It is so easy to set up an AdWords account; connect that company card and get spending. Unfortunately, it is also very easy to spend a lot of money but not receive any valuable results.
With so many aspects that could go wrong, from the initial set up, keyword research, ad copywriting as well as landing page UX, let alone all the targeting options – it’s remarkably easy to waste money through Google AdWords.
Could this be you? Are you wasting money and not seeing the ROI you expected from your PPC account? PPC could still be valuable to your business – you need to make sure you aren’t making these common but detrimental mistakes. We’ve put together this handy guide to identify these mistakes and how to avoid them.
Keyword match type
In AdWords, you can target keywords which are broad, broad match modifier, phrase or exact. Targeting broad keywords can be great as they bring in lots of impressions and get your ads seen. However, they are likely to bring in far less qualified leads than a phrase or exact match keyword.
You need to ensure you monitor your keyword match types closely, so you are not spending a lot of money on searches that are not relevant to the service or product you are offering.
Negative keywords
Before you set any campaign live, it is vital to add negative keywords. This research can quickly be done at the same time as your keyword research, identifying any keywords that are not relevant to your offering and ensuring you do not waste budget on people searching for these.
This is an incredibly easy way to ensure you are not wasting money on AdWords, but it is remarkably underused.
Targeting the wrong location
If your business only delivers to the UK, why are you letting your AdWords campaigns be seen worldwide? Make sure you are only targeting locations that are relevant to your business.
Bidding strategy
There are many different automated, as well as manual, bidding strategies to choose from in AdWords. Ensure you are selecting the right bidding strategy for your business.
Maximise clicks and maximise conversions may help with internal targets of awareness and ROI, while enhanced cost-per-click (eCPC) enables you to choose each individual keyword bid, meaning you can pay more to be at the very top.
Make sure you research each bid strategy and select the right one for you.
Continuous work
A major error that companies make is to set up their AdWords account, create all their ads and just let it run.
Search behaviours change, so the bid needed to be at the top of Google will change; for example, your company may have a sale or a new offering. Like all types of marketing, you need to keep up to date with your AdWords ads to ensure they are still providing value.
The information you collect from AdWords serves as a great foundation to make optimisations from. Are more people converting from mobile devices? You can make a positive bid adjustment too for mobile and negative bid adjustments for tablet and desktop. Are more people converting in the evenings? You can set specific times for your ads to show.
All these adjustments can ensure you focus on the value and avoid wasting money in other areas.
Landing pages
Landing pages are an incredibly important aspect of AdWords PPC, which are still significantly undervalued. You could write the best ad copy in the world, but if it doesn’t match what searchers expect on your landing page, you have spent money on clicks that will never lead to conversions.
Spending time fully understanding your target audience, what they are likely to want to see as an offering, and what they will search to get it is vital to the success of your PPC efforts.
Once you have that thorough understanding, you need to ensure the landing page provides good user experience, that it is clear what you want the searcher to do, and that the keywords are all on that landing page so Google can tell it is highly relevant to your ads.
There is no point having a beautifully designed landing page with no content as Google will slap you with a low-quality score and your ads won’t even be shown.
Conclusion
There are so many aspects of AdWords that you need to ensure you get right, to avoid wasting budget that we couldn’t possibly fit everything into this article.
Engaging with an expert PPC marketing agency will ensure that every aspect of your PPC efforts is carefully considered and monitored in order to provide the most benefit to your company.
Contact ExtraDigital today to find out how we can help.
