TPPC advertising can be a great accompaniment to your SEO campaign and lead to even more brand awareness, leads and traffic. However, if you aren’t seeing any ROI then you might feel like PPC isn’t for you – this isn’t the case.
A well optimised, managed PPC campaign can deliver some great results. If not set up efficiently, Google Ads can drain your budget quickly with nothing to show for it. If you have little experience with the platform or are running your own PPC campaigns on a whim, important settings can be missed or set up incorrectly which can be detrimental to the success of your campaign.
Top tip: Google won’t tell you if you have set your campaign up incorrectly for your business needs. Whether your ads are performing well or not, Google will take your money regardless. It is your responsibility to optimise and maintain your campaign performance.
Read on to discover the most common ways you may be wasting campaign budget and how to resolve them!
Trusting What Has Been Done Previously
Whether you have been hired to manage a campaign or are taking over from another colleague, you cannot assume that the campaigns that are running are well optimised or set up correctly. Even the most capable team member can make a mistake or overlook a crucial setting, so look at the campaigns with new eyes to make sure your account is in top shape. Look at the account as whole and then drill down into how each campaign is structured and make sure there aren’t any important keywords that have been negative matched!
One-Size-Fits-All Settings
When you create a Google Ads account, there are many default settings in place. If you don’t have experience with PPC you may think leaving these as they are is best practise, unfortunately this isn’t the case. One of the most dangerous default settings is location targeting – which is automatically set to target internationally when you create a PPC account. We have taken over many client accounts where they have been shocked that their ads have been showing in Germany, Australia and France when they are a small local business in the UK! Make sure you read through all your settings and actually understand what they mean because not knowing and guessing could be catastrophic.
Not Spying on Competitors
If your competitors are also running Google Ads but always seem to be outranking you, you should definitely look at what they’re doing to see how you can incorporate similar techniques. How are their ads written? Are they formal or more laid back? What USPs (unique selling points) do they include? Do they offer a discount? All this information will help you create new ads to trial against your existing ads to see which works better.
Keeping Everything Broad
The most common mistake that is made is setting up all your keywords as broad match, which is the default in Google Ads. Generally speaking, the best keyword match type is phrase match but you should find the best match for you and what you are looking for.
Read our guide on keyword match types.
Auto-Pilot Mode
You HAVE to monitor and manage your campaign to ensure you are spending your budget in the right places. We have seen campaigns waste thousands of pounds due to being left on auto-pilot mode.
Find out about our PPC management service.