PPC Campaigns: 5 Mistakes You Should Avoid

When you’re running a PPC campaign, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing what you did the last time and assuming that it will work again. But PPC campaigns are more complex than they look on the surface, and there are a lot of things that could go wrong if you don’t think about each one individually before you get started. 

Google ads, otherwise known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, can be an effective way to reach your target audience. However, when these campaigns aren’t done properly, they can quickly become very expensive and result in low conversion rates that aren’t worth the cost. In this post, we’ll cover some common Google ads mistakes, how you can prevent them from happening to you, and what you should be doing instead.

Mistakes You Should Avoid in your PPC campaign

Whether it’s the first time you’re thinking about creating a PPC campaign or you’ve already run multiple campaigns, it’s not uncommon to make certain mistakes. Even as an experienced marketer, you should keep in mind that what works for one or two campaigns, might not work for the third. Therefore, here are a few things to look out for in your PPC strategy.

Unnecessary Conversion Actions

We all start Google Ads campaigns with the same goal in mind: to increase revenue and/or attention for our companies (or causes, etc.).

Driving traffic to your website may be a goal of yours, but that doesn't mean that every visitor will become a client. Metrics such as pageviews and clicks could suggest some level of interest from your visitors, but ultimately no meeting was set, and no product or service sold. 

Conversions should focus more on actions that could result in a sale, such as filling out a form, an email, a download or an actual sale. 

Using Only Broad Match Keywords

As you probably already know, Google Ads uses keywords match types, or to be more specific: broad, exact, and phrase match. As the name suggests, the broad match type keywords apply to a vast range of searches. Therefore, it is recommended to really focus your broad matches so they don’t show for completely unrelated search queries, which actually leads to the next point.

Lack of Negative Keywords

Whether or not you decided to use the broad match type, your keywords could still match queries that don’t fit your PPC Campaign. Hence, it’s essential to add negative keywords, so Google knows not to show your ads when certain searches include them.

Let’s say you’re a video production company, offering video services for corporate events, conferences and so on. You probably wouldn’t want your ad to be triggered by a search query that says “wedding video production services”, since it’s not what you’re selling. Hence, wedding becomes a negative keyword.

One way to avoid making this mistake is to start by adding the obvious options for negative keywords, and then to review your account’s search queries by using the search terms report offered by Google Ads. 

Not Experimenting With the Ad Copy & Ad Extensions

Trying to find the best ad copy that says and is compelling enough about your products and services may be difficult at times. Sometimes less is more, but when it comes to PPC campaigns, creating only one ad per ad group could negatively impact your conversion rate and increase costs. Also, considering how many searches Google processes per day and even per second, your ad copy should really fit specific queries so users can easily find you.

Luckily, Google Ads allows you to create many ad variations and test them in order to see which performs better. With responsive search ads, you can enter different combinations of headlines and descriptions per ad group. Some could focus on the product and what it has to offer, while others could emphasize the prices and how they differ from the competition. The ultimate goal is to test and refine your PPC campaign, but also it’s indicated not to overdo it; 2 to 4 ad variations should be enough. 

Another common mistake, quite related to the ad copy, refers to ad extensions. Not adding any extensions takes away important information that could influence users when it comes to clicking your ad. Using extensions such as location, price, callouts etc. could significantly raise your CTR. However, you don’t get to choose which extensions appear next to a specific ad. Google mixes these extensions, but you can observe which ones perform better and eventually pause and replace them if necessary. 

Testing Out Different Bidding Strategies

The best bidding strategy for your PPC campaign should be the one that suits both your budget and your goals. Since there are so many bidding strategies available, it may be a little difficult to choose one at first. Not testing these strategies could lead to getting more results, but having to update your budget sooner than you’d like, or having more in return but little in conversions. 

Some marketers choose to set the CPC manually, which could be useful for the long run. For experimenting, however, many turn to targeting CPA (cost per acquisition) and ROAS (return on ad spend). These could help you spend the ideal sum out of your budget and maximize it. Moreover, for testing over a short period of time, let’s say a few weeks, you could use maximize conversions, so Google can start working towards getting you many conversions for your set budget.

With Google Ads and PPC campaigns, sometimes the time will tell how well a campaign will perform and what could be done in the future. If you encountered any of the mistakes mentioned above and could use some help with your PPC strategy, feel free to contact one of our Senior PPC consultants.