Clutch
G2
The whole point of PPC (pay per click) advertising is to get people to your website and then get them to buy, book or sign up. Done well, a PPC strategy cuts through the noise and brings more attention to your event, service or product. That is when everything goes right.
The scary reality is that many PPC accounts quietly waste money because something has gone frighteningly wrong. Every Halloween we think of ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night. These PPC mistakes are just as chilling, and they keep some marketers awake at night.
Search partners can be a trick instead of a treat
When you create a Google Ads search campaign, the default settings may include Google’s search partner network. These are other sites that show Google search ads, beyond Google Search itself. This applies to search text ads, not to display banners. Your campaign may gain extra reach, but the traffic can be lower quality, and it can raise your cost per conversion.
Check your network report to see how search partners perform compared with Google Search. If they do not convert at an acceptable cost, switch them off for that campaign. Do you want a trick or a treat from your marketing budget?
The landing page that leads nowhere
Where does the traffic from your PPC ads land? When people click an ad that interests them, they expect to arrive on a page that matches it. If they land on a generic homepage with no clear call to action and no direct link to the product or service they clicked on, they wander off like zombies.
Offer a clear path to conversion with landing pages tailored to your keywords. Each page should repeat the promise of the ad, give the key facts and make the next step obvious, whether that is a phone call, a form or a purchase.
Walking dead ad copy bores people to death
Copy should grab attention, not put readers to sleep. Responsive search ads let you supply many headlines and descriptions, but filling them with near-identical keyword phrases leads to lifeless, brainless ad writing. Write headlines that offer something different: a benefit, a proof point, a special offer or a strong call to action. Highlight current promotions. Give people a reason to choose you over the next ad.
Dead keywords keep draining the budget
You spent hours building the perfect campaign. Hitting launch felt great. But when did you last check the account? Last month? Last week? If you set it up and forgot about it, old keywords and search terms may be eating your budget without producing results.
Your account needs a positive return on ad spend. Go through your keywords and search terms regularly. Pause terms that spend without converting, add negative keywords for irrelevant searches and review low quality score keywords. Put a wooden stake through anything that does not earn its place.
Ignoring mobile slowly kills a campaign
Most searches now happen on phones, so a campaign that ignores mobile will be slowly and painfully starved of leads. Use this checklist to make sure mobile searchers can find and contact you:
- Call assets: Add your phone number to your ads so mobile users can call with one tap. For businesses that rely on phone calls, call tracking shows which ads and keywords bring them.
- Device bid adjustments: Review performance by device in your campaign reports and adjust bids up or down where mobile converts better or worse.
- Mobile landing pages: Make sure pages load fast, forms are short and buttons are easy to tap. A beautiful desktop page that fails on a phone wastes the click.
Flying blind without conversion tracking
Perhaps the scariest mistake of all is spending money without knowing what it produces. Without accurate conversion tracking, you cannot tell which keywords and ads bring customers, and modern automated bidding has nothing to learn from. Track form submissions, calls and purchases, and set values where you can. If your tracking is wrong, automation will optimize toward the wrong goal.
Haunted paid search accounts need a rescue
In the digital realm, the monsters you see in horror movies have real counterparts. They wait in the shadows for the right time to strike: wasted spend, broken tracking, mismatched landing pages and neglected campaigns. If your paid search account looks like something out of a Stephen King novel, you do not have to face it alone.
Protect yourself from PPC frights and chills
Do not let these mistakes scare you away from a valuable advertising channel. With the right marketing agency, one that uses proven PPC practices to grow your business, you can increase sales, reduce wasted spend and make the most of your data. Avoid the pitfalls of deadly PPC fails with the experienced PPC management team at SmartSites.
“We've been working with SmartSites to help grow our digital marketing efforts, and the experience has been very positive. Their team has been professional, responsive, and easy to work with throughout the process.”
David GrantGot Security Screens LLC
