Pay-per-click advertising is a fantastically effective method of driving traffic, creating leads, and increasing conversions. But poorly executed PPC campaigns have a tendency to quickly become money losers with little return on investment. Even experienced marketers commit heinous PPC mistakes, and golden opportunities remain unfulfilled while dollars are wasted.
Mistake 1: Failure to Set Crystal Clear Goals and KPIs
One of the biggest PPC advertising errors is launching campaigns without having a strategy established. Lacking established objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs), it is impossible to maximize campaign performance or measure success.
Before you start a campaign, you must have set measurable goals—whether website traffic, leads, or sales improvement. Harmonize this with variables like cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion rate, and click-through rates (CTR). Without this direction, there is investment wastage and a campaign without direction. This is one of the most common PPC mistakes to avoid if you want to see results.
Mistake 2: Failure to Use Negative Keywords
It’s hard not to jump in and begin bidding on high-performance keywords, but failing to work with negative keywords will spend your budget faster than you can imagine. Negative keywords allow you to keep out unwanted searches that are not in alignment with the needs of your target market space.
For example, if you’re advertising a paid software tool, adding “free” as a negative keyword ensures your ads don’t appear for users looking for free options. Failing to use negative keywords leads to unqualified traffic, lower ad relevance, and a reduced quality score—all of which hurt your pay per click marketing performance.
Mistake 3: Poor Landing Page Experience
A PPC campaign can only be as good as the landing page will allow it to be. If individuals click on your advertisement and are brought to a sub-optimized page with no calls-to-action or a page that loads like a snail, they’ll exit it in a heartbeat.
Make sure your landing pages are consistent with the ad copy and visitor experience is consistent. Make sure the design is simple, headlines are compelling, and the next steps are clear (like a sign-up form or buy button). A poor landing page experience will reduce your capacity to convert paid traffic into customers. If you’re wondering how to improve PPC performance, your landing pages are a great place to start.
Mistake 4: Failure to Optimize for Mobile
Because mobile phones generate a huge volume of web traffic, it is important to craft PPC campaigns taking into account the mobile users. Many marketers don’t optimize for mobile, so landing pages and ads are hard to read on small screens.
Your landing pages and ad creatives should be mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and offer a perfect mobile browsing experience. Click-to-call buttons and mobile forms can also result in more mobile conversions. Ignoring mobile optimization is a local PPC mistake that can cost you valuable leads from users on the go.
Mistake 5: Not Tracking Conversions Correctly
Campaigning without conversion tracking is similar to sailing a ship in the dark. Conversion tracking allows you to measure campaigns’ performance since it monitors the actions users take after clicking on your ads.
If you’re not tracking, you’re wasting money on ads without knowing whether or not they’re impacting your objectives. Use tracking software like Google Analytics or the conversion tracking feature in your ad platform to monitor metrics like purchases, form submissions, or downloads. Those metrics will let you know what’s working, what’s not, and where you need to make adjustments.
Optimize Your PPC Strategy Today
Avoiding these common PPC mistakes will open the door to a more efficient and cost-saving strategy. Set objectives, use negative keywords, mobile-optimize, offer good landing page performance, and have proper conversion tracking.
By tweaking these factors, you’ll receive improved campaign results, reduce wasted spend, and produce more results. Need even more know-how to make you an expert on PPC? Keep reading our blog for more expert tips and news!
