PPC for Restaurants: 7 Tips for Exceptional Campaign Management

PPC campaign management for restaurants can be one of the difficult parts of advertising in Google Ads, as many believe. For many advertisers, there are many reports, tools and features to learn and there is very little time to do all this in time for the campaigns to be profitable.

But nothing could be further from the truth regarding campaign management. Following a few steps each month will help your restaurant consistently target the right customers in your location.

It will help you see an increase in customer enquiries and bookings for your restaurant and you can turn the ads on and off according to your requirements.

I’ve included here seven PPC campaign management tips for restaurants to manage their ads and reach customers looking for great food locally.

 

1. Setup conversion tracking

Effective PPC advertising for restaurants requires tracking that will help achieve the best results in the campaigns. This means that setting up conversion tracking should be one of the first things that should be in place during campaign management.

You can setup tracking in Google Ads and add the code to your website. Or you can setup goal tracking in Google Analytics using the relevant template for you and then import those goals into your Google Ads account for conversion tracking.

 

2. Add new negative keywords

Adding new negative keywords should be a regular part of your PPC campaign management. So, carry out ongoing research to find negative keywords to add to your campaigns, and you can do this in various ways.

The first and most important way to find negative keywords is in your Search terms report. Here you’ll find the actual searches that people use to find your restaurant and you’ll notice that some will be relevant and some won’t. So, you can select the irrelevant searches and add them as negative keywords to the campaign or ad group.

You can also find negative keywords by doing regular keyword research. When you do your keyword research, you’ll find keywords that are not relevant that could potentially trigger your ads. Add these as negative keywords instantly.

3. Find new keywords

PPC advertising for restaurants is most effective when it follows a good keyword bidding strategy with regular keyword updating. This is one of the most important campaign management actions to be taken regularly and there are tools to help you find new keywords.

One of the most obvious tools is the Keyword Planner tool which helps you research new keywords and includes a forecasting tool to see how much you’re likely to spend.

Another place to find new keywords is right in your campaigns. The Search terms report shows you all the searches that your ads are appearing for and even for some that you’ve not had clicks for – just impressions.

So, you can add these keywords to your ad groups and bid on them and start getting clicks. Even some searches that are not actually keywords in your campaign but you’re getting impressions for but not clicks can be added too – if you want to start getting more exposure for them and adjust their bids.

 

4. Update bid strategy

Next, check that the bid strategy you’re currently using is in line with your goals. The bid strategy you start with may not always be the best as you now manage your campaigns and update the settings.

When you first launch your PPC campaign, it is best to start with an automated bid strategy. This helps to get the best optimisation results from the machine system which sets bids automatically based on your goals and the performance.

And you can test other bid strategies later as you manage your ads, like Manual CPC if you want to have more control over your bids. Or switch to Maximise Conversion Value with a target return on ad spend (ROAS) if you know what percentage return you want from your spend (for example 500%)

 

5. Check Recommendations

The Recommendations page is a great source for insights and opportunities in your account and campaigns. Here you will see suggestions on how to improve your campaigns and the areas covered will include bid strategies, keywords, text ads, dynamic search ads and many others.

However, it’s important to note that these are just recommendations. Not all of them will be relevant for your ads no matter how much they will improve your Optimisation score.

So, check each recommendation and if it is relevant, then click the Apply button or just dismiss it and leave a reason why in the box. This will help to improve the recommendations in the future.

 

6. Do competitor analysis

There are simple PPC tools and reports that help restaurants to do a competitor analysis on other businesses in their space. So, this helps you to see what PPC strategy they are following and you can see where they appear and how often.

The first report to check out is Auction Insights in the keyword section in your Google Ads account. With this report you can see how other restaurants are appearing on Google. So, you’ll see how often they come up in the top and absolute positions relative to your ads. And you can take action like updating your bids if you want to appear higher.

And you can use a tool like the Competitor research tool in SERanking to see which keyword searches other restaurants are appearing for. You will be able to see how much they spend for each keyword, where they rank and how much they are spending in Google Ads per month on average.

 

7. Consider broad match type keywords

You should consider adding broad match type keywords in your campaign. The main benefit is that you will see an increase in your traffic volumes and that should help increase clicks and customers for your restaurant.

That’s because broad match keywords target a wide range of searches that your phrase and exact match keywords are not targeting.

With phrase and exact match keywords, it’s best to start with these when you first launch your PPC campaigns. This will help you to control the searches you get and achieve a good return on ad spend (ROAS) while you build your negative keyword list.

 

Get in Touch

I’m a PPC consultant and I work with many restaurants to promote and advertise their businesses. I’d be happy to help setup and manage campaigns for your restaurant. Use the form below to contact me.