Pay per click (PPC) advertising is an incredibly effective way to get instant traffic, qualified leads and measurable conversions but even the pros can fall into some of the most common traps that can turn a promising campaign into a financial disaster. If you can steer clear of these most common PPC mistakes, you’ll be the one raking in the rewards while everyone else is throwing their hands up in the air in frustration.
In this detailed guide, we’re going to take a hard, honest look at the frequent Google Ads mistakes, PPC bidding errors, B2B PPC campaign mistakes and some essential tips for optimising your campaigns so they just plain work and deliver a serious return on investment.
1. Getting your Head Around Keyword Match Types
One of the most common PPC mistakes is not getting to grips with keyword match types. Far too many advertisers rely on broad match, which ends up with ads popping up in totally irrelevant searches and guess what – wasting their budget on completely unqualified clicks.
How to Avoid It:
You can’t just rely on broad matches, you need to mix and match different match types – broad match modifiers, phrase match and exact match are all worth using to make sure your ads are only appearing for searches that actually make sense to your business. Keep a close eye on the search term report to spot any keywords that are sending irrelevant traffic to your site and sort it out ASAP.
Pro Tip: Start off with a solid base of phrases and exact match keywords so you’ve got a bit more control, then you can gradually expand as you get more data coming in.
2. Failing to Use Negative Keywords
Not using negative keywords is a critical Google Ads mistake that’s a total waste of time. You can avoid it if you put in the effort. Without them, your ads will be popping up for searches that have nothing to do with what you sell and that just means you’ll be wasting your budget on clicks that don’t even get a second look.
How to Avoid It:
You need to create a list of negative keywords and keep adding to it. So, if you sell premium shoes, you’ll want to exclude words like “free”, “cheap” or “discount” – because you don’t want to waste your ad budget on people who are just looking for a deal. By excluding those keywords, you can make sure you’re only reaching people who are actually interested in what you have to offer.
3. Writing Ad Copy that Just Doesn’t Cut it
Even if you’ve got your targeting spot on, if your ad copy is rubbish you’re not going to get any clicks or conversions. A lot of B2B PPC campaigns make mistakes because the headlines and descriptions are just too generic – they don’t even address the problems that potential customers are actually trying to solve.
How to Avoid It
First of all, create text that is clear, concise, and direct and that is exactly what the audience is looking for. Use simple categories, for example, “Get a Free Demo” or “Let’s Get Started with a Consultation”.
Additionally, run various versions of your ad copy to find out what headlines, descriptions, and offers attract people the most.
4. Ignoring The State of Your Landing Page
Driving traffic to a landing page that’s just not relevant or is poorly put together is one of the biggest PPC rookie mistakes out there. If your ad promises one thing, but your landing page delivers something completely different, visitors are gonna bounce straight away.
How to Avoid It:
First make sure your landing page matches what your ad is saying, and that it matches up with what people are searching for . Keep it fast, mobile-friendly, and focused on getting one thing done which is hopefully conversion. Put in a few testimonials, maintain the same size of the content, and make it very evident how to proceed next.
BrandBurp Tip: Have your landing page speed optimized and create one of the smoothest customer journey that Google rewards with higher ad rankings and lower CPCs.
5. Not Tracking Conversions Properly
Running campaigns blindfolded, without any idea how conversions are tracking, is like flying a plane blindfolded. You would not be aware of the performance of keywords, ads, or audiences and it would not be possible to know which are actually benefiting you. This is one of the biggest PPC mistakes businesses make – and it can be pretty damaging.
How to Avoid It:
Get conversion tracking up and running using Google Ads and Google Analytics. Besides keeping track of sales, also monitor the minor conversions. for example, users filling out forms, registering for anything, or acquiring a document. This is very significant for the purpose of campaign optimization and pinpointing the keywords that are most likely to be worth the extra money.
6. Messing Up PPC Bidding Strategies
It’s a common mistake among advertisers to either set very high bids or very low ones, which results in losing their ROI. Bidding at a higher rate without considering the cost per conversion, for instance, is one such mistake made by quite a few advertisers, while some others rely on automatic bidding even when they lack the amount of data substantial enough to trust that technique.
How to Avoid It:
Start with good old manual PPC bidding to get a handle on your bids. Once you’ve built up some data, give automated bidding a go but only if you’ve got enough to go on to make it work. Check in regularly on how your bid adjustments are working, and adjust things like device, location and time of day to make sure your spending is targeted right.
PPC Optimisation Tip: Use bid modifiers to focus on the times, places, and devices that are really working for you.
7. Not Breaking Down Campaigns or Ad Groups
Overloading a single ad group with an excessive amount of keywords is a classic PPC blunder. If your ads do not correspond to the search terms of users, they will not only be ineffective but also a waste of budget.
Campaign Organization per Product or Service:
For example, if you are a digital marketing agency, then instead of “SEO Services“, “PPC Management”, and “Social Media Ads” you would have different ad groups for each of these services. You can also write your ad copy to be more targeted and thus increase your click through rate (CTR).
8. Overlooking Mobile Users
In today’s mobile-driven world , ignoring mobile users is one of the biggest PPC mistakes out there. Loads of advertisers design campaigns just for desktop users, which means they end up with poor mobile performance.
How to Avoid It
Make sure your ads and landing pages are mobile friendly. Use mobile preferred ads with shorter headlines, simpler CTAs and fast loading landing pages. Check performance by device regularly and adjust bids or copy.
9. Not Aligning PPC with Overall Marketing Strategy
Your PPC plan must be in line with your entire digital marketing services strategy. One of the frequent B2B PPC errors is that the ads are run without any connection to SEO, content marketing, or social media methods at all.
How to Avoid It:
Make your PPC campaigns part and parcel of the overall digital marketing plan. Use PPC data for SEO and the other way around to find out what keywords work best in both. Work with social media to combine retargeting ads so that you are bringing back leads through several channels.
BrandBurp Insight: Marketing communication through different channels creates a strong brand message and raises ROI.
Conclusion
PPC campaigns do not only involve ad placement but also require a strategy, constant monitoring, and optimization. By steering clear of these common PPC errors, the performance of your ads will improve, costs will drop, and conversions will increase.
At BrandBurp we deliver data driven PPC management and digital marketing services to help businesses get maximum ROI. From fixing Google Ads mistakes to preventing PPC bidding errors our experts will make sure every campaign is optimised
