It's really surprising that so many web businesses fail at their PPC campaigns. The fact is, far too many websites end up spending too much because they don't manage their campaign effectively or because they don't convert enough from their landing page. If the problem is in the landing page, perhaps the campaign should be paused for a while to fix the page. Because while the problems are being fixed, you can at least reduce costs. And if the problem is in the campaign itself, then there are many things that can be done to fix the errors.
Here are some common PPC mistakes you should avoid.
Not choosing the right keywords Keyword research is critical to effective PPC management. There are far too many businesses that choose generic terms. Instead, you need to be specific in PPC. In other words, try to be as specific as possible. If you're a financial planner and you only offer your services in New York, there's no point in getting visitors from Seattle or Texas. Advertise only in New York and choose keywords that relate to the city, such as financial planner New York, financial planning NY, financial services New York and others. You can use Google's keyword tool to find the keywords you want to advertise for.
Getting people to visit the homepage This is another common mistake that many advertisers make. If you offer different products or services, you should always lead the person to the specific page and not to the homepage. For example, let's say you are a lead generation website that collects visitor information on auto insurance, life insurance, fire insurance, and accident insurance. There will certainly be different pages on your website for these four types of insurance. So when someone clicks on your ad for one of the keywords "auto insurance," have them visit the "auto insurance" page. This will almost always result in a better conversion, as the person won't have to search for car insurance on the page, and the number of clicks will also be lower.
No Different Ad Groups There is no limit to the number of ad groups you can have in your campaign, but there are those who do not have many. This is a misconception. You should divide your keywords into different types and create separate groups for them. This way you can customize your copy. For example, you should have at least 4 ad groups for the 4 types of insurance - auto, fire, life and insurance. The "auto insurance" group should only contain keywords related to it. Write an ad copy specifically for auto insurance. This way, the person searching in the search engine will see the keyword "auto" in the ad and the corresponding text in the copy. This is a much better approach than having all types of keywords in one place.
Don't be exclusive. Try to be as unique as possible when writing your ad copy. But most advertisers are way too generic. Try to come up with something that makes your product or service stand out. Maybe it costs less than your competitors' products or services, maybe it works longer, or maybe you offer lots of bonuses with your product. Determine what your USP is and market that.
Effective PPC management is actually not such a difficult task. You just need to make sure you don't make the most common mistakes, that you're doing the right things, and that you're keeping it in perspective. And over time and with a few adjustments, PPC can bring you great success.
