In the world of digital marketing, it isn’t uncommon to come across skeptics discounting the value of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. They say it’s not effective, has no raw value, and that it’s a dying method of digital marketing. Although it’s true that there are certainly other advertising strategies taking the spotlight for effectiveness, it’s still important to have a strong, well-built PPC advertising plan.
Mobile is growing rapidly in popularity, especially when it comes to mobile marketing. Over time, PPC advertising will go hand in hand with mobile marketing strategy as desktop use falls behind mobile.
With all of the changes in technology use over the past few years, a consumer’s path of purchase has become complex, more complex than ever before.
So, enter the PPC campaign. If you’re ready to bring PPC advertising into your marketing mix, or if your PPC plan needs some finessing, below are some mistakes getting in the way of your PPC campaign.
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1. Not Knowing Your Audience
No matter what the framework of your campaign is, it’s important to know your target audience. You need to know how your target audience behaves online and what channels they’re active on in order to most effectively reach them with a message that they’ll understand and respond to.
One way to form a sense of your audience is to utilize keyword research tools, such as Google Keyword Planner. This free tool for advertisers allows people to research search volume and competition levels for specific keywords.
2. Not having a set plan with goals
As with almost all marketing and advertising initiatives, you need to have measurable, well-planned goals laid out for what exactly you’re trying to get out of your online marketing efforts. Leads and brand awareness are two great examples here.
A solid plan draws out how you’ll reach your goals (steps along the way) and takes into account adjustments or changes that may come if you get off track of your goals.
3. Failing to formalize
Your campaign should be structured and detailed in writing. Every element of the campaign should be laid out into one document that contains the entire marketing/advertising elements of your campaign.
By creating a formal written plan that’s structured and detailed, you’ll be able to track each element of your campaign.
4. Not targeting
Without a doubt, you need to have ads tailored to specific locations and devices. You don’t want to produce ads that reach the wrong people, do you? In most cases, you can select which devices your ads show on and in which locations, and you can also select language options.
Without planning out where you specifically want your content to travel, you may be literally casting your PPC advertising into the wind. No good.
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5. Not building in negative-keyword options in your plan
You need to identify what keywords you don’t want your ads to show for. This is important, because if you’ve got a hardware store but you don’t sell power tools, you don’t want your ad to appear when someone searches for power tools.
Understanding negative keywords and how they relate to your brand is important not only for PPC but for reputation management as well.
6. Not having a call to action
Having a call to action in your ads and on your landing page is key to the success of your PPC campaign. Although search engines like Google put limits on some call to actions, you can easily utilize phrases like “start today” or “download here”.
Not having a call to action can make your ads stand out less than having a sound, attention-grabbing statement.
7. Not using analytics
When you formulate and design your campaign, it’s best to test and analyze pieces of it and make changes. Utilizing analytic applications and collecting data creates the opportunity for you to see exactly what’s working for you and what isn’t.
You can make changes in time of day for ads, landing page selection and other elements by simply testing which pieces work and making changes from there.
8. Not having the right landing page
When people click your ad, you want them to end up on a page that’s relevant to the keywords used for that particular ad, not your homepage. An ad relating to power tools should bring them to a page with a bunch of power tools.
Don’t be too general, or people won’t end up going any further past your homepage.
9. Not measuring anything
This one is simple. If you aren’t measuring what you’re doing, how will you be able to figure out if your PPC campaign is successful? Luckily, most advertising platforms offer a method of tracking results. From this data, you can measure elements of your campaign as a whole.
Got all that?
By avoiding all of these mistakes, you’ll be set with a solid, sound PPC campaign that gets you the results you’re looking for. Of course, if you’d like more information on PPC advertising, you can always contact us. Good luck and best wishes from Coalition Technologies!