Avoid These PPC Pitfalls That Could Disrupt Your Campaign
Since the launch of AdWords, which evolved into what is now known as Google Ads, in the year 2000, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing has undergone significant development. Google Ads is now one of the most popular platforms for online advertising twenty-two years after it was first introduced.
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay
Although Google’s stated ad income for the year 2021 was over $257.63 billion, the search engine giant is not the only company that is profitable. By utilizing Google Ads, a considerable number of marketers and business owners have been able to create a substantial amount of cash for themselves, and many view this platform as an important component of their overall advertising efforts.
Since its first release, the AdWords product has undergone significant development, becoming significantly more complicated as a result of the introduction of several new features, ad formats, targeting strategies, and other elements.
People who are new to pay-per-click advertising could find it difficult to understand due to its complex nature, despite the fact that it is a wonderful strategy for expanding your leads.
Continue reading this article if you are thinking of launching a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign so that you can become familiar with typical pitfalls and issues that you should try to avoid.
- Lack of Awareness of Customer Lifetime Value
Many owners of businesses aren’t aware of the value that a potential client or customer brings to their company. Are you earning a profit that is greater than the cost of the lead, which is one hundred dollars? How much money will that one lead bring in over the course of its entire lifetime?
We strongly suggest utilizing actual numbers in this context. (If you aren’t able to track everything, using an average value that can still give you a sense of how well your campaign is doing is a good alternative.)
How do you determine whether or not you are getting a satisfactory return on your advertising investment (ROAS) if you do not know what your customer lifetime value (CLTV) is?
Follow your PPC lead all the way down the funnel and track if they ended up purchasing a product; in addition, track the value of that purchase and how profitable it was for your business.
- Losing Sight of the Targets
Having objectives and keeping track of those goals are two distinct things.
It’s possible that you’ve made the decision that you want more leads, but how can you tell whether you’re actually getting any of them? How many potential customers are you now receiving? What percentage of deals do you close?
Ensure that you can track everything, as this is the only way to do an accurate analysis of how well your campaign performed. This entails keeping tabs on the phone calls that are being made to your store or business as well as the online form submissions that are being made via the website.
Keep in mind that it is also important to keep track of store visits and offline leads.
Some people will just track the number of impressions and clicks that come to their website; however, if you do not track conversions, also known as engagements, you will not be able to effectively evaluate or manage your campaign.
You really must be aware of precisely who is contacting your company and the origin of their inquiry. If you do not do this, then you will not be able to determine if your campaign was successful or unsuccessful.
- Failing to Set Clear Goals
Before you get started with the pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you need to ask yourself: What do I hope to accomplish with it?
It’s possible that you’re thinking “more leads” or “more revenue,” both of which are commendable objectives; nevertheless, let’s dig a little further.
You want more leads, without a doubt, but the question is: what kind of leads do you want? Who would be your ideal follower to lead? Who exactly is your intended audience? (If you own a firm that repairs automobiles, for instance, you could be interested in leads for oil changes but not for transmission repairs.)
You should think about what component of your company you are advertising for as well. Which specific services are being sought for by your ideal lead? What phrases or words would someone look for online if they were interested in purchasing one of your services?
You should also think about how many potential customers you wish to attract. What is a reasonable price to pay for each potential customer? What is the typical amount of money you make from each job? How much are you willing to invest in the process as you learn out what does and does not work for you?
If you know the answers to these questions, you’ll be more equipped to conduct your campaign effectively.
You need to set goals that are detailed and measurable in order to evaluate the performance of your campaign and determine when it is appropriate to make adjustments and changes.
- Having a Subpar Website
When you’re operating a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you may have your keywords and ad copy in the center of your attention. Keep in mind, however, that the destination for people who find your website through a search will ultimately be your website.
If the user experience on your website is poor and visitors do not convert, then what is the point of paying for traffic to get people to that website in the first place?
It is essential that your website loads quickly, is well optimized, has an appealing design, draws searchers deeper into the sales funnel, and, eventually, converts.
No matter how “excellent” your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign is, it won’t matter if you have a poor website because your leads won’t be converted.
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- Inadequate Campaign Management or Optimization
PPC is not a sort of advertising that can simply be “set it and forget it.”
Online advertising efforts, in contrast to more traditional forms of advertising such as print advertisements or billboards, need to be maintained, managed, optimized, and adjusted as appropriate.
There are always adjustments and optimizations that may be made to optimize the performance of a campaign. Regularly, you should be doing things like reviewing your keywords and search phrases, testing out new advertising, and experimenting with different bid methods.
Be sure to conduct regular audits of your campaign’s performance as well as its budget, and adapt your strategy accordingly based on the findings of these audits.
- Continuing to Make Technical Errors
It would be possible for us to go on and on about the various technical errors that first-time users of PPC make with their campaigns. (Just that idea might be the subject of a whole article!)
Because of the many years we’ve spent managing pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, we’ve picked up a lot of useful hints and pointers along the way. As a result, we’re able to extract the maximum amount of value from our clients’ spending budgets while avoiding making mistakes that are financially detrimental.
Take some time to consider the following:
- Do you know what keywords to bid on, how much to price for each keyword, where to land searchers, and how to re-market to people after they have left your website?
- Are you squandering resources with regard to your campaign without even being aware of the fact that you are doing so?
- Do you have experience with the implementation of live chat bots, conversion tracking, and dynamic call tracking numbers?
- Do you understand the distinction between a broad match, a phrase match, and an exact match?
- Do you have a working knowledge of the various ad extensions and how to make use of them?
- Do you have any idea which types of campaigns are the most successful?
If you replied “no” to any of the questions presented above, there’s no need to beat yourself up about it too much. It might be challenging to describe and comprehend the many intricacies and capabilities that are available in Google Ads due to the sheer number of them.
Due to the fact that Google is always releasing new advertising and formats, even seasoned professionals in the field of Google Ads are still able to learn and advance.
- Trying to Do Too Much at Once
One of the most typical issues that new users of pay-per-click advertising face is the tendency to place bids on anything and everything, even searches that may not be entirely pertinent to their company. After all, you don’t want to spend $500 on marketing to sell a service that only costs $50.
If you are only interested in generating leads for one facet of your company, you should concentrate your keyword research on that facet of your company. You shouldn’t feel as though you have to pursue each and every possible type of term that someone might look for or each and every facet of your company.
When it comes to PPC, sometimes less is more. It is preferable to have a small group of excellent keywords rather than hundreds of keywords, of which only a small number obtain traffic and/or conversions, as the former situation is more manageable. You don’t want to have a presence that is only a mile wide but an inch deep.
If you limit your attention to keyword terms that indicate an intent to make a purchase, rather than terms that indicate an interest in learning more about your product or service, your marketing budget will go a much further way.
You can also target those who are just doing research, but if your budget is restricted, you should concentrate on terms that have a high level of purchase intent.
- Giving up Too Soon
A PPC campaign is comparable to turning on a faucet to get hot water: When you start a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, it could take a minute for things to get going.
PPC calls for a great deal of experimentation; you have to test a variety of strategies to determine which ones are successful. You might have a concept of which keywords are going to be the most successful, but the actual results might be quite different from what you anticipate.
Have faith in the procedure, and stay the course! Allow your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign some time to acquire and collect the data it needs before attempting to enhance it.
Give us a call if you aren’t getting the results you want and are getting close to giving up. We’ll listen to your concerns and determine if we can be of assistance.
This brings us to our final, as well as the most common, error…
- Trying to Do It Yourself
Mastering Google Ads can be a lot of fun, but it won’t come cheap. You will literally have to pay the price for any blunders that you make.
Consider the process of establishing your campaigns, adverts, and keywords. You put in a lot of effort, and the results seem fantastic.
You shell out twenty dollars each day, but after a week or so, you still haven’t received any leads despite your investment. Then, as you are searching, you find that your advertisement is heading to a page that no longer exists.
You were paying for all of these clicks even though they were going to a page that didn’t exist. Isn’t that a shame?
Or, you are aware that you need to update your advertisements but you simply cannot find the time to do so. As a result, the next thing you know, you are still running an advertisement for Black Friday throughout the holiday season.
Learning Google Ads on your own may not be the best course of action. You will see greater results by speaking with a professional who manages projects like these on a regular basis and has the time to successfully manage the efforts.
Do not learn Google Ads the hard way by making mistakes that are easily corrected and causing you to lose all of your money in the process.
Author’s Bio:
Paul Meñez was a freelance interior designer turned graphic artist and audio-video editor. He went into full-time NGO work for more than ten years and found his passion for outreach work, specifically for underprivileged children and youth.
He has travelled around the Philippines and Asia on different outreach efforts, even with his wife and three kids. He is currently based in the Philippines, doing freelance graphic design and video editing while writing for Softvire. He is also preparing to jumpstart his organic farm on his hometown island soon.
