PPC is a highly valuable channel when used correctly – but there are many PPC mistakes to be aware of. If you get it right, you’ll send a stream of quality traffic to your website, made up of an audience that’s highly likely to convert. The key issue here is getting it right. Many people try to tackle PPC without having a clear strategy in place, or without fully understanding how it works. If you approach PPC without knowing what you’re doing, you’re likely to blitz through your budget and come out with poor results. Here are 10 PPC mistakes to be aware of.
Our wonderful PPC team have put together this list of the 10 most common mistakes that will destroy your return on ad spend. If you’ve ever tried your hand at PPC, you might want to read on… Do you have an addition to the list? Let us know!
1. Not Having a Clear Objective/KPI
If you fail to set a clear objective, you’ll always think that the campaign is underperforming and could be doing better. By setting goals and milestones, you’ll be able to track performance and see which direction the campaign is heading in.
2. Not Tracking Conversions
Without conversions PPC is useless. You won’t know what to optimise in your accounts, what works and what doesn’t work. Leverage the power of conversion tracking and you’ll be able to get a better idea of what’s working for you.
3. Not Using Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an invaluable tool that lets you see what users are doing on your site, helps you understand who your users are, and much more. Google Analytics is free, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be making the most of it.
4. Combining Display and Search Network in One Campaign
If you make the mistake of combining display and search network in the same campaign, it can lead to messy data management, difficult reporting, and can make it hard to work on well-controlled experiments.
5. Concentrating on the Wrong Metrics
Tracking the wrong type of metrics can lead you to hyper-focus on vanity metrics, clicks, traffic, and impressions, at the cost of the bottom line revenue/leads/conversions. Identify the right metrics for your business and focus on these instead.
6. Not Using Negative Keywords
It’s crucial to use negative keywords to ensure that your ad doesn’t show for particular words. Your account is a slowly sinking ship if this is not done on a weekly basis. It is therefore so important to implement this correctly, which will then save your business money, increase relevancy of your audience and increase click-through rates.
7. Improper Use of Keyword Match Types (Broad Match)
It is always best to implement a clean match type setup by separating out your match types into separate ad groups, helping make data analysis more insightful and concise. Limit your broad match use and rely more on modified, but be sure to monitor search queries regularly and apply negative keywords. Be granular in your approach to match-types, so that you can laser focus the users your ads are shown to so that you get the most relevant audience. Use the search queries as your guide to any untapped revenue potential and further expansion opportunities for your campaigns. For further information on this subject here is a useful article by Moz.
8. Setting Campaigns Up and Leaving Them Without Optimising
Treat your campaigns like your business – they need constant work and TLC otherwise they will fall by the wayside and start to underperform! PPC is a marathon not a sprint, it requires ongoing work and should not be setup and left to run its own course. Work smart by prioritising your time to working on those aspects that produce the greater returns.
9. Not Experimenting On AdCopy/Creatives/Banners/Landing Pages
Always keep learning and iterating. A/B test concepts for your ads and apply constant CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) tactics while looking for improvements to ensure your optimum performance levels.
10. Cutting Your Experiments Too Short
Data is your friend – the bigger sample size, the better analysis and insight into the market. Link your Google Adwords account to Analytics, so that you can get greater insights from matched search queries reporting to help determine further ROI potential to implement into your campaigns.
Want to know more? We’d love to hear from you! Drop us an email at ppc@digitalmediateam.co.uk and we’ll be happy to run an audit on your accounts, or simply explain a little more about how we can help you.
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