18 Pay Per Click Mistakes That Are Costing You Big Time

Pay Per Click Marketing is one of the most cost effective methods of increasing sales, traffic and leads that come your way. As you only end up paying for clicks your advertisements receive, it can be much more cost effective than another method, like paying thousands for a roadside billboard ad, which while may be viewed by thousands of people, there’s little control about who actually sees it and no insight to if they take an action as a result of seeing your ad.

If you’re advertising on Adwords, you’re probably making mistakes today that are costing you money. Whether it’s a matter of overspending on Ads that don’t actually lead to the results you’re aiming for, or great ads that don’t get shown to your target market, your business will be losing out if you don’t get PPC right. There is no shortage to your target market who are out there searching for you and ready to spend, it’s a matter of reaching them at a cost that’s highly profitable to your business. We’ve covered 18 of these mistakes that you’ll want to avoid at all costs.

If you’re making any of these mistakes, you’re also draining your marketing budget, big time.

Mistake Number 1. Keeping your Ad Groups large and broad

If your Ad Groups are broad and generalised in an attempt to appeal to more people, you’re going to end up wasting money, as you’ll be reaching people who aren’t in your target audience.

Let’s say we set up an ad campaign for Megaphone Marketing where we targeted keywords for SEO and PPC, marketing us as the best digital agency around. These keyword phrases are far too broad to be effective. Instead, the way we should go about this is to create two separate Groups – one for Pay Per Click and one for SEO. Each would link to a specific landing page with a call-to-action that’s an ‘instant yes’ for people searching for the keywords our Groups are targeting.

We could then take this one step further. We might create an Ad Group targeting SEO for Dentists, for example, leading to a landing page specifically for Dentists wanting to research SEO techniques for their clinic. Grouping keywords by theme is effective PPC 101. These themes can then be organised into sub-groups, which will maximise your quality score and minimise unnecessary spending.

Mistake Number 2. Not Using Ad Extensions

Ad extensions can include location, product apps, review or social. It’s rare that businesses using PPC take full advantage of Ad Extensions, even though Google claims that using sitelinks can improve CTR by up to 30%. The Ad Extension you should choose is largely dependent on what type of business you are. If you’re an e-tailer with no shopfront, you’d benefit most from product and sitelink extensions, rather than an ice cream shop with a shopfront, who’d benefit best from a call or location extension, so people can easy find you.

Ad extensions have another benefit of bulking up your ad visibly, especially when you have one of the top 2 positions. The more extensions you have, the more screen estate your ad will take up, making it more eye catching. Another nifty ad extension is callouts. These allow you to add in a couple of extra dot-points about your business. This is a really good place to add in pointers that build trust – ‘free shipping’, ‘easy return policy’ or ’30 years of experience’.

Mistake Number 3. Skipping the Research

If you’re skipping past the research stage, you’re going in blind and probably paying for it, too. Researching your competition is a commonly missed step. Our favourite tools are Keyword Spy and SEMrush. With both of these, you can see what methods your competitors are using and the effectiveness of their Ads and not make the same mistakes they are.

SEMRush will also help you see what type of keywords your competitors are after, approximately how much they’re bidding on a keyword, when they ran certain ads, what their ads said, and their approximate click-through-rate. This should give you a good idea how much your budget should be, and whether there’s any gaps (i.e. long tail keywords your competitors have neglected) you can wedge yourself into.

Using both these tools should help you map out your expectations heading into the campaign.

Google’s own built-in Keyword tool is also a great way to also look up approximate bids on certain keywords. When you type in your service or product, it’ll show you what kind of keywords you might be interested in using in your campaign, as well as the overall search volume, bids and competition.

Mistake Number 4. Forgetting to Link your Landing Page, Text and Keywords

It seems straightforward but the amount of times we’ve seen brands missing this vital step is crazy. The text and keywords in your Ad need to feature on your landing page too – this is Pay-Per-Click basics. Google wants to provide its users with a highly relevant and quality experience and making sure everything is nicely linked up and synched is the way to get there.

Our clients Newly have done this well, with their Google Ad and Landing Page.

Another thing that’s often overlooked is the SEO page title. Especially when you’re using a landing page builder like Instapage or Unbounce, it’s easy to not bother with the SEO page title, because you figure your landing page isn’t going to rank anyway. However, changing the titles and meta description actually should give your quality score a little bump up, so make sure you put that on your to-do list when building your landing pages

Mistake Number 5. Making your Landing Page your Home Page

A Landing Page and a Home Page are two completely separate things. A Landing Page points to a specific call-to-action that you want visitors to take and usually removes most other functions viewers could click away to – such as other sections of your website.

A home page is just that – your brand’s home. While an effective home page will also contain a call to action, it also should include links to your services, about page, contact page and blog. While you definitely want new visitors to read these things, you don’t want to be paying a premium for them to do so. If you’re running an Ad for a certain product you’re selling on your online store but your Ad links to your home page, the person who clicked on your Ad is going to struggle to find the product that initially sparked their interest, and will most likely click away from your website and look elsewhere. In this, an engaged and interested visitor is being forced to work for the information they clicked to get instant access to.

After a reader has submitted the form on your Landing Page, an option is to redirect them to your home page, or a ‘thank you page’ which includes links to highly valuable content, such as blog articles or testimonials, so they stay on your site.

A landing page’s experience & relevancy is one of the 3 big factors when it comes to calculating your quality score. Ideally, you should have a different landing page for each ad group to make sure you’re maximising your chances. It’s good for your quality score, it’s good for your user experience, and it’ll better your chances of generating good leads.

Newly’s Home Page, VS. Newly’s Landing Page.

VS:

Mistake Number 6: Forgetting About Negative Keywords

Just like you can add keywords for which you want your ads to show, you can negative out keywords you don’t want your ads to show up for. When you first start your campaign, you’re given a chance to add in negative keywords. Using Google Keyword Planner (and a bit of your own brain storming), you could get an idea of what words Google might think are relevant to you, or your ads might show for, but actually aren’t. These are the words you would want to negative out from the get-go.

From then on, it’s a matter of monitoring. Google Adwords allows you to see the exact search terms people used before clicking on your ads. Keeping an eye on them and negativing out the irrelevant words, ensuring the wrong people aren’t clicking on your ad will keep your campaign’s cost down. Ideally, highly targeted keywords and using the right keyword match modifiers will help keep down the number of irrelevant search terms you get, but some will inevitably slip through, so it’ll be up to you to keep cleaning them up (think of it like picking out the weeds in your garden!)

When working on Newly’s campaign, we got rid of ‘Chauffeur jobs’ because that isn’t relevant to aged care and personal carer jobs that apply to Newly’s services. If Newly’s ads were being shown to people searching for Chauffeur jobs, that’s a complete waste of our client’s money and also would affect the success rate of our campaigns.

Mistake Number 7. Forgetting to Test

Testing different Ad copy is a key step to any successful PPC campaign.

Below is an example of three different versions of an Ad we did, with different success rates. When we can see what and how our audience is responding to us, we can put more money into the things that we know are working, and remove unnecessary spending from what we know isn’t working. In the testing process, make sure you know what you’re testing for. If your goal is to boost immediate sales, your tests will be quite different to if your goal is increasing your email list because an on-the-spot purchase is rarer if people are coming across you through a search engine, as often, they are still in the research stage of a purchase decision.

The headline (blue text), body text, link and keywords included are all variables to account for. Make sure to only test one aspect at a time, so you can pinpoint exactly what the success of your ads can be attributed to. Through simple split testing, you’ll be able to determine the most effective combination of words and images that lead to the highest number of clicks and conversions.

Split testing can also extend beyond your ad copy. Testing different scheduling, different delivery methods (standard vs accelerated), different bid methods and even different ad positions are just scratching the surface to how you can test and optimise your ads. Just look at your data, make a hypothesise on how you can make it better, and then test it out and keep the strongest performer.

Mistake Number 8. Not Reviewing Quality Score

Your keyword quality score is calculated automatically based on the performance of search queries that exactly match your keyword phrase. Your quality score is calculated on landing page experience, ad text relevancy, keyword relevancy and expected click through rate. Your cost-per-click is then calculated from the resulting quality score. A higher quality score means that you’ll pay less for each click your ads get. This equates to a better ROI. Aim for a Quality score of 10 and you’ll end up spending less.

You want a high quality score because Google wants to deliver high quality value to its users. By having a higher quality score (as well as a competitive bid), your Ads will be more likely to be shown to more users, with your ad extensions shown to viewers.

You might find that you start out with a high quality score, but it declines over time without Google giving you an indication why. This is usually due to low click-through-rates. If that’s the case, review your ad again to see if you can make it more compelling.

Mistake Number 9. Not Using Long Tail Keywords

Any Google search of ‘Keywords’ returns hundreds of results of keyword lists and research methods that are guaranteed to convert – but without the proper research, this can be as effective as throwing your money in a fountain and praying to the Google gods.

Long tail keywords show more buyer intent, rather than those doing research or just window shopping. Cost/competition is often lower on these keywords as they’re more niche and specific…and neglected.

If your goal is to sell a product, you’ll want to include keyword phrases that include long tail keywords. They are the phrases that are directly related to the behaviour of someone searching for you. These phrases are used by visitors when their intent is to buy, rather than just being in the research stage. Buying keywords include ‘purchase’, ‘cure’, ’ treatment’ and ‘buy’, such as ‘buy women’s shoes online’, rather than a keyword phrase such as ‘women’s shoes styling ideas’, which may see your advertising budget drained by women who are simply researching how to style their wardrobe, rather than buy.

The same process applies if your goal is to build your email list – using keyword terms for not only the problem that your target customer has, but using keyword terms related to fixing the problem. For example ‘how to’, ‘solution’, ‘guide’ and ‘tips’ are all keywords that relate to the action of fixing a problem, rather than purely those who are researching that topic.

Mistake Number 10. Forgetting to Target Your Own Brand

It may seem obvious but this mistake is more common than you’d think. It’s easy to get caught up on researching your target market’s behaviour and what your competitors are up to – but if you aren’t including your own brand in your keywords, you’re missing out!

Example. Your friend tells you about a great shop that they just bought a new outfit from. They give you the business’ name, which you promptly Google. If your business name doesn’t appear at the top of Google (common, if your business name is very descriptive of your products or services), then your competitors could potentially rank higher than you – even if it’s your own business name that’s being searched!

Targeting your own brand is especially helpful if you’re a new business whose site isn’t ranking organically yet. SEO is a long process, and if done right, Adwords can shoot your brand straight to the top of Google searches while you work on your organic SEO.

We got this working for the Victorian Cosmetic Institute, which has resulted in them seeing a huge Google Feature.

Mistake Number 11. Not Experimenting with your Bidding

It’s too often that we see other agencies with a ‘set and forget’ philosophy, which ends up costing their clients money and results. In our opinion, a bid strategy is dynamic and should frequently be tinkered with to achieve optimal results. While it’s easier to use Automatic CPC bidding by setting a daily budget and having AdWords automatically manage your bidding for you within your budget, it can be well worthwhile to use Manual CPC bidding to maximise results yourself. Different bids can be set for different keyword sets, placements and Ad groups and you can then allocate a higher percent of your budget to the keywords that are proving to be more profitable.

Mistake Number 12. Not Tracking Conversions

You might be seeing some great results on your website and may therefore be happy to leave everything in your AdWords manager as it is but there could be certain areas that are costing you dearly in the mix. By tracking your conversions – what specific ads are leading to the highest and lowest amount of conversions, you’ll be able to pinpoint where you’re burning money, and also how to stop.

By implementing conversion tracking, you can see exactly how much adwords is contributing to your business’s bottom line, and whether it’s a worthwhile ROI. It’s also interesting to see your CPC vs your Cost per conversion. There have been many instances where one of our ads have a really cheap cost-per-click, but their cost-per-conversion is really high, and vice versa. Therefore, without conversion tracking, you’re not seeing the bigger picture.

Mistake Number 13. Not spending enough

It’s common to be cautious with your Pay Per Click spending, especially if you’re on a budget. However, if your Ads are converting and you’re seeing real results that you set out to achieve – why wouldn’t you increase your budget?

For example, you’re selling a product that costs $100, and your cost per conversion is $20. This is insanely good value. If you’re hitting your daily budget and putting a stop to this, you should definitely increase your Advertising spend, as you should be trying to get as many of these conversions as possible, if you’ve found a winning formula for an Ad that’s performing at this high level.

[ctt title=”If your Ads are converting and you’re seeing real results – why in the world wouldn’t you increase your budget?” tweet=”If your Ads are converting and you’re seeing real results – why in the world wouldn’t you increase your budget? http://ctt.ec/bd66A+” coverup=”bd66A”]

Mistake Number 14. Not using Keyword Modifiers

Broad match keywords (see below) will be displayed when all or part of your keyword term is searched. In the example below, ‘women’s hats’ could be shown to searchers who search ‘women’s shoes’, ’school hats for children’ and ‘women’s fashion tips’, which will be just pouring money down the drain as it’ll be highly irrelevant to what some people are searching for. By using keyword modifiers, you’ll ensure that your Ads are shown specifically to who you’re targeting. While using keyword modifiers, your potential reach could decrease but it’s a matter of quality over quantity, and reaching the people who are searching for your brand’s offerings.

If you type keywords in just as it is and without modifiers, you’re also telling Google that you’re okay with it taking some liberties and showing your ads for words that are similar to your keyword. On paper, this might sound good as this means you’re expanding your reach but it’s actually a really bad idea – you have little control over what liberties Google takes, so you could be showing up for some really irrelevant searches. Sure, you can negative out the wrong search terms but that’s already money spent that could have been avoided in the first place.

Mistake Number 15. Not Being Device Specific

With Google’s introduction of enhanced campaigns, you can optimise your ads across all devices, or a combination of them. People often take different actions, depending on what type of device they’re using. In addition to this, if you’re blanket bidding, your ad will not be optimised for specific devices. Below are stats from desktop users, mobile users and tablet users.

If you’re feeling confident as well, Google will allow you to do bid adjustments for mobile, and increase or decrease bids based on whether the user is on a mobile or note. If you notice that on your mobile your ads have a higher CTR and ad position, maybe it could be worth bumping up your bid on mobiles a bit. Or it could be the other way around – people using mobile phones don’t convert at all. Then you can make a bid adjustment of -100%, so your ads don’t show on mobile at all.

However, optimising your ads for mobile go beyond bids. People using mobile phones have different expectations, and use ads differently. People on mobile phones don’t always have best experiences on landing pages, aren’t often on Google for long, and are often looking for something direct, like an action they can take straight away. Therefore, make sure your ad copy reflects that; there are ways to write mobile only ads in an ad group. Also, make sure your landing page experience on mobiles is up to par.

Mistake Number 16. Ignoring Location Testing

It’s well worth the time to segment your campaigns by location. For example, if we find that Queensland is performing better than Victoria, for us, we can bid accordingly for which locations are performing better. When you include this step, you’ll be able to create separate targets based on location, like we did below.

Just like with mobile devices, you can bid adjust for locations too.

Mistake Number 17. Not Linking your Analytics Account with your Adwords

Both analytics and adwords are data machines and produce more data than you can poke a stick at. But with these two working side-by-side, you can again see the bigger picture. For example, if you’re just looking at adwords data, you might not see a conversion straight away from your ad. But sometimes, the user might click on your ad, go to your landing page and be interested but they may not convert straight away. They might then go to your social media and browse around, ending up on your website. Over the next few days, they might get hit by your retargeting display ads and then convert from there. Analytics will be able to show their path to conversion, which you wouldn’t have been able to properly attribute to adwords, if you were looking only at adwords data. Linking the two is simple to do with Google’s Linking Wizard.

Mistake Number 18. Not Experimenting With Search Partners

Google doesn’t just power Google. They also fuel other big search companies like Ask.com and AOL. By not experimenting with including search partners in your campaigns, you may potentially be missing a perfect opportunity to reach a larger portion of your target market and lowering the cost of your conversions. It’s not an instant yes or no, however, as it’s a bit grey about just who Google’ Search Partners are, and how relevant to your Ads they are.

Now it’s over to you. Have you made any of these Pay Per Click mistakes in the past, or can you think of any that we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments below.