Being human comes with making mistakes, it’s a rule of the trade. But the best part about mistake-making, is learning from them. We thought we’d share some inspired PPC mistakes we’ve seen (and, yes, made) through the years, so you don’t do the same.
Here’s the mistakes to steer clear from so you can keep your PPC campaign in good form:
Check Your Targeting
Nothing says amateur like hitting up the wrong audience at the wrong time. Even if you’ve had a successful PPC campaign in the past, with the same audience targeting you’re currently using, you’ll want to check the analytics, know the data, and adjust as necessary.
Your campaign objective this time ‘round, may be significantly different than what you’ve wanted in the past. While it’s great to know how your campaigns have faired and that info can give you valuable insight into future success stories, your target may need an update.
If you select “target and bid” (not “bid only”) in your options, you can touch base with those past users that are on your retargeting list without wasting money on users that aren’t a good match for you.
Also, make sure to exclude users you don’t want to connect with. If this isn’t set up correctly, you run the risk of blasting through your budget without the results you want to see.
Make sure to stay on-point with your targeting and look through (and understand) all the options so you have the knowledge to set yourself up the best way possible. And don’t forget to monitor your results.
Use the Best Keywords
Keywords are a big deal in your PPC campaign—one of the biggest. So do it right. Once you’ve figured out the keywords you want to use, are you evaluating your strategy after the fact?
Knowing your data is a necessary part of your campaign, if you’re not digging into the data, you’re only working it half-way and you’re not going to see the results—that’s a big waste of time, energy, and money.
Pay attention to broad keywords, long-tail keywords (words extremely specific to what you’re selling/offering), and don’t underestimate the importance of setting up your negative keywords (this will filter through those keywords you don’t need as part of your campaign). Working all of these into your strategy will improve click-throughs by customers who want to buy.
Also, you have your own branded keywords, make sure you’re bidding on those. Why? Because your competition probably is. So when someone types in your words specifically, they may see your competitor pop up, too.
And, yes, you’ll want to bid on their branded keywords, as well.
Stay Concise and Consistent
Once you’ve created your very pleasing and click-worthy ad, you’ll want to make sure you have a very compatible landing page for, well, landing.
Check your design, content/copy, goal, and persona to make sure the ad and landing page match. If your PPC ads are your body, the landing pages are the arms and legs—they gotta go together.
You don’t want your ad to go to your home page. It doesn’t create the best user experience. Create a page dedicated to what your ad is offering with clear calls-to-action. So, say your ad is offering a course on PPC, when the user clicks that ad, they should be taken to a page that clearly talks about the course and gives a quick and easy way to get to the sign-up section.
And of course you’re well aware that over 50% of your customers are looking at your ad (and clicking on it) from their mobile device, so your landing page needs to optimized for that.
Being sure your users are getting the information you’ve promised them in your ad, while staying consistent to the ads overall theme, will alleviate any customer confusion, give you credibility, and keep you in good standing on the SERPs too.
And That’s How It’s Done
These little tricks are easy to follow, but easy to overlook. Staying on top of the management of your PPC campaign will give you better results in your ROI, so optimize and gather the metrics.
If you want help with what to do (or not to do) for a successful PPC campaign, get in touch. It’s what we do.
