Pay-per-click advertising can be a great way to drive traffic to your website within a short period of time. Unlike search engine optimization, PPC can yield almost instantaneous results – making it a great choice for new businesses, limited-time offers, and new product launches.

That said, PPC management can be complex. It’s certainly not a foolproof process. If you make mistakes along the way, you could end up wasting a whole lot of time, money, and resources without any real results. 

Let’s take a closer look at just three PPC missteps that could derail your campaign progress.

Improper Targeting

This is one of the biggest challenges for many business owners, particularly for those who insist on handling their own digital advertising. 

With PPC, you have a lot of control over targeting – meaning who sees your ad at any given moment. But with so many options available to you, the risk of choosing incorrectly increases. 

If you fail to target your ads correctly, they may very well be shown to people outside your target demographic. Your ads may be totally irrelevant to those users’ needs. Ultimately, that means clicks and conversions will be much lower.

With Google Ads, you’ll target your audience using keywords and search terms. It’s important that your keyword bids and target search terms actually align with buyer intent. In other words, you’ll want your ads to appear to those who are looking to make a purchase (rather than those who are merely searching for information). 

In addition, you’ll want to ensure that the keywords you target are relevant to both your business and to what these users want to find. Using “negative keywords” (i.e., search terms for which you don’t want your ads to appear) can help search engines understand context to avoid fruitless clicks.

Poor Quality Ad Copy

Even for skilled writers and experienced marketers, ad copy can be difficult to get right. This kind of text is going to differ from other kinds of content you create for your business.

Writing effective PPC ad copy requires you to figure out what your target audience wants and how to present the solution in an enticing way. Think about how you can make your customer’s life better and concisely capture that sentiment in a manner that compels them to click.

In many cases, this might mean you need to tap into their emotions and emphasize a sense of urgency. No matter what, it’s about more than throwing a bunch of keywords together and hoping they stick out to a customer.

Overall, your PPC ads need to be well-written and captivating. They must be free of grammatical and spelling errors while zeroing in on the benefits your services can provide. That’s tough to do in a limited character count, which is why you might consider hiring PPC professionals to create and run your campaigns on your behalf. 

Ignoring Your Quality Score

There are a number of major metrics to monitor once your ads begin to run. But one that many people overlook is the Google Ads quality score.

Keep in mind that quality score is different from ad quality. Your Google Ads quality score can tell you how relevant your ad keywords are as compared to those in other ads running in the same space.

Google determines your PPC quality score by looking at 3 different factors.

• Ad Relevance: How well an ad matches the intent of a web searcher

• Expected CTR: How likely it is for your ad to be clicked once it shows up

• Landing Page Relevance: How aligned the ad’s landing page is to its content and to user intent

 

If your ad is seen as less relevant to your target audience, it’s not going to perform well. In addition, you’ll actually end up paying more to run your ads if they have a lower quality score! 

Make sure to add the quality score column to your Google Ads account and keep track of this metric. If it’s low, take a closer look at the ad’s landing page, your site’s speed and responsiveness, your ad types and keywords, and your copy (including CTAs) to see where improvements can be made. 

Avoid These Mistakes For More Effective Ad Campaigns

PPC ads are notoriously tricky to manage, but avoiding these aforementioned mistakes will put you ahead of the curve. Still, if you want to ensure your campaigns are as effective as possible, consider working with a PPC management professional.