October is naturally a month when more attention is paid to things that are scary, creepy, or go bump in the night. Scary (and not-so-scary) Halloween movies are on television every night, trash bag ghosts are hanging out of your neighbor’s trees, and skeletons are in storefronts.
But to anyone in the online advertising industry, none of that is as horrifying as messing up a pay per click advertising campaign. I asked a few members of the eZanga team to share a few of their PPC horror stories and the sales team was more than happy to weigh in.
(When asked which of these horrifying mistakes they’ve made, I got a lot of ‘no comments.’)
Now, onto the most horrifying PPC mistakes anyone can make, ranging from major faux-pas to common PPC misconceptions and rookie mistakes…
From Shane:
- Accidentally putting a single letter like “s” in a keyword list and putting it on “broad match” for a high CPC campaign
- Accidentally checking the box for “adult traffic”
From Tim V.:
- Being scared to test new sources of traffic – there are more converting sources than just Google
- Not setting up proper conversion tracking and optimization – this is a waste of money!
- Not being properly educated on PPC advertising – you should know what a quality score is and how it can affect your campaign!
- Having generic ad copy and unrelated keywords targeted to that ad
- Linking to generic landing pages – don’t leave it up to the user to search your site for what they’re looking for!
From Rachel:
- Forgetting to fund the campaign
- Forgetting to put in keywords
- Putting the wrong destination URL on a campaign
From Rita:
- Not turning on a campaign when the client wants it to go live
- Forgetting to shut a campaign off
- Forgetting to tell the client to add funds to their account
- Letting a client run out of funds without telling them
- Not having the day-parting done correctly.
Lessons Learned:
- Always, always, always double check all keywords and settings before the PPC campaign goes live!
- Test different sources of traffic. Every business and website is different, so they will all find converting traffic in different places.
- Learn the basics of PPC advertising before starting your first campaign.
- Write unique and interesting ad copy for every ad and enter appropriate keywords.
- Always optimize your landing pages so that the user can very easily find what they are looking for.
- Continually monitor and keep an eye on the campaign so that you can re-optimize it, if needed, and know when you need to shut it off or add more funds.
- Maintain continual communication with your clients.
What was the scariest PPC faux pas or rookie mistake you made? Share your horror story in the comments!
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Tags: Ad Copy, internet traffic, keywords, landing page optimization, landing pages, online advertising, PPC, search engine marketing
