Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a complex search engine digital marketing practice. It offers a significant possibility for businesses to grow their traffic and conversion metrics. However, without a smart strategy and careful tactics, pay-per-click can cause major problems. Here, we are focusing on the most common mistakes made while running a PPC campaign.
But, before we dive into scrutinizing the most common PPC mistakes marketers make, let’s glance through the quick facts about PPC;
- Generally, PPC traffic converts have higher conversions than organic traffic
- People click on ads to authenticate before making a purchase
- Higher CTR (Click-Through-Rate) means lower CPC (Cost-Per-Click)
- The top 3 paid ad spots get the highest clicks on page
- Negative keywords are essential
Briefly, PPC ads are a vital element to advertise your business on search engines. The ads will not only drive more traffic but relatively improve conversion. Hence, it is advisable that you should not encounter any mistakes while strategizing paid search engine marketing.
Now, let’s explore the five most common mistakes that marketers make.
#1. Unappealing content
When creating content for your PPC ad, you should focus on attracting users to notice your ad and then click on it.
Writing compelling PPC ads is challenging because you have to work with limited space with limited attention spans. You are also resisting the mental phenomenon of banner blindness. Many search engine users have taught themselves to disregard all except the most attention-grabbing ads.
So, if your ad copy has good writing, it is likely that users will notice and click on it to find more details. For that, you need to focus on the main elements, including;
- Understand and approach your ideal customer’s prime needs/wants
- Choose the right words while writing the copy; create precise and concise ad copy
- Including facts and figures will be a plus as it provides social proof
#2. Keyword stuffing
This is one of the common mistakes marketers make. You might be trying to focus on the keywords, but too many keywords focused ad copies often result in keyword stuffing, which does not impact users as it should be.
Don’t get into attraction and simply stuff a bunch of keywords or short phrases for your ad copy. Instead, use actual words and sentences that will catch the searchers’ attention. Certainly, you might not comprehend all that you want into the exception, but that’s why you should place multiple ads per ad group. You should run them all against each other and find which ads work best.
#3. Not leveraging extensions
Ad extensions are optional, but you should definitely incorporate those in the PPC ads if you want more exposure and CTR. Ad extensions are additional snippets of details that you can include with your primary ad copy. This information helps search engines (i.e., Google, Bing) understand your ads to be presented to the right users.
Many businesses make the mistake of ignoring or not adding ad extensions to their PPC campaign. But, you should always include ad extensions because they;
- Increase your ad’s visibility, and CTR
- Extend the reach of your ad.
- Offer multiple ways to connect with your business.
#4. Overlooking geo-targeting
Geographic targeting allows you to clarify your ads to only a specific geographic area. This is notably beneficial for small businesses that only want to drive customers within a particular radius of their brick-and-mortar location. It is also advantageous for global corporations that want to funnel their budget into a specific country.
When you overlook geo-targeting, you can squander a lot of money and damage your quality score by dispensing up for searchers on the other side of the world. You can also involuntarily drive up the cost of some keywords. In short, never make the mistake of ignoring geo-targeting while running a PPC campaign for your business. Have a look at
some important points while running a location-specific PPC campaign;
- Use terms that only local knows
- Exclude locations where your potential consumers’ will not be
- Enable extensions in the ads (mentioned earlier).
#5. Missing a CTA
CTAs (Call To Action) is essential while running a PPC campaign. Adding a call to action in your ad copy informs the user what you want them to do next. On a general note, users started their query because they required something. Each searched query has a distinct intent behind it.
When you can produce high-quality, appealing ad copy that solves their problem AND has a CTA that matches their intent, the CTR and conversions improve drastically.
Calls to action are not rocket science. Those are the simple but actionable phrases that drive users to take action, for example, Reserve your spot, Read more, Contact us, Call us, Free trial, Sign up, etc.
In a nutshell, while running a PPC campaign for your business, you shouldn’t make the common mistakes others are making. Surely, you want to advertise your business to generate qualified leads, so avoid the common mistakes and make your PPC campaign as successful as you have planned. If you want to run a successful PPC campaign for your business, PeddleWeb is at your services. As a PPC management company, we have served many clients with successful PPC ad campaign services. Let’s collaborate to craft the paid search engine marketing strategies that help you to grow your business.