We’ve all been there: had a great product or service to sell, had a great website to sell it on: now all we need is the perfect PPC campaign to get the sales rolling in. Right?
Even if your ad copy is eye-catching, and your audience is carefully selected, sometimes you just don’t see the results you want. Our digital marketing experts discuss why your PPC strategy is disappointing you, and what you can do to turn it around.
1. Your budgets are too low
‘You get out what you put in’ is often true in the world of PPC. It’s not a cheap marketing strategy, and ultimately the performance of your campaign will depend on how much you are spending.
PPC platforms, Google in particular, are very competitive, and there will almost always be someone bidding on the same keywords as you are. Google and Facebook both enable you to set a daily budget, so it is important to have a monthly spend in mind and work out your daily budget based on how long the campaign will run for.
2. Your campaign set up needs work
When setting up a PPC campaign, take the time to research the best practices for the platform you are using. Google Ads offer free training modules on PPC advertising, and there is also lots of free content online surrounding Facebook and Instagram advertising. Important points for you to focus on include:
- What are your conversion goals – is it a purchase, a phone call, or filling out a contact form?
- Consider your product categories, and how to structure your campaign and ad groups around these
- Is your audience small enough to target relevant customers, but large enough to achieve results?
3. Your keywords aren’t being searched
Google Ad campaigns rely heavily on businesses having knowledge of the keywords relevant to their audience.
To find out what the people who visit your website or use your service are searching, you can use Google Keyword Planner. Using keywords throughout your ad copy will help your PPC ads to get more impressions (views).
You will also need to edit the keyword match type, and add negative keywords if there are terms you do not wish to appear for.
Keyword Types:
Broad Match: Allow your ad to match the widest range of possible keyword searches
Phrase Match: Google matches your ad only against keywords that include a phrase you designate, in the order you have specified
Exact Match: An exact match keyword indicates that your target keyword exactly matches a search query, anchor text in a link, or domain name
Negative Keyword: A type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase
4. You’re not making adjustments
Once your PPC campaign is up and running, we would recommend regularly monitoring performance, and to make changes based on this. If you are using Google Ads, they have a recommendations section, which makes suggestions based on your campaigns performance so far.
Examples of changes you may wish to make include:
- Amending budget
- Re-distributing budget, if you can see that one ad set is performing better than another
- Updating ad copy
- Reviewing the search terms that people are finding your ads from, and adding to both your keywords and negative keyword lists
5. You’re not converting
If you are seeing lots of clicks on your PPC ad, but these aren’t turning in to conversions, there could be many reasons for this. Of course, the main purpose of PPC advertising is to sell your product or service – so this needs to be addressed.
Reasons for lack of conversions could include:
- Your site is hard to use – it either loads slowly, or the landing page you are sending customers to is hard to navigate
- The form or phone number on your website doesn’t work
- Your page isn’t clear to read, or doesn’t make sense
- Your page isn’t suitable for certain devices, such as mobiles or tablets
Review your PPC landing pages, and website as a whole, before you set up a campaign, in order to maximise your conversions.
If you need help setting up your PPC campaign, or could use some advice on improving your conversions, we are happy to help. Get in touch with the redPepper team today.
