Don’t be an April fool when it comes to PPC

Good PPC is an art. A lot of people don’t realise that there is a lot of maths, data analysis and scientific formulas involved and if you get it wrong, it can be very, very, very expensive. But, get it right and you can take your business to the next level. April may be a time for fools, but luckily we don’t suffer fools lightly here at P81!

1. Wasting money

This is the probably the most painful thing that can happen if you either set up PPC campaigns incorrectly, or if you leave them to their own devices. It makes me weep when I audit an account and I see the generic one campaign, one ad group and loads of keywords on broad match (I can hear all the PPCers wincing at that, right now). I get so passionate because I know the potential PPC campaigns can have.

Poorly set up PPC campaigns will pretty much guarantee low quality scores, which in turn means your average cost-per-clicks (CPCs) will skyrocket. PPC can be extremely volatile if you’re not 100% sure what you’re doing, or if you’re not in the account every day. Broad match keywords essentially mean that Google will match you to anything it deems relevant.

So, you’re a BMW MoT garage only. You only want people wanting to book an MoT for their BMW. With “BMW MoTs” on broad match, Google’s thinking will go like this: “Well, a Mercedes is another type of car, and servicing is another car related service, so, we will show your ads for “Mercedes services”… (????)… and next thing you know, you’ve spent thousands on driving irrelevant traffic to your website.

• Damaging brand credibility

Keywords aside, your ad copy is just as important, and it is so critical that you get it right. If you set up ad scheduling incorrectly (and it is a fine art!), you can quite easily have out-of-date ad copy running which leads to frustrated potential customers when they come to your site and find an offer has gone, or prices have changed. This can put people off your brand straight away, which then makes it very difficult to ever get them back. Everything needs to be seamless to win the sale.

Ads also need just as much optimising, if not more, because you should be continually split-testing headlines and keywords within ad copy to find that perfect combination so you can display an ad that is most likely to get that client to convert.

• Google’s “recommendations”

Sigh. This is a tricky one. Google is now showing constant recommendations within the ad interface to help you make the most of the tools available to you. However, you have to remember that these are not all bespoke to you and do not take into consideration your business goals. Don’t get me wrong, they can be super useful; when you have built a new campaign, it can be easy to miss copying over that one call extension, and the recommendations will prompt you right away.

However, if you’re not au fait with PPC, then this recommendations tab can be lethal. Click the wrong suggestion (auto apply is not your friend), and you could basically give Google permission to drive as much traffic to your website and spend your budget as fast as possible and then your ads stop running for the day by 10am. Or they can even help you drive up your average CPCs unnecessarily.

You need to know Ads inside and out to know which recommendations are right for you, and which you should keep a country mile away from.

There are so many things changing in the digital world, nothing sits still. That’s why agencies exist because running campaigns, building websites and SEO are full-time jobs. It’s not something that can be done when you have a spare five minutes once in a blue moon. The biggest take-away would be continue doing what you’re amazing at, which is running your business, and then get an award-winning partner to run your marketing and help you take your business to the next level. If you’d like to chat to our PPC team about how we can help you with your campaigns today, make sure to contact us here.