Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns are an effective Digital Marketing tool that businesses can employ. Google pay per click – a paid adverting method, is among the fastest tactics to direct more traffic to websites, increase visitor engagement, and amplify conversions. With the help of useful marketing tools like Google AdWords, Bing Ad Management and more, PPC enables marketers to showcase their businesses in the form of ads. These ads appear in the “Sponsored Results” segment of Google’s search engine. Credible statistics show that 75% of visitors do not look for information beyond the first page.
However, PPC Campaigns can be risky if not managed correctly. Poorly executed Campaigns will cost you money and return minimal results. Therefore, to assist marketers to wade through the muddy waters of PPC adverts, this article lists five mistakes marketers make and how best to circumvent the errors.
1. Meagre Keyword Development and Targeting
Keywords are king when using PPC promoting campaigns. The majority will hop on the PPC bandwagon without knowledge on paid ad marketing expecting great results. In fact, truth be known, most new marketers to PPC fail to provide positive ROI on their campaigns. Much of this challenge stems from common blunders during keyword targeting.
Too Many Broad Match Keywords
Businesses typically utilize their most common keywords which in fact does drive in greater traffic. However, by throwing a wide net (broad match keywords), often leads to low-quality traffic. Take for example keywords like +black +trousers. There are numerous queries regarding black trousers. For instance, ‘when should I wear black trousers?’ or ‘black is fading from trouser.’
The examples above do mention black trousers, but, ignores black trousers as a product. Hence, a mistake that costs you money (sometimes significant) in the long run and produces poor results. Rather than utilizing only broad match keyword ads, marketers can consider phrase and exact match, whereby refining the search, and for their broad match, being careful to add negative or unwanted words. Remember to always view things in a client’s perspective when it comes to search. A more precise keyword is necessary if you cannot align the product directly with the customer.
Very Few Negative Keywords
Negative keywords allow marketers to omit inappropriate search terms from their ad campaigns. Few negative keywords tend to increase the poor-quality traffic instead of reducing it. Consider who you really want clicking on your ad, when developing negative keywords.
Including negative keywords into your PPC Campaigns takes care of relevancy minus abolishing the potential traffic of broad match ads. Take, for instance; I am an optometrist – a dealer in eyewear. I will include negative keywords to cater for search terms like ‘water glass’ or ‘wine glass.’ Marketers are recommended to find as many negative keywords as possible to influence their campaigns.
2. Disregarding Mobile Traffic
Google recommends developing different PPC Campaigns for the desktop and mobile users. Google Pay Per Click began way back – 17 years ago, and running Campaigns on mobile was arduous back then. But today, it is easier to run ad Campaigns on mobile-technology thanks to advanced mobile technology and improved Campaigns selections.
Disregarding mobile traffic is a huge mistake. There are more mobile users than desktop users looking for products on the web. In fact, the latest trend is the replacement of your personal computer for mobile devices. That said, mobile users can convert faster than desktop just by the sheer volume of usage.
3. Overlooking Your Brand
Many business owners forget to target their brands when employing marketing strategies. When starting out, we often get pre-occupied with researching target market’s keywords and competitors’ activities. But forgetting to include your brand in your keywords; can be a big mistake!
A good example is where a colleague informs you regarding a store that they just bought a new suit from. You ask for the shop’s name, and you quickly Google it. If your establishment’s name is not ranked top of Google –considering the business name describes your goods and services, then your competitors could perhaps rank higher than you –albeit it is your brand that is being searched.
Aiming your brand is particularly useful if you are a new business whose website is not ranking organically. If executed correctly, Google PPC Campaigns or Adwords can rank your business top of Google searches as you enhance your organic SEO.
4. Not Aligning Landing Pages and Ads
It’s common for marketers to ignore content-rich landing pages when creating PPC ads. Often your focus is on picking the perfect keywords, creating great ads, then sitting back and waiting for the money to roll in. This is an epic mistake! First, Google charges more for every click if what you promote is not selling (yes they’re tracking this). Additionally, landing pages help in converting paid clicks into profitable clicks by ensuring that the search triggering the ad you write, is well connected to the page you send the visitor. If your landing pages contain poor content or are not easily relatable to your ad, conversion rates diminish, and lots of cash is wasted on PPC Campaigns.
The solution is to align landing pages and ads correctly. I love clicking an offer and having a good idea of what to expect when I land. Poorly crafted pages create confusion to potential buyers. Hence, the sale is botched.
5. Overlooking Low-Quality Scores
Various factors are used to determine your quality score in Google Adwords. They include the click-through rate (CTR), relevance of each keyword, ad text, and your landing page quality. Always pay attention to details you provide in AdWords accounts. Quality Scores are enhancers for your bid rates. This implies that a marketer holding a Quality Score reading 8/10 upholds a higher ad ranking even in another competitor with a score of 6/10 bids more for every click.
Never be okay with comprising low-quality scores in your ad campaigns. It will cost you more money for the generated clicks.
Are You Making These Costly PPC Campaign Mistakes?
This particular article outlines some of the common mistakes that cost business owners and marketers thousands of dollars and poor results. Avoid these expensive mistakes in the future by carefully setting up your AdWords accounts and managing them regularly.
Now it’s your turn, tell me in the comments below, your biggest Adwords blunders – we’ve all made them.
