How confident are you in your Google Ad campaign? While it is true that pay-per-click can be an integral, helpful part of your business’s marketing, it might as well not be done at all if it’s not done right.
Due to poor in-house PPC management, small businesses tend to waste at least a quarter of their PPC budgets. This waste is caused by inexperience, lack of nuanced knowledge, and simply not having enough time to devote to Google Ads (formerly known as “AdWords”).
No matter the reason, it means a lot of wasted time and money, which drives up costs without achieving your goals.
The result? High cost-per-lead, low conversion, and even lower ROI.
This article will review six of the most common in-house PPC management mistakes that damage Google Ad campaigns.
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1. Sending Traffic Home
Sending all ad traffic to your homepage is one of the biggest (and most common) PPC management mistakes we see from in-house teams. It’s a surefire way to ensure you won’t get adequate returns from your Google ad campaign.
The lack of focus is the problem with sending all of your PPC visitors to your homepage. Instead, it would be best if you designed a relevant, focused landing page. A landing page focused on the visitor’s search intent will always perform better than the broad messaging of most home pages.
Even if your website is clean and easy to navigate, the extra effort reduces the chance that a pay-per-click visitor will stick around. No one wants to be forced to hunt through your site to find the answers they need.
Sending traffic to your home page translates into a higher bounce rate and fewer leads or sales.
2. Leaving Your Google Ad Campaign As-Is
Your Google Ads campaign requires frequent monitoring and updating. Remember, Google Ads is built on a marketplace where your competitors continually adjust. Like you, they want to get a leg up on one another.
If you’re not regularly checking your stats and looking for ways to improve, you’re missing opportunities and wasting money.
You should set aside time to monitor your keywords to see which ones aren’t working out. Then, you should research to find new keywords you should start using.
I understand how time-consuming it is to monitor your ad campaign’s performance continually. However, it is even more time-consuming when tweaking your strategy.
“Time” is one of the biggest reasons we get hired to manage Google ad campaigns.
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3. Not Using Ad Extensions
Ad extensions make your ads more clickable. They give the user more information to entice them to choose your ad from among all the other options.
You can add a phone number, location information, site link extensions, and more with ad extensions. In addition, you can optimize your mobile ad and even show off some of your relevant products.
These extensions give potential customers more helpful information about your business. All this contributes to their willingness to click. As long as they’re being sent to appropriate landing pages — not just the homepage — you’ll see a higher conversion rate.
Yet, ad extensions only work if you use the appropriate extensions for your business, product, and keyword. Some extensions will be super valuable, and others will add clutter. Knowing which will work can be tricky and require a fair bit of research or working with a professional.
Extensions are part of your Google Ads account. You’re essentially leaving money on the table by not using them correctly.
4. Not Tracking Spending and ROI
If you’re not keeping a close eye on your pay-per-click spending, you may be in for a nasty shock.
It would help if you track your campaign’s spending daily and monthly. This is integral for budgeting and making sure you don’t overspend. It is also essential for analyzing your ROI and the success of your campaign.
Monitoring your economics also gives you an indication of when you should update your campaign. Be sure to avoid high-cost keywords that aren’t converting.
You should reallocate the money spent on those “clicks” towards keywords that convert.
5. Pausing Your PPC Management
At some point, you’ll probably have to put your campaign management on hold when you’re managing your PPC in-house. For example, maybe your marketing person is going on vacation, or you’ve got a major event and need all hands on deck.
You might assume that there is no harm in pausing your Google ad campaign until you can get going again later.
Unfortunately, good PPC management can’t be turned on and off like a light switch. As a result, you lose out on valuable clicks when you pause your campaign, and your competitors gain those customers.
You’ll also have a significant gap in your stats, making it harder to strategize and improve your campaigns in the future. You’ll have to work hard to get them back up again, so you need to restart your keyword research.
Remember the time-consuming issue? Can you afford for your team to do keyword research all over again? You certainly wouldn’t want to skip the research for obvious reasons.
When you work with a professional, they keep your PPC campaigns running no matter what.
6. Forgetting A/B Testing
One of the best ways to improve your advertising is by A/B testing. It shows you what works and what ad copy is falling flat.
Simply put, A/B testing generates valuable data you need to make intelligent, calculated marketing decisions.
A/B testing isn’t simple, however. The data it generates can be complicated rather than straightforward. That is why it is often best to work with a professional who can analyze this data correctly. For example, a Google specialist can help you plan a more innovative, more effective Google ad campaign.
Wrapping Up
PPC management isn’t easy. However, when you try to manage it yourself in-house, many mistakes can bring your campaign down and waste your budget.
These are some of the most common mistakes, but they aren’t the only ones.
If you want to up your PPC campaigns and see more ROI, try working with a professional PPC consultant. They will ensure you avoid these pitfalls while setting you up for success.
Not sure how your PPC management holds up? Contact us for a free evaluation and learn more about what makes White Peak so unique.
Tim Woda is the CEO and founder of White Peak Marketing. He has been on the founding team of five successful start-ups and his digital marketing campaigns have acquired more than 800 million customers for his start-ups and White Peak’s client companies. Tim has been featured by The New York Times, Fox News, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and more. Under Tim’s direction, White Peak was selected as one of America’s Top Digital Marketing Agencies for 2021 by MarTech Outlook magazine.
