We’ve compiled a list of the top PPC mistakes for newbies so that you know what to avoid. Dodging these common errors will help make your SEM account easier and stronger.
If you’re new to AdWords, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the checklist of things you have to do. Read what you need to know now!
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Ignoring Mobile Traffic
Some accounts thrive on mobile traffic while other accounts flounder. Which one is yours? Cutting mobile traffic if it’s not converting well can dramatically reduce your cost per conversion. It also allows you to reallocate your budget to what could possibly be much more profitable desktop traffic. Look at your mobile traffic’s conversions, cost per conversions, click-through-rates and Avg. CPCs to see if you need to make negative bid adjustments to some of your campaigns.
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Not using Negative Keywords
Running Search Query Reports and excluding irrelevant searches mitigates superfluous clicks and unwanted costs. It strengthens your account and tightens your control over what type of traffic is visiting your site. It’s said that 20% of AdWords accounts don’t use negative keywords. Use negative keywords. It’s an easy, valuable tactic that should be done upon launch and on an ongoing basis so that your ads don’t show up for users that just drive cost but have no interest in your site.
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Broad Landing Pages
Our AdWords accounts can be optimized to perfection but if we’re sending paid traffic to the same landing pages or unimportant landing pages, it’s an opportunity cost. It does nothing for a client’s revenue stream or goals if users are going to the site but have a bad experience once there and bounce. Traffic shouldn’t all be sent to the homepage by default. The best landing pages are targeted to the ad group and immediately give the user what was promised in the ad and hoped for in the query.
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Undefined Goals
It’s not enough to simply let your AdWords account run and optimize with no target in mind. Some clients are more concerned with ROI while others are thinking to brand awareness statistics like time on site or click-through-rate. No matter what the goal is (as there can be many more than just the two types sited above), you need to make sure that both yourself and your client have defined what it is, both parties agree and understand what it takes to get there. This can be a very powerful conversation since it ensures your efforts aren’t barking up the wrong tree.
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Letting Unprofitable Keywords Run
As marketers we want our brand to show up everywhere all the time. What we have to remember is that although visibility is great, if you’re showing for keywords that are driving a large volume of clicks but aren’t converting, it’s a waste of money. Learning the power of no in the PPC world means knowing when it’s time to pause unprofitable keywords. If not, they’ll eat up too much of your budget and take dollars away from words that are converting efficiently.
Implementing these tactics right away is easy and will go far in strengthening your PPC account. These will also help ease the onus of the learning curve and make you as well as your client much happier.
