PPC Training: 5 Common Mistakes Your Campaign Needs to Avoid

 Are you getting the most from your PPC campaign? If you're making these common mistakes, you aren't. This PPC training guide lays out what you need to avoid.

Let’s start by saying that this is not a typical PPC training post. This is not a guide about the steps you have to follow to root success in your business life and earn more. If you are looking for free guides, we have a bunch of them here.

Today we are talking about failure and how you can avoid it. I'm sure you’ve heard business owners saying they've tried their best with PPC, spending thousands of dollars within months, with no results. 

It's true. It happens. Because using PPC the wrong way is more common than you think. We will take a look at these wrong ways in a minute.

This blog post is part of “Your Definitive Guide to Lead Generation” blog series.

But Before PPC Training, Let’s Learn Some Copywriting.

The first thing you want to do is to make yourself memorable and create great ad copy that will make your potential clients or customers click on your ad. After all, it’s hard to get noticed when millions of other businesses out there are trying to do the same thing.

Before you start with PPC training, learn how to write an excellent copy by:

• Checking out your competition and learning how to stand out.
• Focusing on the solution you offer to a common industry problem.
• Avoiding misspellings and typos.
• Not forgetting about your call to action (“Click Here,” “Buy Now,” etc.) that will make people want to act. 

Of course, you must do your homework and monitor your industry’s needs. Get a sense of your audience and learn how they search for products or services your offer.

So, let’s start with the five common PPC mistakes, shall we?

1. Your Targeting is Inefficient

Targeting is important when it comes to PPC. You don’t want to spend your money on ads that reach the wrong people. This way you will just be left with ads that do not convert. And you don’t want that, do you? Of course, you don’t!

Select your audience’s location, the language you want to use, as well as the devices you want your ads to show on. If your business is, for example, local, you’d better target people around your area. If you sell dresses, you should consider reaching women. It is just common sense!

2. You Don’t Test Your Campaigns

PPC needs constant monitoring. This can include monitoring your keywords', target settings', or even your copy's performance.

Testing your campaigns will only help you better realize how they are performing and it will give you better results. Laziness has no place in PPC advertising. Luckily, there is transparency in this marketing tactic that will help you with the optimizations your ads might need.

Just look at your campaigns and track their conversions. Keep the ones that bring you money running, and just modify the ones that give little in return.  

Monitor, measure, optimize, earn!

DOWNLOAD OUR 30 GREATEST LEAD GENERATION LESSONS IN THIS FREE GUIDE.

3. You Use a Wrong Landing Page

Let’s just say your business sells smartphones, and you have an ad that promotes the new iPhone 7. Where do you want people who click on your ad to go? To your site's iPhone product category, of course!

Many businesses create an ad, and the destination URL they use has nothing to do with it. In fact, most of the times, they use their homepage.

The Internet is a fast-paced environment. If your potential customers don’t get what they want right away, they will just close the tab and move to the next website. The best thing you want to do is drive them to a relevant page that will make them want to take action, buy, or even become repeat buyers.

When it comes to online advertising, immediate action means money.

4. You Don’t Respect Your Keywords

Keywords matter when it comes to PPC ad campaigns. They are your advertisements’ soul, and you need to take extra care of them, whether through your own research or the use of a tool like KW Finder. Let’s see how you can use them to make them bring you more in return. This is important so keep reading!

Use Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are keywords that don’t fall into any category of your website. They are just common search terms that will only confuse your ad campaign. Figure out which keyword are negative, and let Google know that you have nothing to do with them.

Let’s just say you have this smartphones e-shop, but you sell no Samsung phones. So, since you have no Samsung products you don’t want your business to show up on any search results that include Samsung Galaxies.  All you have to do is put all the Samsung related keywords in this "Negative Keywords" field.

This way you will build credibility, and you won’t have to spend extra money on a search term that is not applicable to your business.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

If you are not familiar with PPC and online advertising, this one might sound weird to you. More keywords don't mean more results. 

Your keywords must be accurate and drive users to products and services your website really has to offer. Many professionals believe that bidding on extra search terms will pull more traffic and sales, but that’s not the case.

Focus on your business’ good keywords and spend more money on them instead of throwing it away on extra search terms that might bring you more customers. This rarely happens.  However, even if your keywords are 100 percent relevant, you must know how to use them.

Don’t Bid on Broad Match Keywords

We know that online advertising is a struggle. If it weren't you wouldn’t be reading a PPC training blog, right?Sometimes, this struggle comes with some laziness to build the perfect online campaign.

As a result, many companies just use broad keywords in an ad and expect for high ROI. We are sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but broad match keywords usually lead to a low click through rate. And low CTR means wasting money.

Try to be specific and use exact match keywords or even long-tail ones that relate both to your products/services and your ad copy. Being specific saves money!

5. You Combine Search and Display Network

When you create a campaign, Google suggests combining search and display network for better results. We hate to admit it but Google is lying.

The truth is that Search Network and Display Network are two different advertising medias and that’s how online marketers have to treat them. Combining search and display will lower your campaign’s CPC simply because the display network offers significantly lower CPC.

You didn't see that coming, did you?

We know that all these might sound like a lot to you. If you still need some help with online advertising, make sure you watch our "Creating Campaigns That Convert" on-demand video!

Want more handy tips related to lead generation marketing? Check out 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks, and Ideas. This guide will boost your lead generation strategy with insight on A/B testing, landing pages, content creation, and more. Click to download!