Common PPC Pitfalls
Account Executive
For advertisers inexperienced in managing pay-per-click campaigns, there are some common pitfalls that could render your efforts ineffective. Inexperience generally leads to wasted budgets due to lack of understanding of the target market, PPC networks available, insufficient keyword research and an assumption that PPC does not need to be scrutinised in the same way that offline marketing is. In fact, this is what makes PPC so effective.
The problem is very often exacerbated by a lack of specific, clearly defined goals. It’s imperative to the success of any PPC campaign to clearly identify exactly what your PPC objectives are. Are you interested in improving traffic volumes? Do you want to increase online sales? Perhaps you want to boost newsletter subscriptions? Or drive potential leads offline (via specific unique phone number, contact us form)?
Whatever the objectives, they must be clearly stated so that the campaign can be measured against these specific goals. Once this occurs conversion tracking can be set in motion to identify those keyterms and the networks that are working for your business. And even more importantly, identify those terms/networks that are not working. This will enable you to allocate your PPC budget more wisely.
Another common pitfall is insufficient keyword research. In depth research is crucial to the success of any PPC campaign. You must identify the terms that are relevant and in demand for your target market. However beware that many keyterms with the highest search volumes tend to be rather generic terms that very often don’t convert to sale. In addition generic terms tend to be very expensive and beyond most marketers’ budgets. Therefore it’s essential to incorporate more specific, niched terms that are more relevant to your business into every PPC campaign. Don’t just rely on one keyword research tool—there are many out there, (including our very own, Keyword Research Tool). Also see what your competition is doing—what terms are they bidding on, what networks are they using?
Lastly, it’s imperative to use the learning garnered from the reports to update and modify your campaigns. Remove the terms/networks that are not working, research and identify additional terms to include, investigate new networks. This will streamline your strategy and improve ROI.
In essence, PPC is a very effective strategy for driving pre-qualified, highly targeted visitors and potential customers to a website. And once you avoid a few common pitfalls, PPC can be as big (or as small) and successful as your marketing budget allows.
