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Vigilance, micromanaging and attention to detail can help you avoid some common and costly mistakes of PPC advertising. What are those mistakes? Here are the terrible 10 that are typical to most pay per click campaigns.

Too Few Ad Groups For Your Keywords

It’s important to target your ad to be as relevant as possible. Don’t group all your keywords into one or two ad groups. Break them out. Keep them tight. This gives you more control over ad variables so that you can be as relevant as possible.

Not Using Negative Keywords

Pay per click advertising has placed more importance than ever on click through rates and quality scores. It is vital to fine tune your impressions by getting rid of the non-relevant phrases that are lowering those CTRs. If you are selling an item such as “software for widgets” then be certain you also have those negative keywords like “-free” if you don’t have a free trial version. One way to find irrelevant keywords that are costing you is to check your log files of your site.

Weak Testing

Running split tests on your ads is essential. And, no item is too small to test. Of course, you will want to work on your various call to action statements, as well as your unique value statement, but keep in mind that there are other variables. There are small, but effective tweaks that can boost results by just testing titles, each line of copy and your display url. If running continual tests is time consuming, hook up with an experience pay per click management company. A good firm can offer you daily split testing and optimize your results very effectively.

Not Tracking Results

It’s not enough to know that you spend $6,000 dollars a month and get back $12,000 in profit. Your bottom-line numbers need to be precise. The PPC engines will give your click through rates, but you need to know your ROI or costs per action in detail. Tracking results can help you to spend only $5,000 a month to get you that same $12,000 in profit.

Not Tracking Results to the Keyword Level

Setting up good analytics yourself or hiring a professional pay per click management company can do the job. Not only do you get more bang for your buck by getting rid of poor performers, but getting tracking to the keyword-level makes all of your testing and work even more precise. You need to know your earnings per click. If one keyword has a 56 cent Earnings Per Click (EPC) and another had a $1.22 EPC, this is important knowledge. Adjusting your bids to an appropriate level can keep you from over spending…or allow you to throttle up your overall traffic for even more success. Don’t let poor keywords leak your accounts.

Keywords That Are Too Generic

While some generic keywords can drive a lot of traffic and even be very profitable, they also can be filled with pitfalls. Negative keywords may not be enough to save you from going in the red on a generic keyword. Often, the users doing these searches are at a very early stage of the research and buying process. Again, this is another important reason to track results on a keyword basis.

Avoiding the Dirty Work of Building Long-Tail Keywords

This dovetails into the previous item. Building out lists and ads for long-tail keywords can be a time-consuming process, but worthwhile if done right. You are going to have different earnings per click for the keywords “dvd player,” “sony dvd player” and “sony dvd player model DVP-NS57P/B.” One consumer is doing research, while the other is likely pricing for the specific model they want and is ready to buy.

Combining Search and Content Networks

An easy way to get scorched on poor performing traffic or even click fraud is to not separate your search network ads from your content network ads. Chances are that if you don’t know what the difference is, then they are likely not separated in your account — and bad keywords are leaking your funds daily. You are better off to build different campaigns for your keywords on the content and search networks.

Failing to Geo-Target if You’re Local

If you draw most of your business from a local area, the big three PPC engines allow you to geo-target your keywords to that area. This will bring the local market to your doorstep on non-local keyword phrases. This can be hugely profitable.

Not Continually Monitoring Your Campaigns

Alright, so maybe you do not frequently monitor your EPCs at the keyword level (you should). And, you don’t conduct split tests every day your ads are up (you should). It is still surprising that there are a high number of pay per click advertisers who don’t continually monitor their accounts. The big three PPC engines are cracking down on poor performing ads more than ever. Many advertisers are getting stung with the “Inactive for Search” label on their keywords. If you don’t monitor your accounts, Google, Yahoo and MSN may have plucked some of your keywords off their networks. And, with that, some of your profits.

Making mistakes like the Terrible 10 of PPC Advertising are common, but correcting them can have a huge impact on your bottom line. If you can manage your pay per click ads at a high level or if you can hire them out to a professional pay per click management company…the results for your increased precision and effort will pay off.

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Tags: General Marketing

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 4:49 pm and is filed under General Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.