Common PPC Mistakes to Avoid

Pay per click marketing is one of the best ways to get your business out there and at the top of Google search results – much quicker than SEO. However, to get the most value for your money you need to make sure your marketing campaigns are correctly optimised and performing to its fullest potential, especially campaigns you are spending money on such as PPC. In this blog, we cover the most common PPC mistakes users can make.

Competitive Keywords

Many businesses who are new to PPC, or even digital marketing as a whole, try to bid for short tail and competitive keywords. Short tail keywords require a larger budget to show adverts for these search terms and there is a higher chance that even if your advert does show, most users who click won’t convert. That’s because short tail keywords are simply too generic and not specific enough to target customers who are deeper in the marketing funnel. Long tail keywords are much better because there is less competition, they are cheaper, your ads have a higher chance of showing and users who click your ads are, generally, deeper into the marketing funnel, therefore more likely to convert.

Failure to Use Targeting

PPC advertising platforms give marketers multiple ways to target ads to a specific segment of their audience. This can be basics such as location and language, or it can be more personal such as user interests. Failing to take advantage of these features mean your adverts will show up more for people who aren’t even in your target audience. New marketers should at least use geo-targeting to reach their audience and segment this audience further using features such as affinity audiences, in-market audiences etc.

Landing Page Relevance

Ensure the content you use on your PPC ad is relevant to the landing page you are sending users to. If you are advertising for a specific service, e.g. “Web design” send users straight to the web design page of your website instead of the home page. Users want relevant information ready at their fingertips from the get-go. If they click an ad about one thing only to be greeted with information about something else, or something they weren’t expecting, they’ll simply leave and your pocket will be weighing less.

Telephone Numbers in Ads

This may sound surprising to some users and marketers. Surely you would want to boost conversions such as phone calls to a business, so why not include the number on your ad? The simple fact is people don’t see your ad and then dial your number – they just click the ad if they’re interested. Putting your telephone number in a PPC ad is simply wasting space you could use for eye-catching and original content. Instead, use call-only ads which enable mobile users to directly call your business by clicking your ad. This way you don’t waste space and users will actually call you.