With the ability to set your own keywords, the cost you pay for each click and what you full ad budget is, PPC is one of the most controllable ways to market your website. However, that doesn’t make it’s easy. There are many mistakes that people tend to make when running PPC campaigns, especially when they are new to it.
Here are some of the most common mistakes that we've
covered but you ABSOLUTELY NEED to avoid when setting up your campaign.
Linking to a general page.
One of the most simple mistakes that gets made is taking clicks through to your homepage. Advertisers always seem to think their homepage allows visitors to find whatever service or product they want. This isn't really
the case and most people can't be bothered to filter through your entire website to find the one tiny thing they're looking for. it is important to make sure that the process from keyword, advert and landing page is as streamlined and relevant as possible. Keywords and ads should be given appropriate landing pages, this makes it simple for the user to find exactly what they are looking for and then execute the purchase or enquiry.
Using the same strategy for search and display networks.
Google AdWords search and display networks are different platforms and work very independently.The search network is where a user actually types in a search term and results are displayed based on that search term
(in the Sponsored links’ along the right hand side of the results page and at the very top).The display network
(formerly the content network) is Google’s network of partner sites, where your ads are delivered based on content or demographic usage for that particular platform. It requires different ads and targeting settings to run the
two strategies successfully and it's important to separate these into individual campaigns.
No negative keywords.
If you're going to have keywords that are set to broad match, having negative keywords is essential. Negative keywords prevent ads from being shown when you don't want them to be. Negative keywords are only needed
if you are using phrase or broad match keywords, but if you are using those you WILL need negative keywords.
Because broad match is so broad, your ad could be triggered for all kinds of search terms that will have no
relevance. This will affect your CTR (Click Through Rate) and that will affect your quality score and that will
affect how much you pay per click.
Low Daily Budget.
If you want to achieve high amounts of traffic you can't expect to do that with a low daily budget. If your budget is $5/day and you set your campaign to reflect this budget, chances are that you won't get much traffic at
all. Google displays your ads based on a number of factors including your budget. If your budget is set too low your ads will rarely be displayed (if at all). If you only have a small budget, run your ad but don't expect miracles and up your budget when you can afford to do so.
No Tracking.
If you don’t have any tracking for sales or leads then how do you know your campaign is working? It's great that you're getting people to your site but what are they doing when they get there? Running a campaign without
analytics or any tracking implemented on your site, ends up being a waste of time and money. It means you won’t be able to identify which keywords and ads are working and where you are making a return. Google Analytics is a must have for any website, but especially those that are running PPC ads. If you're not constantly tracking how your ads and sales are doing, you might as well be throwing your money away. You can't just set up PPC campaigns and then simply leaving it to run.
It's easy to make mistakes when it comes to setting up a PPC ad for the first time but By taking all these into
consideration you can save yourself a lot of time and heartache.