12 Common PPC Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2022
Pay Per Click advertising is a highly effective paid marketing strategy that almost all businesses use to attract more customers.
Many businesses tend to ignore some basics when setting up their PPC campaigns.
A small PPC mistake can cost you millions of dollars in the form of a failed marketing campaign. You will need extensive niche knowledge to reap maximum benefits from your PPC venture.
Pay Per Click ads to play an integral part in building brand image and improving the revenue of your business if done right. You would want to avoid the most common mistakes, from avoiding target audience, USP, CTAs, and emotional triggers to sub-standard copywriting and lack of ad optimization. Keeping all PPC mistakes into consideration, you will be able to produce better results with your ad campaigns.
In a Nutshell
Before Starting Off
Before you start off with PPC campaigns in general, it is important to know how they work and what are the major categories they fall in.
The success criteria of both types of PPC ads depend on the number of clicks that each ad gets. Maximum clicks and low-Cost Per Click (CPC) ensure the success of a PPC campaign.
Source: Q4Launch
Following are some of the mainstream types of PPC ads that you can choose to run to improve your sales and, eventually, your revenue. Let’s dive into the basic difference between these two categories:
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Display PPC Ads
Display PPC ads are the ads that you see on a website, and when you click on them, they redirect you to the landing page of the ad that will potentially convert a lead into a sale.
These ads come in different formats given banners, rectangular display ads, square-shaped display ads, video ads, and many more. Set up Google display ads for your
Social ads can also fall in the same category, and failing to track the right metrics will not only cost you tons of dollars but also negatively impact your brand image.
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Search PPC Ads
When you search for something on google, you will find some search results at the top of the page. They are the sponsored Google ads that show on the top of the results. Businesses buy the services of Google to rank their ads on top for a predetermined period of time.
Example:
For instance, if you search “hosting services” on Google, you will find a lot of local and general ads targeting this keyword.
Jumping in Without Understanding PPC Advertising
You will need to understand how PPC advertising works and knowledge of PPC mistakes to avoid generating maximum results and improved revenue.
We have compiled a list of common PPC mistakes that can potentially affect your campaigns. If you avoid these mistakes, you will be able to generate better results without having to face loss during the whole process.
Let’s dive into the common mistakes that you must avoid while forming a strategy for your campaigns.
1. Not Targeting the Right Audience
The most important aspect of marketing is pinned on understanding your target audience. In fact, making a buyer persona is one of the most crucial steps that every business needs to get done right when it is forming its brand identity.
If your ad doesn’t speak to your target audience in the most precise way possible, it will be a grave mistake that one can offer. The mistakes like these that fall in PPC mistakes that impact your PPC ad performance can potentially cost you millions of dollars.
2. Not Calculating the ROI
One of the most overlooked PPC mistakes that businesses often make is not calculating the exact ROI.
Imagine getting insane profits out of your ad campaigns without knowing that your campaign is going to lose. Calculate a rough budget that you will spend on getting high-quality PPC services and make the rest of your decisions accordingly.
High traffic from paid ads with consistently low traffic from organic reach tells us that your product is not sustainable.
Little do people know that you have calculated the ROI on your investment and compared it with the organic reach and visibility that the PPC ads are bringing to the table.
Here are a few tips to keep your finances in check:
- Set a definite budget at the start
- Calculate the cost per ad
- Reverse engineer the cost per sale and a lot a percentage that you can afford to spend on ads
- Do not Spend more than your revenue.
- Keep unmeasurable factors in account, like brand visibility, while formulating the profit strategy.
3. Not Tracking the Metrics
Not Testing Your Conversion Funnel at each step of a sales cycle can cause your ads to perform poorly. You will not just have to ensure the functionality and flow of the funnel but will also have to do extensive research given the results of a particular campaign.
Source: ThinkWithGoogle
Know what kind of ads are working for your target audience, see what triggered their emotions, analyze their interests and learn why certain leads failed to convert in sales.
Implement the essence you learned from previous PPC mistakes, improve your strategy, and have a detailed analysis again until it is in perfect harmony with profit margins, number of sales, and cost-effectiveness of the campaign.
5 Basic Metrics to Track the Success of a PPC Ad
- Number of Clicks
- Click Through Rate
- Impression Share (%)
- Number of Conversions
- Cost Efficiency
Get Help From Professional Tools:
Many platforms offer PPC kits that help you generate a PPC campaign in minutes from anywhere at any time. These tools and software programs have made it really easy not just to make a campaign but also to track it in accordance with your target keywords.
4. Not Diving Into Competitor Research
Having a detailed knowledge of what your competitors are doing makes a basis for how you can cash the most from your PPC campaign in accordance with your business needs.
Process what your competitors are doing, frame it, break down their strategy and improve your campaign accordingly.
One of the most common landing page mistakes is ignoring what your competitor is up to. They might be offering their products in special bundles or discounted prices that might outshine your offer during that duration.
5. Having Headlines Missing Persuasion
A good ad is one that persuades the reader to take action. A good CTA is necessary to pull off a successful advertising strategy. There are three parts in an ad that is prone to PPC mistakes:
- Headline
- Description
- Extension
The headline is most important of all because it grabs the attention of the reader in the first place. So make sure you add relevant emotional triggers in the headline to persuade the readers to click on it.
6. Ignoring the Keyword Intent and Type
Choosing The Wrong Keywords can lead your marketing project to loss. The type of keyword you choose decides the success of your ads. If you choose a keyword that has minimum to zero search volume, your ad will not appear on the search results.
In order to target the right keyword and formulate a copy centered on the keyword intention and type, you can also outsource your copywriting project to a reputed content marketing agency like KamilWebSolutions.
Source: Digital Information World
Do extensive research and choose keywords with high search volume and low competition in your niche related to your product or service.
7. Not Providing Proof of Credibility
When you add statistics in your ad, it improves credibility and plays a part in building the authority of your business. Skipping the statistic can potentially render your ads baseless.
When you add a number to the description of your ad, you have almost convinced your audience regarding the authenticity of your claim.
8. Not Having Emotional Triggers
Adding psychological triggers to add emotional value and persuasion to your ad is one of the best practices while preparing an ad copy. The powerful words add emotional value to your content.
Moreover, you can also use the basic principles of psychology and emotional sciences to create FOMO, Scarcity, or Urgency in your offer that will motivate the readers to take action.
8 Best Emotional Triggers
- Trust
- Guilt
- Sense of Belonging
- Instant Gratification
- Exclusivity
- Anger
- Anticipation
- Fear
9. Not Optimizing the Display URL
URL is really important in any ad. A poorly optimized link that affects your whole campaign is one of the biggest PPC mistakes that a business can make. The display URL should be shortened and incorporate the basic keyword.
If you have set everything in place, but the ad is not working fine, you must look at your URL and optimize it according to your keyword. When thinking of how to fix PPC mistakes in this category, use URL optimization tools like Linktree.
10. Not Prioritizing the Reader
Prioritizing the reader is very important, and ignoring the reader and prioritizing your brand instead will render your ad useless. Your key focus should be on the reader, and you would want to present the features of your products or services in the form of benefits and in a language that readers can relate to.
Tell your audience how your ad can improve the experience of your readers. For instance, if you are going to market or advertise a beauty product with chemicals that can help in skin regeneration.
Pro Tip: You can improve the ad by focusing on words like “You” and “Your” instead of using pronouns like “I” or “We” to keep your ad reader-centric.
11. Exceeding the Character Limit
According to Google, the optimum character limit for a text ad should fall around 90 Characters for the description of each ad. You will have to convey your point in a precise and persuasive way.
The headlines of your ads should ideally be nearing 30 characters. You will have to make it catchy, crunchy, and creative with a minimum word limit keeping it perfect in terms of copywriting.
12. Missing Unique Selling Point
A unique Selling Point decides the value of your brand. It is something that your business claims to serve best in the market. It is where you can overcome your competitors.
Make sure your USP is authentic, and your services and products justify your claim. If your ad is missing a USP, then it will not be able to stand out from the thousands of other ads that your audience is bombarded with on a daily basis.
Summarize your USP in a few words and add it to the headlines or description to improve the performance of your ad.
The Bottom Line
If you are planning to dive into the world of advertising for your business, you will need to make sure that your ads are free of any PPC mistakes and are perfect to go from your side. If you follow all the right practices, your ads will start performing and bring you exponential growth in revenue.
