A big advantage of PPC advertising is that you can set it up quickly and get your ads showing on Google within a few hours. This means you can get your business online and start driving traffic to your site and results straightaway, however, speaking from experience, there are some elements that do require consideration even when setting up an account in a rush!
The five most common mistakes to avoid are –
1. Time zone and billing currency settings
These are set only once at the account level when you are first setting up your account. You must be careful because once these have been set they can’t be changed and they will impact the currency you are billed in and if you use time of day targeting selecting the wrong time zone will have a massive impact.
2. Putting all your keywords in one place
Avoid the mistake of having one campaign with only a few ad groups and make sure that you breakdown your keywords into tightly themed ad groups and place them in relevant campaigns. This will enable you to make your ad copy, landing pages as relevant as possible and set budgets at a more granular level.
3. Leaving all keywords on the default broad match setting
Broad match is the default keyword match type, but take the time to select different match types for your keywords and avoid paying for wasted clicks. Make use of all available match types including negatives to tighten the targeting of your ads and make sure they are only displayed to and clicked on by relevant users who are more likely to carry out the required conversion once they land on your site.
4. Boring Ad Copy
It can be difficult fitting your message into the short ad text, but you should not forget to make it stand out from the others on the results page. Encourage user to click on your ad by including your USPs and a clear call to action. You should maintain the relevance throughout the journey making sure the ad text is relevant to the search term that triggered the ad and also prepares the users for what they will see and be expected to do once they land on your site.
5. Using the home page as your landing page
You should avoid using your website home page as the landing page when a user clicks on your PPC adverts. This is because they will then have to search again on your site to find what they were looking for and plenty of people won’t bother and will hit the back button. Always select the most relevant landing page for the keyword that triggered the ad, they should be able to find what they are looking for straightaway.
So, in summary don’t rush when setting up your account. Take your time and avoid these common mistakes to get your PPC campaigns off to a good start.
