Paid search or pay per click (PPC) marketing operates on the premise that companies pay search engines, like Google or Bing, each time someone clicks on their promoted advertisement. Though it’s an added cost, PPC actually has a high return on investment (ROI), with 70 percent of website visitors likely to convert.
Aside from that, paid search ads also contributed to an 80 percent increase in overall brand awareness. These numbers urge brands to invest in PPC, with 40 percent of brands reportedly set to increase their PPC budget for 2019.
Though PPC generally increases brand awareness and helps convert web visitors into leads for businesses, the results may not be similar to your brand. Why? Because you may not be using pay per click marketing to its full potential.
You can manage your pay per click campaign and optimize your paid search results by avoiding common mistakes that may hinder your success.
Barriers to PPC Success
Sometimes, small mistakes, such as keyword stuffing and wrong phrasing of your products can turn away probable leads from your product.
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Keyword stuffing
You may think that completely filling the meta tags and visible content of your promoted advertisement with all the keywords related to your brand gets you your money’s worth. It doesn’t. All this does is alert Google of spam tags, which may lower your rank.
Recent changes in Google’s algorithm reveal that you can’t game the system anymore by stuffing your ads full of keywords. Google users want relevant content. And if your ad doesn’t deliver this, don’t expect a lot of conversions and leads.
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Failed keyword match types
Using the right keyword match types in your paid search campaign is the most effective way to spend your ad budget. The opposite, however, is also true. Improper keyword matches and keywords that are too broad don’t do anything for your campaign.
This results in wasted ad spending as these could promote irrelevant ad clicks from users who don’t really need to use your products. Search engines charge your company with every click, even without conversions, which leads to wasted expenses.
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Wrong phrasing and focus of products
Expensive and limited, ad space should only contain the essentials in your business. Wrong phrasing, which redirects the focus of your product to a different target client, results in loss of profit from probable customers.
For example, if your copy makes your product appealing to couples only, you may miss the opportunity to sell to other buyer personas also interested in your product. Though your copy should be customer specific, don’t be too specific that you’re only appealing to a small niche despite your product’s versatility.
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Mishandling ad extensions
Ad extensions provide additional information about your product and business. It’s important to your PPC campaign and results in a 10 to 15 percent click-through rate (CTR) uplift, Google reports.
Users see your ad extensions, so you should manage that aside from your main text advertisement. Add your call-to-action information for the convenience of your website visitors.
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No conversion tracking
One of the most common mistakes businesses do is not track the conversation rate for their ads. Not only does this not give them any idea if their ads are working, but they also don’t have a record of the number of clicks their ad received.
With no record, you don’t know if search engines are charging you right for your ads, as well as no way to know if your leads have converted to sales.
Advancements in the field of digital marketing have turned online advertisements into a new avenue for businesses to promote their products. Companies now turn to paid search or pay per click (PPC) marketing to help promote their content. It’s added cost, but it results in good ROI and can increase brand visibility if optimized.
