helps to keep a close eye on your keyword bids to prevent unnecessary expenses. 

Improve the Performance of Your Landing Pages

Making the necessary adjustments to your landing pages can go a long way towards improving the overall performance of your Google Ads campaign. As such, please take note of the tips discussed above so you can optimise your landing pages and convert candidates and employers into leads or even clients with great success.

Don’t have time to optimise your landing pages? Let us do this task for you and more! At Recruitment Traffic, our team of award-winning Google Ads experts can provide you with the solutions you need so you can get outstanding results from your recruitment PPC campaigns. Please speak with us today.

If you have been using Google Ads to attract clients and job candidates, you’re probably familiar with phrase and broad match modified keywords and utilised them in your campaigns a few times. However, did you know that Google has recently changed how they match with search queries? According to Google, the updates were part of efforts to make it easier for business owners to reach their customers through paid ads. 

But what do these changes mean precisely? 

New and Improved Phrase and Broad Match Modified Keywords Now on Google Ads?

As you may know, it’s vital to choose the keywords you will bid on and incorporate into your ads. By using relevant keywords, it will be easier for you to find candidates or employers who require your services. But since Google has changed the rules of the game yet again, it’s vital to make a few adjustments to ensure that you’ll be able to make the most of the latest Google Ads update. 

So what are the things you should know about the recent update? For starters, Google said the latest changes make the keywords you’re bidding on more relevant to a user’s search intent. This will help recruiters reach their prospects more quickly and easily, regardless of how their target audience performs online searches. 

Aside from this, there are two notable benefits the recent changes can provide: 

1. Improved ad accuracy

Before the updates, marketers and business owners can reach prospects through the keyword match types below: 

1. a)       Exact match to ensure precision
2. b)     Broad match to expand the ads’ reach
3. c)       A combination of the two to obtain both precision and reach 

With the latest update, you can enjoy the benefits offered by the third keyword match type by only using phrase match keywords in your ads. Google tweaked phrase match keywords so that they now allow you to obtain extra traffic broad match modified keywords can provide without losing their word order. 

With the more accurate phrase match keywords, you can reach potential customers without worrying about your ads showing up for irrelevant online queries. 

2. Better keyword management

The update also makes it easier for recruiters and other business owners to manage their respective Google Ads accounts. Since you don’t have to use broad match and phrase match keywords separately in your campaign, you can save more time and effort. As a result, you’ll have more time to spend on other essential tasks. 

Google to Pull the Plug Off Broad Match Modified Keywords

Previous observations revealed that phrase and broad match modified keywords often behave the same way when used on Google Ads. Since Google is now essentially combining the two with the latest update, the search giant will no longer support broad match modified keywords. This means you can no longer create new broad match keywords for future recruitment ads. 

However, Google assures everyone that it won’t phase out broad match modified keywords until July 2021, when the latest changes have been implemented globally. Existing broad match modified keywords are still usable and they will adopt the new matching behaviour. This means you don’t have to migrate your keywords yet. Also, you can still keep your ads’ performance data and use it to adjust your campaigns. 

Tips on Improving Your Ads’ Performance

Speaking of adjusting your campaign, here are a few tips you should consider if you want to boost your ads’ performance further amidst the changes Google has implemented. 

1. Monitor your recruitment ads’ performance

With significant changes taking place with Google Ads, web traffic is likely to fluctuate as the update is rolled out. To ensure that your ads will reach their intended audience, you should keep track of their performance and make the necessary improvements when needed. 

2. Take a look at your ‘Recommendations’ page

You should also keep track of your Recommendations page. This will help you determine how to further improve and streamline your campaign. For example, with the “Add new keywords” function, you can maintain coverage. To remove duplicate or similar keywords that could generate unnecessary expenses, you can use the “Remove redundant keywords” function. 

3. Add negative keywords to your ads

Consider using negative keywords if you haven’t tried it already. Negative keywords stop your ads from showing up for irrelevant searches. Also, the recent updates made on phrase and broad match modified keywords do not affect them. 

Choose Your Keywords Carefully

Your choice of keywords contributes to the success of your Google Ads campaign. Therefore, you should always carefully consider the search terms you’re bidding on and using in your ads, particularly now that Google has made significant updates to how phrase and broad match keywords work. 

Meanwhile, if you need help making the most of the latest Google Ads updates, we at Recruitment Traffic are happy to assist you. Speak with us today, and we’ll build a bespoke campaign to help you find more traffic and leads for your recruitment business.