Pay Per Click ads, are you getting your money’s worth?
Are your pay per click ads working for you? I cannot tell you how many times I hear business owners upset at Google because they make on average a reported .12 cents per search. Now the giant is as
bad as Microsoft! At least business owners with a lack of pay per click management knowledge would like you to believe that.
Why are business owners so upset at Google AdWords?
Most likely they tried AdWords with one of their $50 advertising credits from GoDaddy and did not learn how to use it. Most likely, they chose thousands of useless keywords that were so broad and general they received a poor quality score, as a result they were not put in prime positions or even shown at all. Most likely, they did not know about negative keywords and how important they can be to your campaign. It is obvious they did not give it enough time or effort, but as important they did not hire a PPC manager. Business owners, especially small business owners have a tendency to be the cook, waiter, and maitre d’ therefore delegation is overlooked quite often.
Hiring a PPC expert can add to your overhead, but let us remember we advertise to get business back. If you spend $10,000 per month on a PPC manager and campaign, then should you expect $20,000 or $30,000, or $100,000 in return, correct? Prematurely ending a PPC campaign and not allowing sufficient time is the first reason campaigns fail. The job of any proper SEO and PPC manager is to stay ahead of the search engines, not manipulate or abuse them. Have your PPC manager stick to a timeline and the goals established. Micro managing his efforts will only produce poor results.
The variables involved to make any PPC successful are vast. The amount of time required to become an efficient AdWords campaigner is not produced over night. In fact, it could take up to months and thousands of dollars to establish quality results.
We suggest looking carefully each week to your analytics report and compare them to organic search results. Compare exactly what you spent and what your ROI (return of investment) was. You may find that even with an optimized campaign and manager that Google AdWords still may not be for you.
Negative Keywords:
Adding negative keywords is as important as adding quality positive keywords. A negative keyword tells Google not to show an ad for that keyword. For instance, if you design business cards, but do not print them, it would behoove you to advertise for people searching “printing”. You would then tell Google ‘Printing” is a negative keyword. Some people may say, “but printing and graphics design and similar”. Yes, but again do you want to pay for someone looking for printing when you are selling graphics design? Get specific and notice you CTR go up and costs go down.
Landing Page:
Having a good landing page that is specific to that keyword can decide whether or not that potential sale turns into a conversion. Providing enough content to satisfy your quality score, yet a call to action such as “Act Now” or “Join Now and Receive” can entice customers to join. Remember Google will not show your ad if your landing page does not meet the requirements.
Budget:
Set forth a decent budget to be competitive; otherwise other avenues of advertising are suggested. Keep in mind that when you start a campaign results will vary and it is imperative to stick with it for at least 3 months to gauge your success and failures.
Splitting Campaigns:
Splitting campaigns can be time consuming but should be done to separate budgets, receive accurate data and adjust accordingly. Google provides a number of different networks including desktop and mobile displays along with search and/or display. Each one has a huge effect on your campaign and what type of traffic you can expect. Figuring out what is best for your company is done through several months of data through campaigning.
Quality Score:
This single handily can be the most important reason why you are spending so much on your campaign and not receiving the click or leads. You may be experiencing a ton of traffic, but high bounce rate or no conversions. Typically, this is a sign of broad keywords. Another factor that plays a significant role is the content within the webpage visitors will be landing on. Being concise and to the point is key.
Bidding Wars:
Starting or being involved in bidding wars can be a nasty cycle and very costly to everyone in the long run. Letting cooler heads prevail is always the best option instead of driving up costs. Consistently changing your bid to be #1 can have a detrimental effect for everyone. Instead, producing a quality page relevant to that keyword and campaign can easily drive down the price and increase your chances of being shown #1.
