As you probably already know, PPC stands for pay-per-click. In general, this type of advertising is a way to buy visits to your site by paying each time your ad is clicked. The most important parts of creating this kind of campaign are setting up your PPC campaigns, knowing which keywords are best, how to build emotion in your ads, and knowing how to monitor and track your PPC efforts so you can be sure to make the most of your campaign. We have had years of experience with PPC advertising, especially in the Smoky Mountain market, and here are a few of the most common PPC mistakes we’ve seen:
1. Not Having a Strategy
Like any of your marketing and advertising efforts, it’s best to have a strategy. When you begin to invest money into PPC, you want to have a clear definition of what your goals are. If you don’t have a strategy whatsoever, PPC could turn into a costly mistake.
2. Using Broad Match on General/Short-Tail Keywords
Broad match is the default match type when you’re working with Google AdWords. This is because this match type will reach the widest audience – which may not always be best for your campaigns.
Let’s take the keyword “hotels,” for example. If you are a local hotel, when you use broad match on a short-tail keyword like this, you’re not guaranteed to get the best results. You’ll likely run through money quickly and you probably won’t get any conversions for it.
Why does this happen? When using broad match, your ad has the possibility to show whenever a user’s search (any word in their search) includes “hotel” or “hotels.” Since this is setup to reach a wide audience, you’ll probably see that some or many of the clicks you get are irrelevant to your business. Basically, you’ll be paying for clicks that are giving you little to no conversion.
When you are creating ads, you want to find the best keywords for conversion at the best price, or you’ll see that PPC can get expensive very fast.
3. Not Tailoring Ads to Specific Audiences
Who is your audience? If you don’t know your audience, how do you know how to write your ads? One of the first steps should be to figure out who your audience is and tailor your ads to that audience.
4. Focusing on the Wrong Metrics or Not Even Tracking Metrics
We believe in tracking results of all marketing and advertising efforts, especially PPC. Be sure that your campaigns are meeting your goals. If you’re looking for conversions, make sure that you’re not spending more on ads than the revenue you’re receiving from conversions.
When you’re doing split testing (also known as A/B testing) to determine the best ad for your campaign, be sure you give the ads enough time to perform before you declare a “winner.” Over time, you’ll be able to figure out what types of ads work the best for your audience, and you’ll be able to tailor all of your ads to the types that help you reach your goals
5. Your Ads Have No Emotion
When you don’t have unique ads that have been tailored to your audience, your ads will be boring and dull. When you evoke emotion in your ads, you stand out from other search results to get the clicks you’re looking for. Google is looking to give people quality ads as opposed to irrelevant ads, so you want to make sure yours stand out from the crowd.
6. Sending Visitors to the Wrong Page
One of the most costly PPC mistakes can be sending your visitors to the wrong page—or even worse, a broken page. If you’re running an ad for a specific item on your website, be sure to send your visitors directly to that page. If you send them to the home page, you’re forcing them to search and find that specific item, and, chances are, they won’t stick around for long.
Be sure you’re sending people directly to the page that will help you meet your goal. The visitor was searching for something in particular, so give them exactly what they were searching for to ensure the best conversion.
More About PPC Campaigns
PPC campaigns require a lot of research and understanding of your market and audience. For help with your marketing strategy and PPC campaigns so you don’t make these same PPC mistakes, click here to contact us for a free consultation.
