Mistakes of Pay Per Click Advertising: The Terrible 10
Mistakes in pay per click advertising are common and often very pricey. Doing it right requires some vigilance and micromanaging. Here are 10 of the top mistakes people make in their PPC campaigns.
Massive, Bulky and Broad Ad Groups for Your Keywords
Creating relevant, targeted ads are important. Avoid placing all your keywords into a couple big ad groups. Build them tighter. With tight ad groups you can control more of your ad customization to increase relevancy.
Not Using Negative Keywords
Negative keywords reduce unwanted impressions, and more importantly, unwanted click throughs. However, with increasing priority given to “quality scores” and click through rates in the PPC engines, it’s key to trim the fat from your keyword campaigns. If your company sells “widget management software” then be sure that you have keywords like “-serial” or “-free” assigned as negative keywords (unless, of course, you offer it for free in some manner). You can find good negative keywords in your log files or when you build your lists.
Not Doing Enough Testing
Running split tests on your ads is essential. And, no item is too small to test. Of course, you will want to work on your various call to action statements, as well as your one-of-a-kind value statement, but keep in mind that there are other variables. There are small, but effective tweaks that can boost results by just testing titles, each line of copy and your display url. If running continual tests is time consuming, hook up with an experience pay per click management company. A good firm can offer you daily split testing and optimize your results very effectively.
Not Tracking Results
Of course, testing your ads and fine tuning your keyword lists only works well if you are tracking results. The search engines will tell you what your click-through rates are … but you need bottom-line results. You need to know your return on investment or what your cost per action is. It’s not enough to know that you spend $5,000 and get back $10,000. You might be able to spend only $3,000 and get that same $10,000.
Not Tracking Down to the Keyword-Level
Proper and exact analytics or using an experienced pay per click management company is essential to get the data you need. If you’ve keywords that are not performing and leaking your account on a daily basis, you are throwing money away. Getting results to the keyword level allows you to adjust bids for maximum effect. If you’ve one keyword with a $1.34 earnings per click and another at 37 cents, this is key information that allows you to maximize profits. Lower one bid if you’re above your “EPC” and raise another to eek out more profits from that sweet-spot keyword. Don’t waste money on a daily basis.
Keywords That Are Too Generic
Negative keywords might not be enough to keep you from trouble on too generic a keyword. While these generic keywords are often more highly searched and can even be among your best…they can also be riddled with bad traffic. Users who perform a search on a generic keyword might often be at a very early stage in the buy process. Are you able to turn an effective profit on them? Once again, this is yet another reason why you need keyword-level traffic. It’s especially vital on a generic keyword.
Ignoring the Many Long-Tail Keywords
To follow up on the generic keyword topic, creating your long-tail keyword lists and the relevant accompanying ads might be a major time-consuming process. Do it right and you can also find it to be very profitable. The nature of keywords is that they vary from phrase to phrase. A keyword like “cell phone” can differ in results from a keyword such as “motorola cell phone”, which in turn can vastly differ from a more long-tail keyword like “motorola w375 unlocked cell phone.” One user is likely still doing research, while the user in the last example knows what they want … and might be ready to make that buy.
Not Separating Content and Search Networks
An simple way to get scorched on poor performing traffic or even click fraud is to not separate your search network ads from your content network ads. Chances are that if you don’t know what the difference is, then they are likely not separated in your account — and bad keywords are leaking your funds daily. You are superior off to build different campaigns for your keywords on the content and search networks.
Not Geo-Targeting a Local Business
If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines grant you to geo-target your keywords to that area. This will bring the local market to your doorstep on non-local keyword phrases. This can be hugely profitable.
Not Monitoring Your Campaigns With Frequency
Okay, so you don’t do daily split testing even though you should. Maybe you don’t continually monitor your earnings per click at the keyword level, although you should. Still, a lot of PPC advertisers don’t even frequently check into their accounts. Google, Yahoo and MSN are increasingly slapping keywords with the “Inactive for Search” status to get you to improve your quality. They might be slowly picking off your keywords — and your profits — one by one and you aren’t even aware of it.
The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to take into account, but it’s vital for healthy pay per click campaigns. Whether you can actively manage your PPC accounts at this level or you need to hire a pay per click management company to do it, vigilance and precision can make a massive impact on your bottom line.
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