You’ve probably heard of Pay-Per-Click or PPC, but do you know what it can do for your campaign, and how to harness it properly? Here’s everything you need to know about it.
PPC Basics
PPC is an internet advertising model harnessed by businesses to drive traffic to their website. This is conducted by utilizing a PPC platform, such as Google AdWords, and bidding on keywords relevant to your target market. Each keyword corresponds to an ad that drives a potential visitor to your site. You will pay a fee every time your ads are clicked, essentially paying for each visit rather than attempting to earn them organically.
You may think that PPC seems to be expensive, but the amount you pay for each click is actually trivial if your campaign is working properly. How so? Let’s assume that a click for a highly competitive keyword is $5. When you received a click however, the visitor purchased $100 items from your website, giving you a hefty $95 sale for a single click.
A popular way to conduct PPC is through search engine advertising, or posting ads in a search engine’s sponsored links. Therefore, when a user runs a search for a particular query, your ad can be seen on the very top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
This is easier said than done, however. To have your ads show up in key positions in SERPs, you need to have a winning PPC campaign. You have to thoroughly research and choose the right keywords, organize your campaigns, and set optimized PPC landing pages that would put you in a good position for conversions.
How It Works
If you are advertising via Google AdWords, here’s what you need to know about the auction process. First, whenever people run search queries, AdWords simultaneously dings into its pool of advertisers to see relevant advertisements to the keywords. The “winners” are then ranked based on various factors, chief among is the advertiser’s Ad Rank. If you have the best Ad Rank among the winners, then you’ll get the very top spot.
The Ad Rank is garnered by multiplying the maximum amount you are willing to spend (also referred to as CPC Bid), and your Quality Score. Your Quality Score is determined by three things: your click-through rate, ad relevance, and the quality of your landing page. If your ads or your page is not optimized for these three things, then your ads would have a lower quality score, and you would therefore place unfavorably on ad placements.
Once you have a favorable Quality Score and optimized CPC bid, your Ad Rank can increase. Your Ad Rank determines how well you will rank on the page, as well as how much you will pay per each click. If you have a good Ad Rank, then you’ll pay less for your clicks.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Now that you are familiar with the basics, it’s time to walk you through the common pitfalls of PPC marketing. Here are things you should avoid.
- Using irrelevant keywords – When you’re competing against advertisers who are targeting the same keywords, you want to ensure that your keywords are the most relevant to your business. Avoid trying to lump several keywords that are not related to each other in your ad campaign. For example, if you are selling dress shoes for men, then do not add the keyword “dress shoes for women” in your ad.
- Not taking advantage of negative keywords – This coincides with the first item. Negative keywords are non-converting terms that you can add to your PPC campaign so that your ads won’t show up for irrelevant searches. In this case, you can add “dress shoes for women” or “women shoes” under negative keywords so that when users conduct a search query for “dress shoes for women,” your ads won’t show and you therefore wouldn’t be losing any money.
- Poor ad copy – A favorable ranking wouldn’t do you must good if your ad is pretty much the same as everybody else’s. Sure, while you and your competitors are selling the same items, you want to stand out from the rest. You can do this by having compelling copy that will entice users to click your ad rather than your competitors. Avoid misspellings, special characters, and grammatical errors, as these factors would give you a lower Quality Score. Instead, try to focus on an aspect of your products or services that your competitors cannot offer, so that in some way you’ll be able to market your ads better. Also, ensure that your keyword is also written within the ad’s description and display URL.
- Lousy call-to-action – Your ad needs to have a strong CTA for your viewers to take action and not to simply click out of your site once they get there. Ensure that your language is appropriate and urgent enough that users would actually buy your products and not just browse through your line.
- Not optimizing your landing page – Ideally, each ad would bring users to different landing pages your websites. Therefore, you should ensure that your landing page is actually relevant to the website and would add value to the user experience. For example, if your ad is about the cheapest flowers within your area, then it should lead to your product list with prices, instead of your About Us page. Likewise, it is a common mistake for advertisers to lead their ads to their Contact Us page. Rather than urging users to contact you, ensure that your landing page leads them directly to their search query.
- Neglecting ad extensions – Another common mistake among advertisers is neglecting to take advantage of Ad Extensions. Ad extensions are handy tools you can use to get more space on the SERPs, as well as to visually push the results of your competitors downwards. For example, if you have a physical store, then you can add a location extension on your ad, or add a map pin so that users can immediately see where your physical store is. To top it off, you don’t always have to pay for some types of ad extensions – so make sure you do your homework and find out how you can maximize this for your own use.
- Being complacent – Finally, don’t be complacent. Test your ads routinely to see if they still work, and ensure that you study the latest changes within the industry. What may be true today may not be applicable in the next few years.
Can you think of other PPC mistakes that may be damaging your campaign? Let us know in the comments below.
img c/o pixabay
