by Josh Prizer

While it is easy to get started in pay per click advertising, it’s even easier to make very costly mistakes. Building a pay per click campaign the correct way means paying attention to detail and continual oversight and management. I’ve compiled a list of 10 typical mistakes that are found in PPC advertising campaigns.

Big, Bulky and Broad Ad Groups for Your Keywords

Creating relevant, targeted ads are important. Avoid placing all your keywords into a couple massive ad groups. Build them tighter. With tight ad groups you can control more of your ad customization to increase relevancy.

Ignoring Negative Keywords

With quality scores and click through rates playing a bigger role in your pay per click ad rank, it’s more important to weed out the keywords that push up your impressions and don’t result in desired clicks. If you sell “widget software” make sure you have negative keywords such a “-free” or “-serial.” Also, check your log files for your site to look for bad keywords that you are spending money on right now.

Weak Testing

An often neglected, but very important result-booster is the split testing of your ads. Even minor variations can increase your effectiveness. Obviously, you can rework such items like your unique value statement or your different calls to action, but there are many variables of each ad that can be optimized. Your display url, the ad title, each line of copy — all of that may be effectively tested. This can be time consuming, which is why a quality pay per click management company can be a great investment, especially if they offer daily split testing. Effort here pays off.

Poor or Non-Existent Tracking

Of course, testing your ads and fine tuning your keyword lists only works well if you are tracking results. The search engines will tell you what your click-through rates are … but you need bottom-line results. You need to know your return on investment or what your cost per action is. It’s not enough to know that you spend $5,000 and get back $10,000. You might be able to spend only $3,000 and get that same $10,000.

Not Tracking Down to the Keyword-Level

Setting up good analytics yourself or hiring a professional pay per click management company can do the job. Not only do you get more bang for your buck by getting rid of poor performers, but getting tracking to the keyword-level makes all of your testing and work even more precise. You need to know your earnings per click. If one keyword has a 56 cent Earnings Per Click (EPC) and another had a $1.22 EPC, this is important knowledge. Adjusting your bids to an appropriate level can keep you from over spending…or allow you to throttle up your overall traffic for even more success. Don’t let poor keywords leak your accounts.

Not Specific Enough Keywords

While some generic keywords can drive a lot of traffic and even be very profitable, they also can be filled with pitfalls. Negative keywords may not be enough to save you from going in the red on a generic keyword. Often, the users doing these searches are at a very early stage of the research and buying process. Again, this is another important reason to track results on a keyword basis.

Avoiding the Dirty Work of Building Long-Tail Keywords

This dovetails into the previous item. Building out lists and ads for long-tail keywords can be a time-consuming process, but worthwhile if done right. You are going to have different earnings per click for the keywords “dvd player,” “sony dvd player” and “sony dvd player model DVP-NS57P/B.” One consumer is doing research, while the other is likely pricing for the specific model they want and is ready to buy.

Not Pulling Apart Content and Search Campaigns

You can get stung by poor quality traffic or click fraud if you do not separate your content network advertising from your search network advertising. If you don’t understand those above items, there is a good probability that you are not separating the two in your accounts right now … and you are very likely losing money. A better solution is to build separate campaigns for each and … track with precise analytics the results from each network. Again, not knowing is probably costing you now.

Failing to Geo-Target if You’re Local

Each of the major pay per click engines offer a way to tightly set up your campaigns. If you are working from a local pool of potential clients in your area, you need to take advantage of some of the area-specific targeting that the PPC engines offer. Fine tuning your campaigns to get the right people in your region to respond can be well worth the effort to your bottom line.

Not Frequently Monitoring Your Accounts

Alright, so maybe you do not frequently monitor your EPCs at the keyword level (you should). And, you don’t conduct split tests every day your ads are up (you should). It is still surprising that there are a high number of pay per click advertisers who don’t continually monitor their accounts. The big three PPC engines are cracking down on poor performing ads more than ever. Many advertisers are getting stung with the “Inactive for Search” label on their keywords. If you don’t monitor your accounts, Google, Yahoo and MSN may have plucked some of your keywords off their networks. And, with that, some of your profits.

The Terrible 10 of Pay Per Click Advertising is a lot to consider, but it’s vital for healthy pay per click campaigns. Whether you can actively manage your PPC accounts at this level or you need to hire a pay per click management company to do it, vigilance and precision can make a huge impact on your bottom line.

About the Author:

About the Author: Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and PPC expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a pay per click management company. Visit us today to discover more on how to improve your PPC ad accounts and performance.

Tags: Pay Per Click

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