Franchise PPC Agency

Many companies face challenges when they try to run a franchise PPC campaign. Franchises don’t work like an average business, so running a campaign doesn’t work the same way either. By the end of this article, we’ll cover all you need to know to run and manage a PPC campaign for your franchise successfully.

When it comes to digital marketing for franchisees, the decision needs to be made on whether campaigns are run at a central level or letting franchisees run them. Usually, a franchisee will use a corporate marketing plan. These types of plans are individual, so each franchise needs to pay anywhere from $150 to $2,000 a month. The more comprehensive a plan is, the more a franchise will have to pay.

Marketing plans that manage PPC for franchises will cost more than plans that don’t. But, using a corporate plan can cause some conflict between franchises and franchisees. So, make sure you consider all your options before deciding on managing the PPC campaigns for your franchise.

If you don’t want to hire a corporate digital marketing service and instead want to leave that responsibility to your franchisees, it would be best to invest in training them. With qualified franchisees, you’ll ensure that they’ll be capable of managing their account successfully. Later we’ll focus on franchisees running their campaigns and the possible problems they may encounter.

Brand Consistency

Being consistent with your brand is an essential factor. Franchises need to produce ads, brand identity, and a clear message. What you don’t want from a franchise is creating ads and messages that don’t align with your brand or company standards. 

Many franchises like to stay in control to ensure all ads remain true to their values and positively represent them. To do this, they set some guidelines that franchisees need to follow, such as usable slogans, languages, colors, etc.

With these guidelines, franchisees will have the freedom to create ads and stay consistent with the brand. The problem that can arise from this is when new campaigns come up, and you’ll have to trust them to follow the guidelines. 

Another aspect of this which can be difficult is the number of franchises your company has. With fewer, it’ll be easier to keep an eye on all the PPC ads. But, with many franchises constantly checking to see that all ads are high-quality is time-consuming. In this case, it’s better to handle your franchise PPC campaigns at a central level.

Franchise PPC Campaign Expertise

It may seem easy, but not all franchises are qualified when it comes to PPC. Some may think that all you need to do is plug in creative content, add some keywords, and you’re done. But, once you learn all about AdWords and other PPC tools, you’ll find that they’re not that simple. Bidding, targeting, and quality scores are only a few things that are important to PPC for franchises.

At the central level, you can work with experts to manage and create campaigns. Doing this brings experienced people who have worked on franchise campaigns with similar companies and will make effective PPC ads for you. Having your franchisees work on these ads may not have the desired results if they don’t know what’s involved in these campaigns.

When choosing which is the best option for you, remember that each franchise represents the company as a whole. If you make sure all franchisees are trained in PPC for franchises, you may not have any issues. Without training, it would probably be better to work with a corporate marketing team.

Track and Measure Campaigns

Running PPC campaigns at a central level allows you to have a deeper view of how well promotions and strategies work. This information helps you know where to take away or distribute funds, which techniques you’ll continue using, and how well a franchise does in a specific area. 

You’ll also be able to have a fast response time if a campaign is failing, so you can stop and reverse any issues. A franchisee may have a slower response time because they don’t have as much data.

Managing Franchise PPC Campaigns

As we’ve just covered, there are several benefits to working with a management company. These benefits are exponential with bigger franchises, so many of them will go for this option. But, some challenges come along with this method.

Define Your Goals

Handling a PPC account with many franchises connected to it comes with its difficulties. The best way to manage an account like this is to know your goals and keep them in mind as you create campaigns. 

For example, your campaigns could be working well with conversions and CTRs. But, a location might not perform as well as others. A reason for this could be because you have a few sites competing for the same traffic.

If your main goal is to improve the overall account, you need to decide where to focus most of your resources. That’ll be to the location which receives the most traffic. Or, if you want all the sites to be on the same level, you should focus your resources on improving the locations that aren’t performing well.

To get the best results from your ads, you need to have as little internal competition as possible. So, if one location has a service or product that the others don’t, make sure to push that in your franchise PPC ads and keywords. You can also use the ad scheduler tool to maximize your exposure if a location performs better on a specific day or time. 

Separate Landing Pages

When it comes to PPC for franchises, this may seem like an obvious tip, but we think it’s worth mentioning. As you’re setting up campaigns for your locations, ensure you make each its own landing page in your franchise web design plan, with the location’s contact information. You also want to ensure that ads don’t link to the central franchise page but to the local site. 

This provides users with a better experience by going to their nearest location instead of searching for a location. The harder a user has to work to view your products and services, the more they’ll want to look elsewhere. That means you’ll have a higher bounce rate, less time on your website, and lower conversion. 

Focus on Location

Location is vital to franchises, so focusing on local SEO is a great way to find success. When working on your franchise PPC ads, make sure each location has its own campaign, which will allow you to geo-target.

Geo-targeting, also known as location targeting, will ensure that your ads will only be shown to users in a specific location. You can set these areas as small as a 10-mile radius to an entire region or county. The area you choose will be based on what lies in the franchise’s services range. With more franchises in an area, the smaller your geo-target range will be. 

Another factor to consider is the distance someone is willing to travel for your services. If you don’t provide urgent goods, you can set your location settings to a wider area range. But if your services are something users need quickly, they’ll be looking for locations that are closest to them.

Choose Keywords Carefully

When creating a PPC campaign for your franchise, there are two kinds of keywords to consider: general and location. Always start by using a research tool to find relevant keywords. Most of these tools work by finding organic keywords associated with a word you entered into the search bar. By doing this, you can find many keywords that you may have missed that could help your franchise.

As you do your research, look for keywords that fit your brand, individual locations, and products. For example, if you’re in the fitness industry, you can try popular phrases like ‘(company name) before and after’ to help you think of more ad strategies. For location keywords, don’t just use cities and states. You can use counties, landmarks, neighborhoods,  etc.near your franchise. People may not be searching for your company’s name, but they may be looking for a ‘health store near North Park, San Diego.’ Therefore, ensure all your bases are covered when coming up with location keywords.

A tip you can try is finding out what keywords your competitors use in their digital PPC campaigns. You can look at their local ads for ideas on words you can use for your business.

In your search, find out what they’re using to optimize their local search listing. However, using competitor’s keywords isn’t all that’s important; you also need to make sure you have a decent website. Optimize it by adding keywords that people will use when looking for services you offer. Finally, your website should be mobile compatible so that people can search for your business on the go.

Conclusion

PPC for franchises isn’t easy to master, especially if you want to see results. There is a lot of hard work to make sure all your campaigns are optimized to your customers’ needs and locations. To make it easier, you can hire a PPC management agency to help you create successful PPC campaigns, or you can get training for your franchisees so they can know what works. Whichever option you choose, it’s worth the investment to have PPC ads for your business.