PPC Program Checklist: 8 Stages to Building Successful PPC Campaigns

8 Steps for Planning, Building & Optimizing New B2B PPC Campaigns

Achieving success in paid media requires a well-planned strategy that aligns every element of your campaign with your business objectives.
At Nephila, we've developed a detailed checklist that walks you through each critical phase of the campaign development process, from the initial kickoff to continuous optimization, ensuring your paid media efforts are successful out of the gates.

1. KICKOFF

Set the Foundation for Success

• Identify Stakeholders, Timelines, and Expectations: Begin by identifying all key stakeholders involved in the project. Establish clear timelines and manage expectations upfront to ensure alignment across the team.  When possible, engage the SDRs so they are invested in the process.
• Categorize and Prioritize Service Offerings/Technologies: Determine which products, services, or technologies will be the focus of your campaigns. If you don't have content to engage a specific audience, or to promote a certain feature - consider holding off on that segment until a compelling offer is available.  
• Establish Program OKRs & Goals: Define the key objectives and results (OKRs) that will guide your program. Setting clear, measurable goals is essential to tracking progress and measuring success.  Make sure your KPIs are fueled by reliable data.  Compare CRM leads to PPC dashboard conversions.  Don't launch until all accounts are reconciled.

2. TARGETING

Understanding Your Audience

• Identify Target Personas: Divide your audience into groups based on shared characteristics, such as demographics, behaviors, and needs. Then, Identify the problems or challenges each segment faces that your product or service can solve.  This will allow you to create unique  content, messaging and campaigns that are relevant to each persona.
• Define Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): To define an ideal customer profile for B2B companies, focus on specific industries, company sizes, and geographic locations where your product is most effective. Understand the business challenges these companies face and how your solution can address their needs. Identify key decision-makers and their buying behavior to align your sales and marketing strategies for maximum impact. 
• ABM Lists: Coordinate with the sales team to utilize key account lists and specific database segments for your paid media campaigns. Where possible, integrate high-intent audience lists from platforms like 6Sense to target prospects who are ready to buy.  This helps align sales and marketing initiatives and keeps lead quality from paid programs high.
• Analyze Target Competitors: Research and analyze competitors to uncover opportunities for differentiation and gain a competitive edge. If a competitor lacks one of your core features, emphasize the value and benefits of this technology in your marketing and advertising campaigns. 

3. CONTENT JOURNEY

Map Out the Customer Experience

4. R&D

Gather Insights and Data

• Analyze Lead Database & Lead Scoring Methods: Review your existing lead database to identify trends and opportunities. Evaluate lead scoring methods to ensure they will accommodate the new lead flow from your paid campaigns. Determine if the current drip campaigns are adequate for your audience segments - if not, build new workflows that will keep paid leads moving down the funnel.
• Audit PPC Setup & Data: Conduct a thorough audit of your PPC setup, including account structure, keyword targeting, and bidding strategies. Correct data discrepancies and tracking issues before you launch new campaigns. 
• Research Competitive Landscape, Keywords (+/-), Adjacent Technologies: Perform comprehensive research on the competitive landscape to identify relevant keywords. Proactively add closely related but misaligned keywords as negative keywords to avoid unwanted clicks. If your product or technology is relatively unknown, bid on keywords associated with legacy technologies or outdated products that your solution can effectively replace.

5. STRATEGY

Develop a Comprehensive Plan

• Paid Media Strategy Recommendations: Based on your research and analysis, develop strategic recommendations for your paid media program build-out.  Get sign-off from stakeholders on this final roadmap.  Your program synergizes efforts from several departments, all input is valuable and should be considered.  Final buy-in from all involved solidifies this collaboration.
• Paid Search/Paid Social Structures: Design the structure of your paid search and paid social campaigns for maximum effectiveness. Create separate campaigns for brand keywords, competitive keywords, and non-brand keywords. For non-branded campaigns, consider organizing them based on the solution areas or use case sections featured on your website.  
• Budget Allocation & Account Structure: We turn the investment knobs at the campaign level - if your budgets are segmented by line-of-product, region or vertical - make sure you've structured your account that way.  This also makes reporting, and often accounting, much more streamlined.

6. OPS & ANALYTICS

Tracking and Supporting Success

• CRM Workflows, Response Emails & Lifecycle Stages: Set up CRM workflows to manage leads and automate responses. Define lifecycle stages to track lead progression.  Prioritize this step.  With so much time and investments involved in building your campaigns, leaving highly qualified leads in your CRM without a nurture plan defeats the entire program.
• List Building & SFDC Campaign Tracking: Build targeted lists for your campaigns and set up tracking in Salesforce (SFDC) to monitor campaign performance.  You've worked hard for these leads, make sure they can be quickly surfaced in reports and attributed to the appropriate channel.
• Analytics Setup for GTM, GSC, GA4 & Conversion Tracking: Implement B2B analytics tools such as Google Tag Manager (GTM), Google Search Console (GSC), and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to all online behaviors and transactions.  For example, you'll want to compare conversion rates across all channels, this is tough to accomplish if your key events haven't been established across your entire domain and subdomains.
• Aggregate Reporting & Custom Dashboard Setup: Create custom dashboards to aggregate and visualize your data, making it easier to monitor performance and make informed decisions.  Work closely with your executive team to curate dashboards for their own reports and presentations.  

7. PRODUCTION

Bringing Your Campaigns to Life

• Production of Accounts, Campaigns & Ad Groups: Set up all necessary accounts, campaigns, and ad groups for your paid media program. 
• Design & Messaging for Landing Pages, Image Ads, Email Templates & More: Develop compelling design and messaging for all campaign assets, including landing pages, image ads, email templates, and animations.  Work in-step with your brand and communication managers to stay informed of any changes in style, message or theme.  Prospects should see a unified brand across all channels.
• Create New Content Pieces: Produce any additional content required to support your campaign objectives.

8. OPTIMIZE & SCALE

Continuous Improvement

• Monitor KPIs, Lead Quality, Pipeline Influence & ROAS: Once your campaigns are live, continuously monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess lead quality, pipeline influence, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
• Identify Areas to Streamline or Double-Down: Use data-driven insights to identify areas where you can streamline operations or invest more resources for greater impact.
• Ongoing Optimization: Paid media is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. Stay vigilant and continuously optimize your campaigns to ensure sustained success and scalability.

By following this comprehensive checklist, you’ll ensure that your paid media program is not only well-structured but also optimized for maximum impact. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine your existing campaigns, this guide will help you stay on track and achieve your marketing goals.