Common Pay-Per_Click (PPC) Mistakes that will cost you money

There are common mistakes that many companies make that are hindering their ROI!
Here are some simple and overlooked holes in many pay per click campaigns. In no particular order

MISTAKE #1: NOT LISTING NEGATIVE KEYWORDS

It’s important to understand the difference between “Keywords” and “Search Terms.”

What are keywords? Keywords are words or collection of words that you can target within Google Ads.
But how often do you just type in a single word to search? Not too often, unless you are prepared to get a lot of unrelated results.

Most searchers use multiple words or phrases, otherwise known as  “long tail” keywords.
For example, you might bid on “Red Wines” for your web store or cellar.
You'd think that would be the perfect keyword to bid, right? After all you 'sell' Australian Red Wines
The problem is that a searcher would more likely be searching for something like " Red Barrossa Valley Wines " or "Australian Red Shiraz" or even more common “Where can I get great red wines to drink?”

When you set up a campaign, its important to also research irrelevant keywords and add them to a negative keyword list before activating your campaign.
Negative keywords will tell Google which searches you don’t want to your ads to show for. This will definitely save you money from false clicks or bounces.
There are many free keyword research tools and one of our favourite for researching long tail phrases is answer the public!
This is a crucial optimisation step for any campaign to ensure relevancy and cost-effectiveness!

MISTAKE #2: POOR OR NO LANDING PAGES

Where do people go after they click?

Do you send them straight to your home page? Is that what they expect?
For example;  if your Ad copy has a BUY NOW cta (Call to Action) would you send the click to your ABOUT US Page?
Wouldn't it make more sense to send them to a PRODUCTS page, right?

A Landing page should be a purpose built page that can include;

• Should be focused on the end goal
• Should display Products if it CTA calls for the user to purchase
• Shouldnt have too many distractions and focusses on the intended action
• Essentially  matches exactly what the user expected from the ad

Mistake #3: Letting your campaign fly free

Setting up campaigns takes a lot of time and effort – from ad copy,  keyword research, to landing pages, reporting and more.
This, of course, is just the start. It is important to set a rinse and repeat process of review and optimise.

Some important areas for all campaigns to focus on once your ads go live include:

Monitoring your ads on a Daily basis:
Check your campaigns daily and be aware of any issues such as:

• Irrelevent Search Terms
• Low performing Keywords
• Low converting campaigns
• Low Clich trough rates (CTR)
• Large increases in CPC (Cost Per Click)
• Spikes in clicks

Spikes in clicks may indicate a major problem and mark a 'money pit' - which is where clicks and campaign funds are wasted

Split Testing Peformance:

You’ll want to take a multi-stage approach to campaign optimization, including:

• A/B Testing ad copy to optimise your ads
• researching and re-applying negative keywords rules to adgroups
• Split converting keywords into their own adgroups to increase CTR

A weekly time frame is enough for this once the campaign is running as expected without major issues

Expanding your Reach:

With extended campaigns (3 - 6 months) make monthly reviews and expand on your research. This would most likely be budget locked and would occur quicker and more often with bigger budgets..

Over optimising or optimising prematurely can be detrimental to your campaigns but you definitely don't want to spend you money on non-performing Ads.

When expanding your reach, consider the following actions:

• Expanding your keywords
• Experiment with different bidding strategies and campaign types.
• Set up new campaigns based on performance

Mistake #3: Not Using The Search Term Report

The search term report helps you identify search terms or phrases that are using up your budget. These are the actual things people are entering into the search bar and that are triggering your ad to be shown.

Basically the search term report  shows all the queries people are using to search for when they click your ads. This report can also show you what 'negative keywords' you should be implementing because they don't suit your campaign. The  report will also give you ideas on how to better understand  what copy to use in your ads,  how to create better landing pages, help better identify your  key or secondary audience,  and what  keywords would work the best to serve more appropriate ads.

MISTAKE #4: USING TOO MANY KEYWORDS PER AD GROUP

When you use too many keywords per ad group, your ads can’t be specific enough to get a good click-through rate.

For instance, let’s go back to the blue widget example.

If you were to pack a bunch of blue widget related keywords into one adgroup, all these seraches would be targeted with the same set of ads:

• blue widgets reviews
• high-quality blue widgets
• big blue widgets
• small blue widgets
• durable blue widgets

Instead, you would want to break these up into different groups and create new ad copy for each.

By doing this, you can match the searcher intent to the right ad, then get them to the right landing page.

Mistake #5: ALWAYS CHOOSING AUTOMATED Bidding Strategies

Most marketing noobs use the automated Bid strategy when setting up their campaigns. The problem is that this is probably far from the ideal bidding strategy for your type of campaign or company target.
This includes giving Google the green light to Bid whatever it feels like for your keyword or phrase. 
You should always look at maintaining as much control as possible of your budget and an automated Bidding strategy is one sure way to lose control of your cost! 
Although it will take a little more time to set the right bidding strategy, it is worthwhile for the money that you will save on making the right choice.

Conclusion

Pay Per Click Campaigns can create a lot of traffic to your site, but if not done correctly you will find yourself spending a big chunk of your budget on the wrong type of traffic. 
Always research and adjust both your positive key phrases and Negative Keywords to optimise your spend.
Make sure that you review your campaigns constantly and look out for money pits that waste more and bring down your ROI.

Still one of the best and most affordable strategies is to List your Business in a Business directory just like ours. Get listed today and start growing your business