Let’s talk about PPC (including Paid Media) and why it’s a game-changer for your event strategy. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a powerful tool for event marketers, which requires specialised expertise to execute effectively.

Outsourcing your PPC campaigns to a dedicated team or agency partner is crucial for maximising your event marketing success. Here’s why: 

Managing PPC campaigns requires a unique set of skills and expertise – which is why having a dedicated PPC team or agency partner for your event campaigns is essential. While it may seem tempting to handle PPC yourself or have your general marketing staff take it on, this critical channel requires specialised expertise that most marketers simply don’t have and can’t realistically be expected to learn and stay on top of.

It’s not just about crafting catchy copy and setting up campaigns; it’s about understanding the intricacies of bidding strategies, keyword optimisation and ad placements. Plus, staying on top of the ever-evolving PPC landscape is a full-time job in itself.

Your PPC specialists also need to understand events well and work in the right way to support best-practice event marketing.

At MPG, our PPC team lives and breathes paid media. With years of experience under their belts, they understand the dynamic nature of events and tailor campaigns accordingly, from early bird promotions to tradeshow feature announcements and conference speaker reveals – they understand how PPC strategies should evolve as your event offering changes day by day. 

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How MPG’s PPC specialists work

• Step-by-step operations: the process starts with an in-depth briefing to understand the target customers’ goals and motivations in their roles and around the event. Before setting up any campaigns, our PPC team develops customised strategies across a range of channels, including Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, Facebook/Instagram and LinkedIn.
  
• Campaign management: the PPC gurus constantly monitor and optimise campaigns, making real-time tweaks to capitalise on what’s working and quickly cut what’s not. Advanced tactics are used, such as audience layering, dayparting, geo-targeting, automated bidding, and constant creative testing to drive results. This also teaches the AI that is now built into all platforms to target ads better, which creates exponentially better results as time goes by.
  
• Reporting quality: MPG’s real-time, detailed marketing ROI measurement reports provide visibility for our generalist marketers on how campaigns are performing and what our PPC campaign managers suggest for further improvements and updates as we move through the event marketing cycle, making it easy to understand where budget is best spent and how results are being improved over time.

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Questions every event marketer should be asking to ensure PPC campaigns deliver a good ROI

Creating effective PPC campaigns requires not only the initial creative and setup, but also consistent monitoring and adjustment to generate good quality leads and immediate registrations. As an event marketer, these are the questions you should be asking your PPC/paid media specialist:

1. “Are my ads driving the desired actions, whether it’s form submissions or event registrations? Are conversions being tracked so I can see these results?”
   Tracking conversions is key to measuring campaign effectiveness. Understanding what’s driving conversions and ensuring the budget reflects this is key to driving results. When properly set up, tracking also teaches the PPC/paid media tools what is working, so the platforms themselves will adjust automatically to perform better for you.
   (If you’re unsure how to get this tracking right, contact us via our website and we’d be happy to talk you through how we do it for our clients.)
   
2. “Which ad creatives and copy resonate with my audience and make them convert?”
   Analysing ad performance helps refine your messaging and alter your creative for better results and should be done throughout your campaign.
   
3. Am I getting the most bang for my buck from how my budget is being allocated across channels, campaigns and the event marketing timeline?”
   Keeping a close eye on budget allocation across different campaigns and channels to optimise ROI is an essential part of a PPC/paid media campaign manager’s job.
   
4. “How are my ads performing against the competition? Am I gaining – or losing – the competitive advantage in how my ads are being managed?”
   This is particularly relevant for Google Search campaigns to ensure your bids outperform the competition.

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Five PPC/Paid Media reporting metrics every event marketer should be paying attention to on a weekly basis

To gauge the success of your campaigns, keep monitoring these key metrics:

1. Cost per acquisition (CPA): measures the cost incurred to acquire a new attendee or lead. Monitoring CPA helps in assessing the efficiency and profitability of campaigns.
   
2. Revenue: tracking revenue generated from campaigns provides direct insight into its impact on your bottom line. Analysing revenue data empowers you to make informed decisions about budget allocation, campaign optimisation and overall strategy. Revenue doesn’t only apply if you’re selling delegate tickets. Revenue can be attributed based on how event attendees are enabling sponsorship and exhibition revenue. Attribution analysis is important here too (see the MPG Insights blog on Attribution Modelling).
   
3. Website traffic: website traffic reflects the effectiveness of campaigns in driving visitors to your desired landing pages. Monitoring traffic helps evaluate campaign reach, audience engagement and overall brand visibility.
   (Interestingly, this is often the only metric agencies provide when asked to account for campaign effectiveness. But this is only one of the metrics that matters and should never be looked at in isolation.)
   
4. Average costs: understanding average costs empowers you to evaluate which channels, campaigns, keywords and ad creatives deliver the best value for money.
   
5. Competitive metrics: competitive metrics, such as auction Insights, provide valuable insights into the relevance and performance of ads compared to your competitors.
   
6. Click-through rate: monitoring CTR helps to optimise ad copy, identify underperforming ads and maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns in driving user engagement and conversions.

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Having PPC/Paid Media specialists who understand events is essential for driving awareness, leads, and registrations. With the right strategy and execution, you can fill venues and maximise your ROI.

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Get Team MPG on board to help you achieve a stronger ROI from your event marketing PPC/Paid Media. We have a dedicated team of specialists who understand conference and exhibition marketing inside out. They understand how dynamic events are and how much attention campaigns need to achieve the results you’re looking for.

Contact us today for a quote. You won’t pay more than your current agency, but we are quite certain you’ll get better results working with Team MPG!

MPG’s analytics experts are fully trained and experienced in all aspects of GA4. We have helped many organisations understand their current setup and how it needs to be improved, and then we’ve helped them implement the necessary changes.

Get in touch to learn how we can help you get your GA4 set up right.

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MPG have taken our PPC to another level with their strategic approach and excellent customer service. PPC is an important area of investment for us as we expand our global reach and launch new products. We’re very pleased to have Team MPG on board and recommend them highly as a safe pair of hands.

Roy Maybury, Associate Marketing Director, Global Events & Networks, PEI GROUP

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