Mistakes of Pay Per Click Advertising: The Terrible 10
Saturday, July 5th, 2008Vigilance, micromanaging and attention to detail can help you avoid some common and costly mistakes of PPC advertising. What are those mistakes? Here are the terrible 10 that are typical to most pay per click campaigns.
Too Many Keywords Per Ad Group
Creating relevant, targeted ads are important. Avoid placing all your keywords into a couple massive ad groups. Build them tighter. With tight ad groups you can control more of your ad customization to increase relevancy.
Ignoring Negative Keywords
Pay per click advertising has placed more importance than ever on click through rates and quality scores. It is vital to fine tune your impressions by getting rid of the non-relevant phrases that are lowering those CTRs. If you are selling an item such as “software for widgets” then be certain you also have those negative keywords like “-free” if you don’t have a free trial version. One way to find irrelevant keywords that are costing you is to check your log files of your site.
Not Doing Enough Testing
Split-testing your ads is critical. Even the smallest of changes can boost results. In addition to testing your ad copy’s “call to action” or value statements, every ad has multiple variables to test. The titles, the two lines of copy, and display url all can be optimized. If you don’t have time for hands-on testing, a good professional pay per click management company can run daily split testing for you. You’d be surprised how well this can pay off.
Poor or Non-Existent Tracking
If you do get into testing ads and fine-tuning your keyword lists, it’s only as effective as your tracking. Any PPC search engine will give you your ad spends and click through rates, but what about the bottom-line success? Knowing that you made $14,000 off of a $7,000 ad spend is fine, but if you dig deeper with your tracking you might be able to make that same $14,000 with only $6,000 a month in spend. That savings ads up.
Not Getting Keyword-Level Tracking
Good analytics or a good pay per click management company will get your data down to the keyword level. Why pay for keywords that are not performing? That money could be better spent on keywords that are doing well or on other marketing expenses. If one keyword has an earning per click of 45 cents and another keyword has an earning per click of $1.45, you need to know. You can lower the bid on one and raise the bid on the other to drive more profits. If you aren’t doing this, you likely have under-performing keywords that are leaking your account daily.
Keywords That Are Too Generic
Negative keywords may 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 may often be at a very early stage in the purchase 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.
Avoiding the Dirty Work of Building Long-Tail Keywords
This dovetails into the previous item. Building out lists and ads for long-tail keywords can be a time-consuming process, but worthwhile if done right. You are going to have different earnings per click for the keywords “dvd player,” “sony dvd player” and “sony dvd player model DVP-NS57P/B.” One consumer is doing research, while the other is likely pricing for the specific model they want and is ready to buy.
Not Separating Content and Search Networks
You can get stung by poor quality traffic or click fraud if you do not separate your content network advertising from your search network advertising. If you don’t understand those above items, there is a good probability that you are not separating the two in your accounts right now … and you are very likely losing money. A better solution is to build separate campaigns for each and … track with precise analytics the results from each network. Again, not knowing is probably costing you now.
Failing to Geo-Target if You’re Local
If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines allow 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 Continually Monitoring Your Campaigns
Alright, so maybe you do not frequently monitor your EPCs at the keyword level (you should). And, you don’t conduct split tests every day your ads are up (you should). It is still surprising that there are a high number of pay per click advertisers who don’t continually monitor their accounts. The big three PPC engines are cracking down on poor performing ads more than ever. Many advertisers are getting stung with the “Inactive for Search” label on their keywords. If you don’t monitor your accounts, Google, Yahoo and MSN may have plucked some of your keywords off their networks. And, with that, some of your profits.
The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to consider, 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 huge impact on your bottom line.






