Avoid Common Pay-Per-Click Mistakes
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most common yet misunderstood marketing techniques. The way PPC works is that people who want their products displayed in the banner advertisements or search result pages of Facebook, Google, or any other famous site would need to specify how much they’re willing to pay for each person that clicks their ads.
There are 2 kinds of Google Ads campaigns: 1) Those that spend money and 2) Those that make money. Which kind of account do you want?
Because there are plenty of people who want their products displayed, advertisement duration and space will depend on people’s bids.
The way PPC works sounds deceptively simple: bid the highest amount you can pay for each visitor that clicks through your ads and watch sales skyrocket. Unfortunately, a lot of beginners make the assumption that visitors readily click anything displayed in advertisements; they don’t put in much thought into the keywords used or the message given to the visitors. That being said, this guide will tell you how to make the most out of PPC by avoiding the most common mistakes that novice marketers and advertisers make:
1. Hogging Irrelevant Traffic
While at a glance, it might seem that an increase in site traffic is always a good thing, you’d also have to consider the fact that you’re paying for every visitor you get from PPC ads. That being said, you’ll want to avoid attracting the “wrong visitors,” which, in this context, means people who are looking for something you don’t offer but were misled into going to your site with your ads. A good way to prevent this is by avoiding setting keywords as broad match, which would allow your ads to be displayed with variations of your chosen keywords. Focus not just on attracting more people, but on attracting the right people.
2. Creating Generic Ad Placements
Some PPC ads are placed in search query results while some are placed in banners in certain sites. While it might seem logical to place the same advertisement materials used in the ones that appear in search query results and ones that appear in ad banners, doing this can direct irrelevant traffic to your site. It’s always a good idea to customize your ads for each placement you get.
3. Disregarding Negative Keywords
Negative keywords help prevent your ads from appearing in places that will most likely not have your potential customers. If you do not use negative keywords, chances are, if a certain phrase contains your keywords but has no connection to your product, visitors could accidentally click your ad and promptly leave once they discover that you do not have what they’re looking for.
4. Going Too Big
A huge reason why some products are marketed as being made only for men or women, children or adults, etc., is because people prefer buying products that seem to be made specifically for them. That being said, you’ll want to target your PPC campaign, like the place or time of day in which it appears. This will help you save more money, as your ads will be shown only to people who are potential customers.
4. Not Experimenting
Advertising involves a lot of experimentation; you have to learn to adapt and adjust your ads to accommodate what your buyers want and need. That being said, you’ll want to create different types of ads and see which ones attract the most relevant visitors. It takes a bit of work to do properly, but this will ensure that all your efforts in PPC advertising won’t go to waste just because your ad isn’t effective.
5. Setting and Forgetting
A lot of people think that PPC advertising is a set-and-forget type of campaign, but the problem with this assumption is that you aren’t even really sure that the additional site traffic you get actually makes you money. By tracking which ads clicked resulted in sales and which ones didn’t, you can fine-tune your keywords and ad placement and design.