Pay-per-click (PPC) mistakes to avoid

While PPC is refreshingly simple, it’s a double-edged sword. Because of it’s easy-to-implement nature, it is also easy for you to make mistakes that could cost a lot of money.

I have seen businesses waste thousands of dollars on PPC because they didn’t completely know what they were doing.

Launching a PPC campaign is the easy part. Making sure it is working properly; that’s an entirely different story.

Nevertheless, in this article, I will point out many mistakes — some obvious, others nuanced — you need to avoid to prevent your business from losing money.

But first, one of the biggest PPC mistakes that marketers, businesses, and brands make is this.

Setting and forgetting your keyword bids and not doing the math on each click. There’s a reason why it’s called pay-per-click. That’s because whenever your ad is clicked, you pay for that click.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, for the unfamiliar, is a valuable form of digital marketing where businesses pay a fee whenever one of their ads gets clicked.

It’s an excellent way to promote a brand, product or service. Additionally it’s ideal for brand new websites that attract little non-paid traffic.

PPC is an extremely simple concept

You create a series of ads — text or images — and link them to particular keywords, phrases, interest or behavior.

When a user searches those keywords, phrases or topics, your ads get displayed according to a set of targets including relevancy, interest and the price you are willing to pay or ‘bid’ for.

While there are many forms of PPC marketing, search engines like Google commands the largest market share and have increased the number of ways you can utilize PPC marketing in their ecosystem.

There are more advanced ways to manage a PPC marketing campaign. In this article, I will focus on mistakes to avoid.

But a general rule of thumb, the higher the quality of your ads, the less you’ll pay for each click.

 1. Using too many keywords in a single ad group

Too many keywords in your ad group raises several issues.

Even Google recommends you keep your keywords to 20 per ad group to maintain high ad quality and landing page relevance.

First, it makes your ad group difficult to manage. Second, it could diminish your ad’s relevance. Third, your ad groups theme won’t be precise. Last but not least, you can always add new keywords over time as you collect keyword performance data.

2. Not including product images

E-commerce shopping ads that have low quality images or missing images will not attract customers and not get the clicks you want.

Seeing what you’re buying provides a strong visual cue. That explains why your ad agency always asks for high quality product images.

Since we just adopted “Blue” a few weeks ago, we’ve been searching obsessively for dog toys by KONG. Supposedly it’s a popular dog toy brand. As a matter of fact, almost every dog owner friend we know have at least one Kong product — we can’t go wrong!

Searching for “dog toys kong” returns product images in Google’s shopping ad.

Chewy.com dominates the shopping ad results; that’s because they’ve optimized their product feed and mastered their shopping campaign. I digress.

My point is the product images of cute dog toys pulls you in. It makes you click on the product images. A high quality and relevant product image is akin to a relevant ad copy that gets you to click to the website.

Subsequently, customers are more likely to make the purchase.

3. Forgetting to set up remarketing audiences and campaigns

Getting a lot of clicks to your website is only worthwhile if they are the right visitors. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your marketing dollars. And we don’t want that to happen.

With remarketing, you can reconnect with web visitors who have demonstrated a certain behavior and shown interest in your products.

You do this by creating remarketing audiences that you can advertise to. These are people who have already visited your website and know about your products.

In Google Ads PPC campaigns, there are several ways you can retarget / remarket to your past visitors.

Additionally, remarketing campaigns can also be launched in social networks like Facebook.

Both these platforms allow you to retarget and advertise to web visitors who have already been to your site but not yet made a purchase.

4. Spelling mistakes in your ads

Let’s face it. Customers are unreasonable and demanding. They expect only the best from you.

The same goes for the spelling in your ad copy. As a matter of fact, your customers’ experience begins with your ad text. That’s usually the first thing they see before deciding to click to your website or not.

It’s not nitpicking if you’re combing through every single word of your ad copy.

Make sure your ad is well-written and that your spelling, grammar and language are all accurate and adhere to the PPC rules.

Letting misspellings slide compromises the integrity of your brand.

5. Thinking that more clicks are better

This is not uncommon. In spite of the countless advertising guides and expert advice available, marketers continue to want more clicks. And some are willing to spend a lot of money to get those clicks.

Instead, focus on what matters more. You’re business can only thrive if you increase sales. Right? Indeed.

Not all clicks are equal.

Against my recommendation, a law firm client of ours decided to increase their budget and adjust bids — driving more clicks to their website. After spending $5,000 extra, there was not substantial increase in leads generated.

Another mistake is adding new keywords without proper research can lead to a boost in clicks without any real conversions.

It should be noted that while getting more clicks is desirable, make sure the clicks are from relevant traffic.

Wrapping it up

PPC advertising is now an integral part and must-have for digital marketing strategies, for any business or striking out as an entrepreneur. With expert management and optimization, it can help increase your conversion rates and lower the cost of customer acquisition.

Setting up and managing a campaign can be complex. However, when done properly PPC can efficiently generate traffic and maximize online advertising.

Otherwise you will run the risk of your PPC campaigns exhausting your marketing budget.

Above all, consistent campaign modification, bid updates, and keyword management are vital to generate targeted traffic and customer interest.