If you’d like to get pay-per-click traffic, you need to know about the most common errors businesses make– and how to avoid them. Avoid PPC mistakes here!
Anyone with an online presence knows that traffic matters. We’re living in a world with 3.5 billion internet users. That’s a lot of eyes.
Internet advertisements expose your product to more people and generally create more sales. It’s a simple concept, but one that gets mishandled all the time.
When most people think of increasing traffic, they’re looking to build their organic traffic. And, rightly so. It’s a great strategy to attract potential leads, and SEO is too important to ignore.
We’re not talking about SEO though. Most web-focused businesses already have a decent SEO strategy, even if there is always room for improvements.
Pay-per-click ad campaigns can drive high-value visitors with the greatest likelihood to convert. Make the most of your pay-per-click ads by avoiding these common mistakes.
Our focus is on how bungled most pay-per-click campaigns are.
In 2014, 10 percent of surveyed companies said they planned to increase their PPC budget for the upcoming year. The rest of those businesses misread the market.
Seventy percent of surveyed businesses ended up increasing their PPC budget in 2015.
We think this increase in spending is likely related to the growing number of mediums allowing businesses to get pay per click traffic. It’s a good thing for smart advertisers and a bad thing for naive ones.
Not only did most companies not see the PPC success coming last year, but now they have to catch up with new and ever-evolving platforms. It’s not going to be a smooth few years for small businesses without the large budget to adapt.
So we’re stepping in, so we can champion for the little guy. We’ve broken down the two biggest mistakes we see that prevent people from getting pay-per-click traffic.
You Aren’t Using Mobile to Get Pay Per Click Traffic
Mobile traffic represents 51 percent of our digital media consumption daily, yet some people still choose to ignore it.
Don’t be one of those people.
In fact, in 2015 Google disclosed that mobile searches had outpaced desktop searches on its platform.
Another study showed mobile platforms make up an estimated 58 percent of U.S. online searches.
The shift in users device preferences means businesses either adapt or suffer. The number of resources you’re putting into mobile ads per year needs to increase drastically.
We’re seeing more and more studies come up with numbers supporting mobile’s ability as an advertising platform. An astonishing 93 percent of people who use a mobile device for research go on to make a purchase.
That’s an unheard-of percentage. Conversions are what make pay-per-click campaigns worth running, and with mobile, they’re easier than ever to come by.
The results of a Flordia law firm provide substantial proof to any doubters that these studies aren’t one-off anomalies.
When the law firm increased mobile ad bids by 25 percent their conversion rate tripled, their click-through rate increased, and their cost per click decreased. New customers also increased by 149 percent.
That’s an increase in business and a lowering in cost across the board. You don’t even have to question why this works so well for small businesses, just understand the results and climb aboard.
Confusion About Keyword Targeting
Keywords are important. So important that we’re using them right now in this article.
People don’t realize that your keywords and how you apply them are the fundamental basis of your marketing. Everything goes through a search engine, and your ad success is going to depend greatly on what people are searching for.
You have two basic choices when choosing keywords, short-tail, and long-tail.
The highest Google AdWords bid on a keyword is for “best mesothelioma lawyer,” at $935.71 per click. That’s a short tail keyword and an unheard-of price for a small business budget.
There’s just no way to compete with companies like Progressive or Geico, but you don’t have to.
Long-tail keywords cost significantly less than short-tail, and also help target customers likely to purchase your products.
That’s the easy part, though. Once you’ve established a keyword you must know how to use it.
We feel that half the battle to using keywords correctly has to do with budgeting.
Championing what’s called a “broad match.”
It’s a feature that displays ads based on keywords that are similar to your desired text string. If your keyword is “black sweatshirt,” and someone searches for “black sweatpants,” your ad could still appear.
Bing Ads has reported companies receiving as much as 57% of their total impressions and 43% of their clicks through broad match.
That’s a great statistic for those with money to burn on failed conversions. People will be less likely to purchase sweatpants if they were searching for a sweatshirt.
Instead, try out phrase match and negative match targeting.
Phrase match only shows your ads if the search incorporates your keyword. Our example “black sweatshirts” ad would appear in a search for” buy black sweatshirts,” but not “buy black sweatpants.”
Negative matching allows you to exclude keywords altogether. For example, when people searched “red sweatshirts,” you could exclude your ads from appearing.
In theory, these keyword options will make sure you only pay for ads that target your demographic.
Not targeting better ads – Google allows businesses to use customer email addresses
Create lists with the Google Display Network that tell the platform what ads to serve based on specified criteria. Customers who have added an item to their shopping cart in the past thirty days can be specifically targeted with unique ads.
Health food service, Julian Bakery, saw a 35 percent increase in conversions using Google Display Network.
Avoiding cross-matched target ad groups can further this success. Try to target the most specific demographics you can without overlap to save money and increase conversions.
Small businesses will never be able to go shot-for-shot with massive corporations. This doesn’t mean we’ll fail, only that our pay-per-click strategies need to stay savvy and mistake-free. Keep in mind these two mistakes and take steps to avoid them to watch your traffic grow.