15 Deadly AdWords Mistakes You Need to Avoid

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One of the reasons behind a successful PPC Campaign is proper implementation of key-words. Thorough keywords Research is one of the most important steps for proper implementation of keywords.

Therefore, you must be mindful in managing the keywords for your campaigns.

You need to have a proper understanding of what your customers actually put in the search box to find your product/service.

This will let you know how to structure keywords in your account.

Keywords in PPC campaigns need much advance knowledge to manage. In short, treating keywords flawlessly is the key to generate success in PPC.

A single wrong approach to PPC keywords can damage the entire campaign performance. Therefore an experienced PPC manager always justifies keywords with different bench-marks.

In this comprehensive ebook, we will discuss some methodologies of implementing PPC keywords properly.

CHAPTER NO. 1

Not Understanding Profit Margins and Conversions

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An Adword advertiser should take essential steps to take control of his Adwords account. It helps to increase profit margin and conversion rate. Small mistakes could affect ad campaign in more ways than you know.

This will in turn affect the conversions and yourprofitmarginwillgodown.Hereare fewmistakesyouneedtoavoid while creating an ad campaign in order to get higher returns on your investment.

1. Automatic Bidding

An AdWords marketer should avoid using this feature given byGoogle.Google’stargetisto maximize itsprofitsby making more visitors click on ads. With each click Google makes money.

When you allow Google to set your bid amount and keywords, it is very much obvious that Google would work toward its goal.

Google is also offering third party assistance for clients with big amounts. Results of such endeavors are not much positive.

Clients spend hefty money but witness sharp decline of profit in such campaigns. Automated bidding through automated rules over manual bidding does not yield expected ROI.

2. Not Setting A Cost Per Acquisition Goal

If you are looking to optimize the Adword campaign to the maximum, then you need to always need to determine your cost per acquisition. You need to run a campaign for a certain period to know how much budget you have to set.

Based on your product or service, you need to have an estimate of profit figure in mind. Always keep this figure realistic. Compare past campaign results and check your maximum returns on the campaign.

The cost per acquisition should be based on the cost of your product and the profit from that product. This will help you to prepare a budget more precisely and help you to save more money thus increase profits.

3. Undetermined Profit Margins

You need to group your keywords as per particular budget.

When you compare your ad campaigns, you will figure out which ones are performing well and which are the ones you need to stop. This will help you in identifying where you are wasting your money with no returns and where you can increase the budget for more clicks.

4. Not Creating Pricing Strategies

Once you run a test ad campaign, you will figure out how much you will spend for a sale to generate.

You need to remember that leads are good, but not all leads are going to be converted into a sale. Keep all your expenses in mind before setting up a price. A lot of times people tend to sell services or products at a lower cost to attract customers.

This idea may attract a large number of clicks, but if the service or product are not luring enough they will leave the site without taking any action. This will increase your cost for the ad campaign.

5. Forgetting Conversion Rates

In order to understand the cost involved in the ad campaign, you need to keep checking the conversion rates. The various ad groups will have different results.

Sum up the results of the best performing ad groups and get a rough estimate of your conversion rates. Do not count the leads here; count only the actual sale where you earned money.

This will help you to plan your budget in a more precise manner and will also help you in eliminating the ad groups that are not performing well.

5. Maximum Cost Per Click

Some advertisers like to experiment with this figure. While this could help in increasing a few clicks, it doesn't necessarily mean it will increase profit margins. You need to use a figure that you are comfortable in spending.

This figure needs to be based on the cost of the product, your expenses and the conversion rate at which your sale is achieved. Once you compare all these factors, you will come up with a figure that you need to use as the maximum cost per click for your ad campaigns.

6. Forgetting To Research Traffic

Google's traffic estimator is a great tool and most advertisers forget to use it. This tool will help you to check your keywords and the amount other advertisers are spending in order to get their ads displayed. Try and get your keywords in the top three positions with the budget you have in mind. This will help in generating more clicks at a lower cost.

7. Not Consulting First Page Estimates

In order to get better results for your cost per click, you should use Google's first page bid estimates. This feature will help you to get all the information you need to know about the cost per click and the exact figures which can help your ad to get displayed on the first page when the keywords you chose are searched for.

A lot of advertisers do not use this tool which is located on the Tools at Adwords account.

8. Forgetting To Optimize Your Maximum CPC for Profit

You need to constantly optimize your cost per click based on the returns at the end of every ad campaign. While deciding the cost, you need to keep in mind several factors such as ad placement, conversion rates and sales.

All these together will help you to figure out the perfect way to maximize your CPC and increase the profit margins for the campaign. You need to remember that every click will not yield returns, but they will cost you money.

Evaluate correctly and create campaigns which do not involve a high cost per click in order to generate more returns.

CHAPTER NO. 2

Not Using Keywords in Right Way

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Constructing the PPC account is all about the keywords. And a successive structure of a campaign is based on the proper use of keywords.

Though selection of right keywords determines the success of a campaign but using them in right way is the ultimate truth. There are lots of options to implement selected keywords.

You should understand the differences among various keywords match types. As you know all about the keyword match types, you should put the keywords in right way.

Selection of keywords should be based on what kind of keywords you are going to use. However, after having enough knowledge on keywords matches, the next important part is to allocate the keywords in right match types.

You must have a clear idea on why and where you are using the match type. You must not include all the match types in your account as it will count most cost.

On the other hand if you have all the match types in your campaign, you can test which one is working best for you.

Broad match types are always able to invite maximum clicks. But it needs a lot of effort to introduce negative keywords. Broad match successively brings loads of traffic but you need to eliminate unwanted traffic also.

If you are opting for exact match then you have to come up with the most unique keywords that will be working for your ad.

Most of the PPC managers commit a common mistake by using Broad Match Type in all campaign. Broad

match keywords only garner host of search results and most of them are irrelevant to your company’s ads.

It is natural because keywords in broad match simply bring out numerous possibilities. Sometimes, they bring clicks from the users, who are actually not looking for your products or services. They clicked on it just because they got lured by seeing the ad or by mistake.

Introducing Broad Match Modifier gives the possibilities to eliminate unqualified traffics.

Broad Match Modifier (BMM)

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Modified broad search takes the broad matching to the next level. It truly unfolds infinite possibilities to bring your ads more clicks.

According to renowned AdWord professional, Brad Geddes, modified broad matching is still an unknown territory for most of the PPC experts. They couldn’t gauge its possibilities yet.

Google didn’t have this feature earlier and used only broad matching technique.

Modified keywords look similar to broad matching keywords except they bear plus (+) sign in the beginning of each word or in the beginning of first word of a phrase.

The plus sign signifies modification. It simply modifies the search results, and brings different variants of the entire keyword bunch or specific keyword with the plus sign in the beginning.

For example, the keywords +purple +belly would not just bring search results related to only purple belly but it will also fetch results related to individual words ‘purple’ and ‘belly ’, like purple dress, purple shoe, purple belly buttons, purple or anything which has belly or purple in its name.

Use of modified broad keyword is quite useful as it gives you more control, but for this you need to have a good knowledge regarding keywords.

If you want to introduce this feature to your campaign, simply choose your keywords; put them and wait to watch their results.

If it starts bringing good outcome then stick to it else you will have to go back to good old broad keywords matching strategy.

Like every other thing, modified broad search too has some negative aspects that need your attention.

Like broad match keywords, modified broad match keywords also include search results from relevant and synonyms and that is why it may or may not narrow down your traffic. It obviously helps in increasing traffic relevancy.

While putting keywords from AdWord to MS-Excel the key words look like this ‘+red+ shoe. It becomes problematic while you try to copy and paste it back to Adwords after editing.

Adwords considers key word with apostrophe (‘) as a new keyword and you need to remove it every time.

It is not a big issue; you can get away from this by using formatting tools. Set the tab as ‘Text’ and then use ‘find and replace’ to remove it.

Another aspect regarding broad match is that Google wants your keywords to reach a broad spectrum of users through search results. In this way Google makes sure that your ad gets maximum clicks and they can earn from it. Broad match is the default Google keyword setting.

It is advised to the newbies not to use Google suggested keywords blindly. They may be relevant but sometimes they might be improper for your campaign. Using keywords blindly will extract your money and destroy the balance of your budget.

You need to learn how to allocate keywords in match types to get success. Here are some tips on using the Keywords Right Way on match types-

  1. Use keywords in BMM to attract new search quarries:

You need have not to include every variation of a given keyword in BMM. It restricts your ad from appearing on all kind of search queries.

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If you are targeting unique search query then you should use keywords in this match type. It enables your ad to be displayed only for new search queries. Alongside, it drags the probability of having increased number of conversions.

Allocating keywords variations in this match type at the very beginning of your campaign lets you understand about your keywords performance as a whole.

  1. Avoid including all variations of a keyword in a single match type:

There are various variations available for a single keyword. If you include all the variations in a single match type, it will attract various results for a single keyword.

There are various variations available for a single keyword. If you include all the variations in a single match type, it will attract various results for a single keyword.

There are various variations available for a single keyword. If you include all the variations in a single match type, it will attract various results for a single keyword.

There are various variations available for a single keyword. If you include all the variations in a single match type, it will attract various results for a single keyword.

  1. Single word keywords are not for BMM and Phrase Match:

Single worded keywords work best for exact match.

When you are intending to use Broad Match, BMM or Phrase Match you need keywords containing at least two words. It will let you have more control over your account.

Using one worded keywords in Phrase match, broad match or BMM will make the search result for your ad a complete mess. Your ad will be more likely to appear on irrelevant search queries.

  1. Do not implement multiple match types for a single keyword :

Google does not recommend you to use single keyword in multiple match types. You must be very specific on using keywords.

You must list different keywords in different match types as per their usability. As broad match type is most expensive, you should select keywords that can also ensure relevancy of your ad on search queries

On the other hand for exact match you need to select keywords as per strength. In Exact Match Single word keyword must have the power to display your ad on relevant queries.

A keyword may be successful in a match type but it does not mean it will show same strength in other match types.

  1. Allocate Exact Match in a Single ad Group:

You must put all the exact match keywords in a single group. It will not only let you control your ad better but you can identify their performances also.

You use match types because you want to specify how restricted or broad you want your ad to be. So you must use different keywords such way.

  1. Low volume keywords are not for Phrase Match:

If you know about some keywords that do not have a lot of searches then you should avoid using Phrase match.

Low volume keywords in Phrase Match do not generate enough clicks to get conversions. You need to introduce several new keywords along with variations for Phrase Match.

Using keywords in the right way can make a big difference in your account performance. You should not go for using Broad Match type if you do not have knowledge on this match type. For the beginners, bidding high on exact match works better.

CHAPTER NO. 3

Stuffing Keywords in an AdGroup

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Keywords are the prime feature for a PPC campaign. At the same time gathering too many keywords in a single ad group is actually a silly thinking because it will end you up to nowhere.

You may have so many meaningful keywords to justify your business or products but they altogether would really not justify the campaign at all.

There are numbers of possibilities to generate numerous keywords. They may work well but in reality, using all of them will cause irrelevancy of your ad campaign. At the same time they will lower the conversions proximities.

So, it is recommended to focus on keywords relevancy other than keywords density in a PPC campaign.

Only some selective keywords can make your campaign more targeted. More targeted campaign means increased chances to have more conversions.

Yes, Keywords play important role but solely they cannot do anything. There are lots of techniques that together make a campaign successful.

Proper knowledge on how to select keywords and how many keywords are needed pushes the campaign forward. Try to add less than 10 keywords in an ad group. Otherwise your ad will hardly get the message matching in the search queries.

Keywords selection must be based on what your target is and what are your offerings and objectives.

If Google gives you more than 10 keyword variations for your objective, you need to think twice. This is the time to make your ad group more specific. You may create different ad groups with the keywords that you need to pause in current group.

In general, the idea is that as many keywords are there, the adgroup will likely to have more clicks. Wrong, this is completely wrong theory. This idea makes your ad exposed to maximum numbers of irrelevant search queries. It actually increases the chance of getting maximum number of unqualified clicks.

Stuffing ad group with keywords means spending more and getting less result.

Adverse Results of Keyword Stuffing

This kind of ill practice does not only draw negative impact on onlookers but it also gives a downward blow to the PPC campaign.

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It has been seen that more than 10 or 20 keywords in one ad group fail to propel a PPC campaign.

The message you actually want to convey to the searchers will sink under the density of keywords.

If your campaign is having many variations of keywords and is unable to match the proper message then it will be hard to get fruit from your PPC campaign.

Gathering too much irrelevant keywords in a single ad group is considered as keywords stuffing and get lesser or zero click.

Do not take suggestions blindly and do not make your ad a box full of unmatched words. It will appear in too many irrelevant search results. And the overall performance of your account will be dropped.

Simple Observation

Only relevant and most specific keywords have to be chosen to run the PPC campaign. It will tell Google algorithm that your ad is very much appropriate for the search query.

You should keep in mind that each selected keyword must reflect the content of the advertised page that is the landing page. And the milieu of selected keywords must attract the confidence of the visitors to redirect them towards your website.

Incorrect Grouping of Keywords

Grouping allows you to run different kinds or types of campaigns. Each campaign group must have specific keywords.

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Campaign with properly grouped keywords fetches maximum benefits. Grouping must be based on high themed. All the keywords in an ad group should have same phrases. Similar themed keywords must be put in one group.

‘Tightly themed keywords’ means lower CPA, higher CTR, good Quality Score and more possibilities of conversions.

Highly specific keywords set have major possibilities to display your ad only to the target audience.

Stuffing keywords in ad group causes the occurrence of having improper grouping of keywords. It means that your ad group ran far from 100% message matching. It actually creates a big distance between the keywords you bid and the target queries, where your ad should display.

The most successful way of grouping keywords is to use only one keyword in a single group

Why to implement Single Keyword Ad Groups

It gives you more control on where to display your ad. Though it is quite tough but as soon as you learn it, you will be paid back with good result.

Using a single keyword in an ad group triggers only the specific search. It actually lowers the difference between the text of your ad and the message match.

Single Keyword ad group has higher relevancy and higher the chance of triggering only the specific audiences.

The easiest way is to run two different ads in a single group to test. The specific keyword should be set in different parameters in those two ads.

As your ad’s relevancy gets higher, the CTR also starts growing. Many keywords in a single group drop ad performances by lowering ad relevancy.

CHAPTER NO. 4

Automatic Bidding

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In AdWords, most advertisers make a deadly mistake by allowing Google to automatically put the bid amount. It should be avoided as it often eats out your valuable bucks and does not bring you desired conversion.

By using AdWords you can advertise your brand in several ways. However, the proper utilization of AdWords, without losing valuable bucks is important.

Most advertisers take AdWords for granted. By choosing automatic bidding, they feel AdWords will put suitable bid amount for their campaign. Here they feel that their responsibility is over and now everything will fall into right place.

But the situation is exactly the opposite. The advertiser should always have basic knowledge regarding how AdWords work and which form of advertising will suit his product best.

Whether it is brand building or achieving acquisition, the ad groups have to be created in line of the need.

The automatic bidding facility comes handy for those, who lack adequate time to look, research and experiment with keywords and bid amount.

What is Automatic Bidding?

By choosing automatic bidding an advertiser allows Google to set all the parameters from budget to keywords. It is not necessary that values that are put by Google will work best for the respective products.

CTR or Click Through Rate limit should be set if the advertiser does not want the clicks to exceed his budget limit.

AdWords using ratio system puts keyword bids. It works by calculating the entire budget.

Why Automatic bidding should be avoided?

Advertising through AdWords always involves closely monitoring of each section and further modification.

Every day Google gets places, where it can post ads of different companies and allows advertisers bid for those places. This thing goes same regarding keywords. As an advertiser you pay valuable bucks to get high performing keywords.

While in auto mode, Google selects keywords through mainly broad match which is 3-4 words long. It brings generic search result most of which is often irrelevant to product or company.

Broad match also garners more clicks from visitors, who were actually not looking for that specific product. Hence, clicks and budget gets quickly exhausted.

Google does everything keeping the set budget in mind which leads to tailoring of every sphere. When you do it manually, the budget would have been well distributed in all the sections by putting more money in high performing areas.

Using AdWords goes through different trial and error stages. It goes from adjusting amount of clicks to monitoring keywords, impression share, quality score, conversion rate, bounce rate and CTR or Click Through Rate.

These parameter signal how the campaign is working. Not all products are suitable to advertise through Google but some have excellent scope of accumulating more business.

Not all keywords work as they suppose to. High performing keywords should be kept by investing more. These aspects need to be done manually and with lots of patience.

AdWords allows you to customize the appearance of the ad by geographical area targeting and using different extensions.

Geographical area indicator shows where the ad is performing better. According to this information you may emphasize appearance of the ad in those areas. Such customization increases the chances of ad getting shown to right viewers.

Automatic bidding does not work with ads which are targeted for display networks oriented customers. Also customization on day and time is also not available. Such limitations make automatic bidding a bad option.

How Automatic Bidding Negatively Impacts Your Campaign

It is always fun to get a host of jobs done with just a single click. Automatic bidding almost does the same thing.

AdWords has great potential if it is used cautiously with right measurements. Creating a good campaign demands little sweating and lots of patience.

It is not an easy job to capture the unusual customer behavior and getting the clasp of their taste.

Google, being the merchant obviously wants its AdWords customers to spend more in campaigns. While visitors click on the ads, links and extensions Google earns moolah.

The target of every advertiser should be achieving more traffic to its website and transforming it into conversion.

For an ECommerce website just viewing of the ad does not matter unless the viewer goes into its website and purchases the product.

A good ad copy, created by high performing keywords, with affective variations for different ad groups is necessary which is not possible in case of automatic bidding. A competitive bidding ensures how often and how high your ad will come up in the search results.

Channelizing the budget is important; for that investment should be made on good performance. This way through increasing impression share and page position ads would be more effective.

To reach a niche customer, phrase match and exact match are used. It is obvious that advertisers do not want the ad to show up before less interested people. This way lot of money can be saved.

Every product has a niche market and not all the interested viewers surf the net 24 hours. With manual bidding date and timing of the appearance of the ad can be controlled. Automatic bidding does not allow such things.

Click through rate is another important side of AdWords advertising. For almost all kind of business it matters. When a visitor clicks on the ad and reaches the original website is called the Click Through Rate.

The quality score of a page is very important; it indicates the relevancy and performance of the ads. Here, Click Through Rate pays a pivotal role. Quality score have major role in ad auction also.

The more your ads perform the more higher rank they get and less the advertisers pay for the advertisement.

How to switch from automatic to manual bidding

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Switching from automatic to manual bidding is crucial. Don’t move all the campaigns at once as it could destroy things, which are doing good.

Always take one ad campaign at a time to switch from automatic to manual. Go for an average Click Through Rate.

This switching should be examined closely so that the behavior of each parameter can be measured.

The impression share needs to be increased. If the budget of the advertiser is limited then bid on keywords that are doing good work and should be increased.

While changing, low bid amounts should be increased. Often while switching, the bid amount of many keywords remain stuck at their default values. The bid value of these keywords should be increased immediately.

Don’t destroy the equilibrium if it is doing fine.

If your ad campaign is bringing good result under automatic bidding then do not destroy the setting by switching to manual bidding. It may not work there.

In AdWords, the target is to achieve the point from where ad brings good return from set budget and CTR. If it is achieved then destroying that situation can result is total chaos.

The world of AdWords advertising revolves under examination, experimentation and patience. If you do not have the time to do that, then consulting an expert will always work in favor for you.

However, it has been often found that automatic bidding may save your time but is not economical for running successful campaign. At the same time successful campaign is quite impossible by setting your bid to automatic.

CHAPTER NO. 5

Ignoring Negative Keywords

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The goal of PPC ad is to get the most possible productive clicks. Sometimes, as owner you feel irritating with the meaningless clicks that could have not been made for your products or services.

Another important strategy to run a successful Campaign is to avoid those bad traffics.

Every marketing theory is designed to attract the interested people as much as possible. PPC ad should be constructed that way, which will not only call the interested people but also at the same time will be able to keep the bad clicks away.

As a Campaign owner or PPC manager you always want to generate qualified clicks and good leads.

The most important theory in PPC ad creation or keywords selection is to filter the imperfect clicks and traffics.

It is only the ‘negative keyword’ that can not only lead the qualified clicks but also helps you in saving a large amount of your investment.

It will be a great mistake if you do not show importance to the negative keywords. Ignoring negative keywords is nothing but ignoring the chance of saving your invested money reserved for the quality traffics.

Use negative keywords strategically to witness the dramatic improvement of PPC profit.

How does Negative Keywords Work?

Negative keyword is a tool to filter the unwanted clicks. This term contains words or phrases. If a search query contains any of those listed words or phrases, your ad will not be appeared. In this way you will be able to save some valuable clicks.

For example, you are selling SLR camera and you do not sell used SLR camera. If you want your ad not to be appeared when the search query is ‘used SLR Camera’ or ‘second hand Camera’ then your negative keyword will be ‘used’ and negative key-phrase will be ‘second hand’.

Including negative keywords or phrases helps you reach to the most numbers of interested people.

Negative keywords work on three basic types-

Exact Match: This type of negative keywords prevents your ad from displaying when the query exactly matches your negative keywords listing. This type of negative keywords stops less number of wrong traffics.

Broad Match: If you use this type of negative keywords, it will eliminate every search query, which will contain any term of your listing.

Phrase Match: This type prevents the search query that contains the phrases you have listed in your negative keywords list.

There are separate levels of using negative keywords. The championship of playing with negative keywords decides the success of a PPC ad campaign.

  • (i) Account Level Negative Keywords:
  • You are here to add the negative keywords at your account setting level. Here, you can include the negative keywords in your shared library for getting all the campaigns affected togetherly.

    Adding negative keywords at this level prevents showing the ad to any query that is irrelevant to any of your ad campaigns.

    It sometimes eliminates the quality traffic also. You should keep in mind that a group of quality traffic for one campaign may be irrelevant for another campaign.

    Therefore it is not a common practice to add negative keywords at this level.

  • (ii) Campaign Level Negative Keywords:
  • At this level you are able to add the listed keywords in a single campaign. When you apply negative keywords at this level, it will affect every ad group under that specific campaign.

    It means, when you select campaign level to apply negative keywords, you are actually targeting all your ad groups in a campaign or on other words protecting a larger set of keywords.

    It allows you to imply the negative keywords for a large number of product categories.

  • (iii) Ad Group Level Negative Keywords:
  • This is the most target specific negative keywords level. When you want toprotect specific keyword or product, you go with this group.

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    At this level you become more granular with your negative keywords listing. You can use separate sets ofnegative keywords for separate ad groups under a single campaign.

    It generates most quality traffic because it does not affect another ad group.

    Using negative keywords at this level does not only assure the quality clicks but at the same time it also saves your budget from atomic level.

    Other than using negative keywords in different levels, you can also experiment with variations of the negative keywords. The variations will also enable you to eliminate a bunch of untargeted people.

Here are some examples of those variations-

a) Singular/Plural: by specifying keywords with the singular or plural alternatives you can only focus on a certain group of people.

b) Misspelling: Sometimes misspelled quarries lead to landing on an improper site.Italsounintentionallybringclicks from the uninterested people.

To save clicks from the misspelled search queries you may list every alternative misspelled term of your productive keywords. You must mine a deep raw search query to find more misspelled negative words.

c) Domain Name: When you run a deep raw search query to collect the negative keywords,youwilldiscoveralistof domain names. If your productive keywords match any domain name, you should add that domain name. it would help your ad not to get triggered by that domain.

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How Negative Keywords affects your PPC account?

i) Increases CTR: Using Negative keywords strategically makes the campaign more focused. As it filters the unwanted clicks and drives more quality traffic, it indirectly increases CTR.

Negative keywords assure to stop occurring irrelevant impressions and so your ad will actually appear before the quality users.

ii) Increases Overall Conversions: Negative keywords actually prevents displaying your ad from those people, who are not likely to purchase your service or products.

In reality you are guarding your productive keywords, which will be more likely to convert. Therefore,by driving the most number of quality clicks you are lowering CPC (Cost Per Conversion).

iii) Helps to improve Quality Score: Negative keywords help you to increase CTR. As your CTR improves you take few steps forward to achieve higher quality score. Higher quality scores lower the overall costs of the PPC campaign.

There are numbers of tools available to find negative keywords suitable for your ad campaign. However, to find the most fruitful result you must use negative keywords methodically. Do not take a chance on marketing part and take quality consultancy with PPC ad professionals.

Implementing negative keywords is a constant and broad process. It basically goes through three streams-

1) research before launching the ad.

2) find suitable keywords when the ad is live.

3) research for quality negative keywords on ongoing basis.

When you ignore applying negative keywords, you actually ignore the chance of tasting great ROI.

Strategic implementation of suitable negative keywords increases possibility of filtering the appearance on irrelevant queries. Displaying ads only for relevant keywords helps to target the interested people. And indirectly by drawing relevant clicks, it assists to run successful PPC Campaign.

CHAPTER NO. 6

Running ads on the “search network with display select” campaign type

The ‘search network with display select’ is a comparatively new feature. This feature allows advertisers to promote their ads in both search and display network without spending more time.

Google has been pushing quite hard to make users opt for it. But its efficiency comes quite in question as user and experts are for more targeted advertising.

According to Google, ‘search network and display select’ would be more effective for advertisers, who want to reap the benefits from both networks.

In reality, an advertiser must understand first the nature of his ad campaign that he wants to run, the target audience of his products or services and how he wants to promote them.

In the help video Google has clearly distinguished two networks in three areas, search network, display network and ‘search network and display select’. However, according to experts advertises will not be able to target niche audience in an effective way.

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The feature is targeted to the new AdWords users and also those, who have little time to weigh and consider nuances of advertising.

Why is this feature not receiving recommendations from experts?

While other campaign types offer different options to customize the ads, ‘Search network and display select’ is selecting audience through its improved signals and methods of prediction. Here advertisers have to leave where the ads are going to be shown entirely on Google.

This restricts the control of selecting target audience for the advertisers. And it reduces the scope of monitoring the performance in a rather comprehensive way. Also scope of doubt remains about where the ads are showing up and before whom it will be displayed.

Advertisers, who want to create a brand of their products and also want their customers to readily contact them or make purchase, generally go for a combination of search and display network campaign.

Currently, Google is advising them to go for SNDS campaign type by promising better performance.

Experts differ from it. An advertiser, who sells some kind of service or emergency facility that people search in search engine, should opt for search network type.

They can add extensions like geographical location and call button. These kinds of extensions allow potential customers to readily understand whether that service will be relevant to his expectation or not.

Search network option is also ideal for advertisers, who have limited budget and cannot spend much.

On the other hand advertisers, whose products, prices and offers work as the marketing tool to attract customers, prefer display network. Here the location setting plays important role.

It is not that all products will work well in every location. SNDS fails to cater the needs of such clients. Here, Google will determine where your ad is going to be shown.

The best way to go ahead

The AdWords experts are unanimously voicing for setting up different campaigns for search and display requirements.

In their view, the design and appeal of campaign type is different. The variables that work for search network often do not work well for display network.

On the other hand, through display network, companies mostly shape up the brand image of the product. It is also very much instrumental for keeping the product in the mind of people for a long time. When people go to make purchase of similar product they immediately search the brand which is most familiar to them.

Display network allows promoting different brands through images. Scientifically, the memory of image lasts long in human memory.

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Most common mistake committed by advertisers is they put same campaign in both search and display network. Being two different formats of advertising, each demands the advertisement to be designed keeping the format in mind.

The text that is suitable for search network does not yield good result in display network. In display network the arrangement of keywords and its presentation matters the most.

The crux of the matter is, in a combined campaign advertisers enjoy more control where in SNDS Google takes it over.

If an advertisement is going well with a combination campaign, he should not select this new feature because Google is not allowing to revert back to the old settings any more.

Google repeatedly mentions SNDS as an upgrade over the traditional mixed type campaign to its existing users through popup. This hard pushing is not going well with many existing AdWords clients and experts.

Ironically, Google in its certification training for AdWords advices of creating two separate campaigns for search and display network in order to make advertisements effective.

Currently, Google is offering option to enhance CPC bidding for Display network users. This feature makes switching to SNDS unnecessary just for the sake of getting good CPC bid.

This tool, depending upon the conversion rate adjusts the CPC bid amount.

Keeping all the aspects in mind SNDS does not prove to be quite effective. If you wish to switch, you must keep in mind that SNDS is altogether a different arena, where all the variables like bids, ads and budget need to be set up differently.

CHAPTER NO. 7

Ad Creation Problems

AdWords is a successful marketing strategy to target the audience. But it cannot bring the quality traffic itself. Apart from other important ingredients campaign owners often fail to create an apt ad.

Perfect ad creation is one of the important features to drive quality clicks. As a campaign owner one must not mistake in creating strong PPC ad.

It is really not less than a great challenge to write a perfect PPC ad. It needs a higher intelligence of creativity to fit an ad message into the AdWords format.

It is obvious to run a market research before creating your advert. Your PPC ad is the window of online business marketing and powerful ad creation reflects the difference.

Your ad must be relevant to your landing page. And must include the following points while creating your ads-

  • i) Why are you creating the ad: You have to be clear about the ‘to be promoted’ products or services. You should have a clear idea on what actually you want to promote on that ad, either your brand name or some products/services. It will help you to take the next step.
  • ii) What is your Aim: You should be assured what your ad is going to do after having clicks. If they are going to generate leads, making the users contact you or selling products or services.
  • You may introduce call to action at this stage. Depending on your ad creation, your landing page must carry a bold message to tell users what they have to do next. Your ad must also convey what the users are going to have from you and how will you get the conversions from them.

  • iii) Do Some Research: Many of the campaign owners skip this step, though it is an important point before proceeding to create an advert. Proper research work must be done to know whom you are targeting and about the possible audience. Research will reveal how the users are going to be benefitted by your products and which group of people is your specific audience.

You should avoid these Mistakes in order to create a perfect ad-

  • A) Irrelevant Ad: Your ad must be relevant to your landing page and the products you are offering. The associated keywords are also among the top preferences.
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    The more your ad gets relevant the more people get engaged. And it will help in improving your quality score.

    The keywords must be segmented in different groups and they should be run into relevant topic. The tightly themed keywords will make your ad more engaging.

  • B) Skipping Call to Action: It is very important to introduce Call to Action to your ad. You must opt for suitable call to action. It increases the CTR.
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    You must have clear conception on using perfect call to action. You need to have a clear idea on the difference between using call to action for user engagement and for asking to purchase.

    Proper use of perfect phrase in call to action can make huge difference. It is a great tool to increase the conversion.

  • C) Not Using Ad Extensions: Ad extensions are essential technique to drive users go to the information directly for what
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    There are multiple options Google offers that you can utilize in your ad creation. Adding Sitelink extension is an obvious choice to improve users’ interaction.

    You must take advantages from these extensions. It could be appeared to be a great strategy to get profits from your business.

  • D) Not Calculating Price Competitiveness: You must give higher priority to the Price Competitiveness while you are placing ad for transactional clicks. For E-commerce PPC ad this must be there to increase the client base.
  • If you are ignoring this point while creating your ad, your possible clients might go to your competitors’ campaign

    You must calculate Price Competitiveness in order to stay out from the crowd. It may influence on searcher’s decision making.

  • E) Excluding New Product Features: Clients are having a good knowledge on what they are going to buy. Give them a clear idea about your products in your ad. You should explain a few features of your new products in your ad.
  • F) Giving less importance to headline: Headline is the prime factor that is going to attract the traffic to initiate quality clicks. This is the first thing that the people notice. Therefore you must give importance to design a proper headline.
  • You can make a great difference in this small space of almost 25 characters. Convey a straight message to the people through this headline. A successful headline always carries service or product descriptions in short.

    Try to explain in this short space what you are going to offer. Headline is a great way to make brand recognition. Cleverly design the headline to make it more appealing and interact with the customer directly through this bold option

    You can run title test to know which title is giving more conversions.

  • G) Using improper ad text: A successful ad does not invite only loads of clicks but drives a lot of quality clicks.
  • Your ad text must catch expectation of the potential people but must be relevant. Proper using of ad text protects your ad from being clicked by the untargeted people. Your ad text must explain your offers and about your products or services.

    You must consider implementation of relevant ad text in creating PPC ad because ad text has a strong communication power to convert the people into potential customers.

  • H) Not testing the Location: Most of the advertisers face problems in creating advert in term of selecting the serving location.
  • Your ad might be successful in location basis. Do not take all the locations as whole because creating different ad copies for different locations could be the key to your success.

    You may run ad testing based on locations. Some areas may get you down and some places may make you feel high. Testing will tell you on which location you have to focus and in which location you have the possibilities of improvement.

  • I) Selecting imperfect keywords: Selection of perfect set of keywords is the window to taste success. And this is the most stagnant part for campaign designers.
  • One single mistake of selecting imperfect or irrelevant keywords may make your ad creation a complete mess.

    Proper market research tells you which keywords will be helpful for your ad creation. Keywords must be based on the expectations of the people, whom you are targeting.

    As each keyword is having its own price, you must set a budget for each set of keywords. You must invest more on those keywords that are inviting more conversions.

    You ad creation should be based on the priority keywords selection.

CHAPTER NO. 8

Redirecting to Website Homepage

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Through Adwords marketing receiving undesired ROI is a very common complaint encountered by many advertisers.

Advertisers often think, ‘I have put good keywords and spent a considerable amount of money and time but why am I not getting a good conversion rate!’

The common problem regarding AdWords advertising remains unattended many a times. One of the common mistakes committed by advertisers is not redirecting ads to the respective landing pages.

That certain landing page is the face of a company and a potential client will give your page approximately 5 seconds to judge whether he has to click on your ad or not.

It is like an acid test; you must convince the user that he has not made a bad click.

But one should understand that directing an ad to the website’s homepage is not apt decision for your business, specifically it is important about e-commerce businesses.

In AdWords campaign ads mostly appear in Google search network, display network, mobile and other devices.

The language of the ad should be catchy and exciting enough that it grips the psyche of your potential client and successfully creates a craving for the product.

Though it sounds quite superficial to you but this is the catch. To understand trend you need to do good research on how the successful brands are presenting themselves.

Landing page of your company is the gateway that leads a customer to his desired goal.

This page, must be well designed and presented with catchy but informative wordings, as it is stated earlier that you have only 5 seconds to convince your potential client.

Right graphics teamed with highlighted product information is necessary. You also need to take care of the fact that client’s click wouldn’t turn into conversion unless he gets to know about the company from which he is going to buy that product.

The landing page should contain unique information; it will improve your quality score.

The common mistakes that the owner of campaign does are discussed below:-

  • The Homepage of the company

Homepage should not be chosen as the redirected page because it wouldn’t contain particular product information.

Customer will not always be patient enough to search that advertised product from the categories and lists.

Customer will also not be interested in reading history and other details about your company. So, he will simply switch back from there.

On the other hand landing pages are created keeping specific products in mind. Suppose, you are giving 40% discount on ‘little black dresses’; then the landing page must focus on that product and other highlighted objects must also go accordingly.

  • Signup or Registration Page

It is quite wrong in thinking that a customer would register himself before having detailed information about the product.

This is basically a horrible strategy in terms of common human psychology. We never spend our hard earned money before seeing a specific product, especially if it is from online store; and we like to compare products with other sources before proceeding to take a final decision.

Although, you can still make your visitors stay in the landing page if you offer something exciting so that he cannot resist himself from getting registered with the website.

  • Shopping Cart page

Again, it is a general psychology that people don’t prefer buying something that fast. Only after considering product’s pros and cons along with product delivery and payment options we generally click on the payment button.

Shopping cart pages contain nominal info about the product and that is not enough to attract the visitors. This page also won’t be unique except the nominal product description and price information of the respective product.

You should not redirect users direct to shopping cart page. Redirected page must have elaborate and detailed product descriptions so that users can get convinced.

  • Product Detail Page

It is also not a good strategy to create different landing pages for different products. It would choke your website and reduce impression too.

If you have many products and categories then select few and promote them in grand style. You can also provide promo codes and special discounts on certain categories.

The main object is putting forward features of the right ones.

The landing page must be created by not just keeping keywords in mind. They should be understandable by potential buyer. So avoid being a keywords freak.

But you cannot forget your keywords; you need to weave into your ad copy tightly in line with your chosen keywords.

A good landing page not only improves your conversion rate but also increases the profit.

A dexterously designed landing page talks about only one specific product or offer at a time. Multiple products and offers leads to the disarray of target. The customer loses his target and ends in indecisiveness.

An ideal landing page should contain following features-

  • List of special services you provide
  • Current offers
  • Promo codes
  • Your video ad
  • Customer care numbers
  • Social media links
  • Testimonials written in short and attractive way with clients picture on it
  • Attractive photographs
  • Links to related categories

Your landing page seeks creativity and intelligence to serve you best. Never fear of experimenting with your landing page.

Keeping basic things in the center you can always do experiment and measure their effects on a regular manner.

Here too variation is the key because the acme of your ads potential resides on the power of your experiment.

Think out of the box; design stories around your product that are relatable not with your customer but also with someone, who does not have any plan of buying it yet.

Your target is to reduce CPAby increasing Quality Score. When your target audience clicks on your ads your Conversion rate is likely to get improved as well as increasing ROI. A good landing page is an important key behind this phenomena.

CHAPTER NO. 9

Landing Page Issues

Have you created a landing page that is only viewed and responded by your family and friends? If yes then you have probably made some grave mistakes while designing your landing page. Landing page is the most important feature for generating leads.

It must be appealing and cryptically informative to grab the eyes of a potential buyer in just 5 seconds of span.

The problem increases when advertisers fail to gauge the expectations of the buyer; in the enthusiasm of providing more information as well as redirecting them to main website. They make buyer impatient.

The first and foremost tip in terms of marketing is, consider yourself as buyer and think what you would have done if you were the buyer. Try to catch the psyche of a buyer.

Let’s look at the statistics given by some leading advertising agencies-

  • According to Marketsherpa , in B2B businesses landing page is the instrument behind accumulating 68% of the conversion.
  • Hubspot says companies that use 30 or more landing pages compared to those, which use 10 or less garner 7X lead.
  • Interactive marketing supports the fact that a focused and adequate quality content rich landing page increases its customer acquisition by 55%.

Unless you know what your customer wants, you cannot even provide the minimum of what would attract him/her.

The landing page of your site is faulty if it has-

  • Low conversion rate- It is a huge problem that simply means low or zero ROI. Conversion rate is measured by how many people are availing the service or offer projected in your landing page and how many visitors are filling out form and registering themselves.

Low Conversions Rate might have happened by various reasons, especially including bad layout of the page, overflowing text or information, disordered design, unattractive graphics and lack of planned approached.

You cannot stuff everything here. Also A/B testing is an important aspect of conversion generation.

  • Low click-through rate- Click-through rate is the amount of clicks a landing page is gaining. It is a deciding factor for your business as it determines conversion rate as well.

Whether you are using a PPC program or AdWords, make sure of the fact if your landing page is giving relevant information regarding exact products or just stuffed by other things that the buyer is not looking for.

The offers or discounts - are they factually lucrative enough? Also make such promises that sound feasible in the landing page so that the CTA or call to action does not prove to be futile to the buyer.

  • High bounce rate - High bounce rate is indicated to that situation when visitors or buyers do not make even a single click on coming to the landing page.

Possibly they do not find it interesting or useful enough to click; eventually they come and leave immediately.

It is quite disturbing and it is also worth saying that it leaves you scratching your head or chewing nails. Take care of the CTA first.

The contents you have given in the landing page must go with your CTA; else a disappointed buyer will not even click to your ads.

Features of a content of a high quality landing page

Quality of a landing page is determined by four major facets, they are –

  • i) Germane Content- The content of the landing page must be pertinent to the ad, on which buyer has clicked. Irrelevancy leads to dissatisfaction and withdrawal. The keywords that work like magnet must be kept with their consistency in landing page too.

This relevancy helps the buyer to decipher what you actually want to offer them. Good content research, creativity and ability to create copy through experiment hold the magic here.

You must keep increasing and confusion should not arrive at any point. The mantra is stick to your point. Many a times the buyer comes to your landing page to gain information about your product, which he finds interesting. You have to know how to value his interest; use proper story enriched with right keywords

  • ii)Anchor Content- First decide what you want to highlight in your landing page then stay fixed to it. The offers like, educating ebooks, discounts or free trial must come clearly so that the buyer readily avails them and for that also fills up the information form.
  • Do not provide many offers because it may be the cause of distracting his focus. Anchor elements like, demo videos, white papers, link to the company blog must also attract buyer’s attention fast. For that you should keep it comprehensive and focused.

    • iii)Uncomplicated content- Content must be apt and to the point keeping keywords in mind. The content must be organized; use bullet points wherever needed. Make it engaging and educating at the same time.

    Take help of your graphics team to make it attractive but soothing to the eyes. Do not go over the top with CTA, rather stay uncomplicated and also the form should be quick and easy to fill up.

    Do not use ‘navigation keys’ to other pages of the main website or for going out; keep him glued to it. Info graphics and photographs can do wonders. In short, make it appealing by staying simple at the core.

    iv)Reliable Content- Your impeccability is your strength. Never go away from what you have promised in the CTA.

    The potential buyer has responded to your CTA copy, so please do not annoy him.

    If calling numbers are there then mention the time, when your call center executives are active; else, on not getting a reply you would earn bad impression for your company and you will lose valuable leads.

    Provide testimonials, awards if you have accreditations, contact information and privacy policies of your company.

    These will help you to gain trust and improve conversion rate.

    Landing page is an important tool, which should be used intelligently by avoiding simple things.

    You must think yourself how to imply above mentioned points carefully. Do not try to funnel user to further pages to ensure conversion. Testing must take place to zero in right strategy because each point that makes a campaign work depends on many variables. By testing you can only get to know what is right for you; and be careful to avoid making mistakes as much as possible.

CHAPTER NO. 10

Not Providing Quick Response

All your efforts would fall flat when a potential customer returns without getting his enquiries satisfied. Providing quick response is the part of your entire advertising endeavor.

The job does not end in setting all factors correct but following up with every activity there is your responsibility. Being a service provider you hold all the accountabilities. Though the job is very simple but you cannot sit back and have coffee by putting AdWords on the runway. Responding to interested buyers is not the job of AdWords, it is your responsibility.

The business sites like, e-commerce, online business should maintain it seriously, though it is equally applicable to any business suitable to be advertised through AdWords.

Without the quick response AdWords or any kind of PPC campaign will fetch only disappointment and bad reputation for your company.

Always try to think from the point of view of a customer. It is always said that customer is the king. When a person looks for a service in the internet, most of the times it means that he is seriously looking for it and he needs it quickly.

Humans, being an impatient creature by nature, will switch to another service provider, who is ready to answer his queries.

Let’s look at how you can improve your rate of response-

  • – Put your customer care number in the ad or landing page but make sure that they work on weekends too. If the customer care service pauses on weekends then you must mention the days of week and timings when your customer executives are available to chat.
  • –Install live chat or pop up facility in your website so that communication starts easily between your company representative and client. They should appear even before the visitor could read the content.
  • – Social media is great way of connecting with your potential buyers. Design your Social media pages with every single detail and contact information of your company. A visitor can leave a query for you; be prompt in reverting back to them.
  • – Apart from all these, customers often prefer interacting through emails and the percentage of people, who prefer this, is as much as 54% of the total potential buyers.

Giving quick response is not just important for fulfilling product related enquiries but you should equally concentrate on the matter that you should respond to the needs of your existing customers.

It is very important to keep your one time users glued to you. As a buyer we often prefer that company, which we can contact whenever we need. This facility alone can boost conversion rate to a good level.

Misbehaving or attending customers and visitors with impatient attitude- that will only do badly for you. It is often seen that in spite of spending plenty of money, many companies cannot even generate desired conversation rate. The campaigns prove ineffective and incur losses.

Stay away from making these mistakes and avoid getting marked as non-responsive company.

CHAPTER NO. 11

Forgetting to Analyze ROI

ROI or Return Of Investment is the holy grail of all marketing practices. Every company is running behind it and for many it is like a myriad because they fail to gauge its actual percentage. However, surprisingly, many advertisers spend money and put AdWords on the run but forget about this most important part.

Now the question arises what is ROI all about? In layman’s language it is the profit earned on each dollar spent on advertising. Google has clearly explained it in their help topics including a clearly understandable equation. It is revenue-cost/total investment x 100. When you gain $1.50 for every $1 spent, your ROI appears to be 50%.;

But there is a catch. Your ROI does only reflect the health of your ad campaign, where the profit margin, the traditional indicator shows the state of your business in a holistic way. The approach of ROI is newer and smarter in terms of present scenario as this metric shows high numbers. It comes handy when you need to show your company’s financial state to your investors.

How do People mistake ROI with profit?

The mistake that happens with major number of AdWords and PPC users is that they wrongly calculate the ROI as profit.;

You need to understand that Google makes about $100 million from advertising and that happens because they are projecting ROI as the tool of showing how AdWords is helping their business to earn profit.

They show advertisers ROI number that most users misunderstand with the net profit of the company.

Basically, net profit is that number, which remains after deducting the depreciation cost.

It can be this way also- suppose this year you profit $10 million but you reinvest $5 million to buy a new company and another $2 million to renovate its machinery. Now, your actual profit remains $3 million. ROI won’t show you this side.

But ROI is not a fancy metric that shows you what is not there, rather not calculating ROI is not suitable for every business.

Google uses Google analytics to calculate ROI but it fails to calculate the real ROI you are making. ‘Analytics’ simply inflates the amount and does not count the actual profit margin.

Profit margin is the ratio between the cost or sales receipt and profit. Assume, a company has sold product of $15 million and received profit of $3 million. Clearly the profit margin is 2%. It can only be increased by improving sales.

On the other hand, in case of e-commerce sites, Google analytics takes add-to-cart products under goal value, because it thinks that later these products will be monetized.

Now, the total revenue is all the transactions + goal value according to Google analytics; and thus an inflated ROI is presented.;

It naturally encourages advertisers to invest more on AdWords. So, do not allow your non-monetized goals to adulterate your actual ROI.

You can follow these points:-

  • – Counting the real ROI helps you in calculating real budget of your advertising. This way advertiser can measure how much conversion has been attained from investing a specific amount of money.
  • – Do not neglect the fact that ROI counting does not indicate the real health of your business. However, it should reflect the real health. That is why it can be used only to track your investment returns; also it should show the health of different departments of your company.
  • – Tell your analyst to prepare different reports to reflect the real financial state of your company.
  • – Do not let wrong facts and figures make your strategies fail.
  • – Never underestimate the metrics, which are serving the market for years.

If you keep yourself under the cloud of misconception about your business then AdWords will soak up all your money without giving anything considerable in return.

CHAPTER NO. 12

Lack of Ad Extensions and Poorly Written Ads

Two important aspects of AdWords advertising are i) extensions and ii) ad copy. Both have tremendous importance in terms of converting clicks into sure shot business deals.

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i) Extensions literally extend the business opportunity for you. Not using this hassle free, easily measurable tool is just the other name of crime.

Have you ever thought that how much Google takes to attach it to your ad? It is nil. Now, you must be wondering why haven’t you tried it as yet. Google only charges when someone clicks on it. The efficacy extension can be measured in AdWords.

Extensions come with different variations providing variant services. Here are those opportunities that either you overlook or you lack the knowledge on their efficiency-

  • Not adding ‘Location extensions’- If your business is situated in a notable street then add this extension to provide your visitors an easy opportunity to find you out among your counterparts.
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    Visitors often measure the proximity of the store or company office through this. Your proximity and being easily found on map could be the reason of a visitor becoming your client.

  • Not adding ‘Location extensions’- If your business is situated in a notable street then add this extension to provide your visitors an easy opportunity to find you out among your counterparts.
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    Visitors often measure the proximity of the store or company office through this. Your proximity and being easily found on map could be the reason of a visitor becoming your client.

  • Not using ‘Call extensions’- ‘Call extensions’ is one of the most useful extensions; which can be monitored directly. Interested visitor’s call will tell how much your ad campaign is proving effective
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    In high end phones it looks like a call button. A visitor may simply tap on it to make a call. Google does not allow adding phone number to ad copy. So, this extension should be your first choice.

  • Skipping the ‘Offer extensions’- This extension is widely used by ecommerce sites and store owners.Through this extension offers can be displayed along with price and picture of the products.
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    Also add discounts that the company is offering along with free shipping, original product, same day delivery etc.

  • Ignoring ‘Add your business seller rating’- You must not ignore this extension because it helps you manage your seller’s potential. Add your business’s seller ratings to projects how efficient and reliable your sellers are.
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    These small things put great impact on marketing practices. Don’t worry, if your ratings are below five stars. Google only displays ratings if it has got five stars.

  • Forgetting to place ‘Product images, prices from Google merchant center account’- Just product images along with price can do a lot for you.
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    It puts required data on the search engine before entering to any website. Visitor can compare and choose fast.

  • Avoiding to furnish Site links- Site links put important links along with ads. These links do not fall under AdWords word count.
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    A visitor can directly enter on the specific area of the site, where he wants to go. Site links ensure quick conversion and increase the quality score.

  • Neglecting to Add your Google plus links- Adding social media links to ads is another advantage point for your business. Taking buyer straight to your Google+ page will ensure the accountability of your company.
  • Being indifferent about App extension- Google’s newest offering is app extension. Provide link of your app with ads. It is highly useful for those companies, which have both web and app presence.

Do not avoid extensions; rather use them judiciously to increase your main target behind investing in AdWords.Each would enhance your SERP real estate and CTR.

ii) Another thing that kills all your effort is bad ad copy or poorly written ad. Lengthy, distracting ad copies usually do not compel visitors to click.

If you look at the space Google gives to write your ad copy, it is mere 25 characters. The magic has to happen within this sphere.

The ad copy must be written from the point of view of the customer. Here are some tips to follow-

  • – Avoid writing unnecessary facts and figures
  • – Avoid writing unnecessary facts and figures
  • – Your ad copy must adhere to your keywords because they ensure an organic appearing of your ad in searchresult.
  • – Keep your focus on benefits and services you provide so that potential client can mark you easily.
  • – The ad copy must contain a powerful call to action. It can be added through extensions or you can manually add it through words in the ad copy. It can be a free eBook, one time free service on registration or discount on first purchase. You have to be creative to lure the visitor.
  • – A good research should never be ignored before creating ad copy. Target keywords that rightly capture your product or service. An organic listing will make your ad appear whenever someone types that keyword in search engine.
  • – Relevancy of Landing page to ad copy is also important in terms of getting traffic. The conversion rate will increase when attractive graphics and photographs together create a right fusion in landing page.
  • – Make the headline catchy, 25 characters are not a small number; you can make it the right place. For example, a property broker wrote his headline as ‘we sell your old home’ or just ‘70% discount on clothes’
  • – Use countdown feature for big events like Christmas, thanksgiving etc. Show visitors what they are going to lose unless they avail your offer. It increases CTR successfully up to 32% and conversion rate up to 2%.
  • – If your target audience is based on specific geographic area then try to present it keeping local preferences and thought processes in mind. Think from the point of view of the local people.
  • – Most important thing is- keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing and try to come up with something different.
  • – Keep doing testing monitoring on how your ad copy is performing.

A perfect ad copy does not contain just catchy one liner but nowadays the strategy is more of a composite approach.This multifaceted approach includes extensions, images, keywords and last but not the least your creativity.

CHAPTER NO. 13

Not Bidding on Your Own Brand

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‘Why should I bid on my own brand keywords?’ this is the most common question asked by the PPC clients. Another term of this question is- ‘why should I waste my money by clicking on my own brand while it is already ranking well?’

It is factually an idiotic job in the field of PPC marketing to avoid bidding on your own Brand. Clicking on own brand keywords is a proven practice that helps growing the potential customer base as well as giving handsome ROI. Bidding on your own brand is a great idea because it systematically shows the best result in term of business growth.

It seems to be complete waste of money because each click counts. On the reverse this is a small investment within your PPC budget and this will come up with huge positive impact.

Let’s discuss why you must bid on your own brand

A) To secure clicks from losing to the competitors

If your ad campaign cannot do well more than 50% of your potential clicks will go elsewhere instead of having good ranking organically. It means you are losing those must have clicks.

When your organic rank and adwords rank are well then your brand is exposed to your competitors and some of your competitors will chew your potential traffic. They will begin bidding on your brand name straight away. The rival ads will undermine your brand and make some customers bind to go to their own links.

Some cheeky competitors are there to bid on your brand name and gradually ensure their campaign rank on top. It has been noticed that most of the visitors are likely to click on the top results.

It is really a bad business when you find that one of your competitors with the PPC ad is sitting on top of your organic listing. How come you can lose that top position while you are having an easy way to wipe your rival away? You can easily place your PPC ad on the top by bidding on your own brand.

Mathematical bidding on your own brand will lower the Quality Score of your rival Company and soon they will disappear from the first page result.

The competitors are most likely to click on your brand keywords. You should take part at the auction and displace them. Bidding on your own brand keywords gives your ads a good quality score to rank top while it eventually pushes the rival ads down.

On the other hand when your business name is containing generic words, you are inviting others to advertise on your name indirectly. Without giving any extra effort they are stealing your traffic. You can avoid this risk by bidding on your own brand thoroughly to lead the search page.

Prime purpose of bidding on own brand is to ensure the fact that your rival companies must not be able to display their ads higher than your organic result. Your PPC ad must be followed by your organic result of your brand.

B) To Get better Combined CTR: Get more traffic

The argument on the theory of bidding on own brand is nothing but pure mathematics. If search results for your brand keywords show up both of your PPC and Organic then it will automatically increase CTR. As you get higher CTR you will surely drive in more traffic.

It is evident that some people are likely to click on the paid ads. Google Study has shown that a combine good result of PPC ad and Organic listing helps to bring extra load of traffic. Bidding on your own brand keeps this combined result positive if you are already having good organic listing.

Keep bidding on your brand to make your ad gets the top rank. If your brand is already having top organic listing then this process will yield more potential traffic.

The number one position of your organic listing along with the top position of your PPC ad draws more than 80% traffic comparing to 50% traffic of the brand runs alone.

Bidding on your own brand gradually increases your overall traffic though few of the traffic that you can get from the organic result will be cannibalized. However, it does not damage the overall traffic.

C) The CPC is Cheaper: have the opportunity

High Click Through Rate on your own brand term will make the CPC much economical. Since you are ranking good your CPC rate will become much economical and as your rank is number one you may have some free clicks also.

You must opt for the branded clicks. Since your CTR is higher and your brand is having good quality score your branded clicks are going to be much cheaper. You must keep bidding on your brand term in order to maintain the good quality score.

It works as magic and even an armature PPC manager can manage to obtain good Quality Score and outstanding CTR by following this easy technique.

Bidding on own brand will gradually boost your whole account performance as it will simultaneously lower the CPC of non brand keywords.

As the ad extensions are appeared on the brand keywords, bidding on own term boosts to grow an affirmative background at extension level. And it also ensures the extensions to arrive with the non brand keywords.

The overall calculation upon spending over own bidding is much more profitable as with this small amount you are actually protecting your potential clicks from being stolen. And this way you are indirectly feeding your ROI’s growth.

D) To Escalate the Mass of Clicks

It is a big issue for the PPC manager that even being on the top position, the ad still cannot get most number of clicks and loses the potential customers.

The Google Webmaster Tools shows your Brand’s CTR in the Keyword Data Section. You will come to know that the number of clicks is much lower than the number of search for your brand keywords.

In a Study run in 2014 showed that the volume of clicks to a site is multiplied when the ad and organic listing are there in the search result. Bidding on own term provides higher total of potential clicks.

If your brand tops on the search result with both of the organic and ad then it creates the possibility to snatch more than 80% of the total clicks. It cannot get more than 60% if the ad appears on right. Technically if there is no ad on the search result the number of clicks is more likely to drop drastically.

The difference between the 60% and 80% blows a huge impact on your business and customer base. You should bid on your own brand term in order to enhance the possibilities of getting more productive clicks.

It is said that the ad will cannibalize the clicks on the organic listing. When there is no ad at all, the organic result of your brand keywords tend to get the expected clicks.

It was experienced that when the ad is there, the organic listing gets 18% less clicks. But when you check your account you will get to know that the overall number of clicks has climbed to more than 30%.

Bidding on your brand ensures the visibility of your adwords. Since you are trying to keep the visibility of your brand you must keep bidding on your own ad.

This system will lead you gain more potential clicks and this way the revenue will jump up. Bidding on your own brand is a technical way to boost the branded revenue.

E) Get more opportunity to modify the Message and Landing Page

Bidding on your own ad increases the chances to tailor the displaying message that the search result will show. Your page may rank top organically but you may not change the Meta description. Sometimes, you will also be unable to customize the page title when it is on the organic rank.

However, for your PPC ad bidding on your own brand name gives you more power to control the ad. This enables you to tailor the landing page and the message and this helps you to combine the most suitable terms.

In Adwords you can experiment with different ad copy. You must continue bidding to know what works the best.

F) Get the entire search page

It looks good when your brand acquires the entire search page. Strategic brand bidding lets you dominate the page.

When your ad dominates the page, people will be more likely to click on your brand.

Bidding on your own brand gives you the chance to get a huge amount of Google Real Estate. Sometimes, it actually portrays your business more big than it actually is.

Ultimately, your brand recognition is the name of increase ROI. It is recommended to experiment brand bidding on different ad copies. Track your brand bidding on separate copy and identify which one is working for you. Keep close eye to each of your campaign. Though brand bidding sometimes appears to be difficult for tight budget but always calculate a minimum amount for brand bidding in order to get better ROI.

CHAPTER NO. 14

Not Knowing Your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Many of the campaign owners ignore CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) while running the PPC campaign. This is one of the most key factors that manipulate your business from behind the curtain.

As a Campaign owner, one always looks to attract new customers in order to make more business. But it is also important to retain the old customers or to invite the customers, who once came to you.

Knowing CLV does not only help you to have greater ROI but also makes you understand about your future PPC campaign settings.

CLV calculates the projected amount of business that one customer will give in life time.

We always give importance on CPA(Customer Per Acquisition) but at the same time CLV is a crucial metric to run a successful campaign. On the other hand CLV helps you to identify CPA. It will directly help you to set the future budget.

CLV plays a crucial role to determine-

  • How much profit can you get from a customer.
  • How long can you make him remain your customer.
  • Whether you have to set another budget to invite the old customer again.
  • What other services or products can you sell.
  • Total number of recommendation the customer made to attract new customers.
  • Identifying the factors whether you have to attract that customer again through PPC.

In this era of online marketing the traditional metrics are not sufficient to generate greater the ROI. It has been seen that marketing that depends on short term sales cannot generate long term profits. Knowing CLV helps you out to ensure long term profitability.

Now the question is – how to calculate CLV

CLV is the metric that decides the value of a single customer over the life time relationship. The calculation of CLV primarily depends on these terms-

  • Total time of Relationship.
  • Expected Cost of Retention.
  • Average Spending on A Customer.
  • Cost of Customer Acquisition.

Following a simple example that will help you to understand how to calculate CLV in PPC ad-

  • Suppose you are able to attract a customer from your search advertisement.
  • The customer converts the click into transaction. It means the customer purchases product/service from you.
  • Later the customer makes four subsequent transactions and he does that by directly entering into your website.
  • Suppose each transaction made by that customer gives you the profit $4.
  • And the cost of the click that he made is 20cents
  • So, the CLV of that customer = 4 transactions X $4 profit per transaction- 20 cents CPC.

So, here we get a simple formula-

(Number of Transaction X GP per Transaction)- Marketing Cost= CLV

In per click marketing CLV gives the calculation of intrinsic value of a marketing part. You can spend more on a particular ad copy where the CLV is high to ensure long term business and greater ROI.

Calculate CLV in PPC marketing at keywords level. It will let you determine how much you have to afford to spend on a particular keywords segment.

How CLV helps in Keywords Marketing Strategy?

CLV involves your future strategy to determine your future PPC Campaign setting. When your CLV confirms that in a Keywords segments the business is worth acquiring, you can think to invest more.

Check your CLV periodically to know what keyword types give you repeat customers.

The keywords that give you more CLV rate should be given priority. Your campaign should be focused on the CLV along with other factors.

You have to get all the data in your hand including Conversion Rate and CPC. Determine the customer acquisition.

Once you know the CLV in keywords level you will have a clear idea on managing budget to target the ROI.

Some factors that CLV decides-

  • ROI - CLV draws an accurate performance of a marketing strategy. It gives you a clear idea to generate more ROI.
  • Customer Acquisition - CLV lets you understand a complete scenario of the budget that a customer obtains. You will have a better knowledge whether you have to spend more or not to acquire the customer.
  • Ad Setting and marketing- CLV gives you a clear understanding on your spending. The customer base that delivers higher revenue should be on your target.
  • Valuation of your company: CLV is the ultimate metric to decide your company valuation. As it gives you the idea on value of the customers, you can aspire to a target growth.

Customer Lifetime Value is an essential metric that determines the profitability of your current PPC Campaign. A complete data on CLV saves your budget from being wasted on wrong clicks.

CHAPTER NO. 15

Not Testing the Optimal Ad Position

Acquiring the top position on SERP to get great conversion is nothing but a myth. Campaigners always opt for the top three positions to gain good return. Though the top position undoubtedly gives good CTR but it is not always effective enough to incur good conversions.

Sometimes lower position can effectively show good result. Once your ad gets the top position does not mean that you have achieved your goal. Your aspiration is not to acquire the top placement; rather good conversion is the ultimate achievement.

You must not do the mistake of not testing the optimal position of your ad.

Basics of Ad Position

Ad position tells where your PPC ad will be shown on search result page. If you are able to get the number one position then your ad is going to appear on the very first of the search result page.

The top position always is most likely to catch more attention. Your Google ad rank decides the placement of your ad.

Keywords quality score and Max CPC determine your ad rank.

Your ad will appear either on top position or other places. The other placement considers the side of the search page and bottom of the page.

Your ad might show on top, side or bottom but you cannot determine the placement by the average position. You need to go thorough testing to now in which position your ad performs better.

Top Position should not be the ultimate goal

The main reason behind acquiring the top position is to get good ROAS. If that top position is unable to generate profit then there is no meaning of fighting for that position.

If you are only looking for branding then top position is for you. For the limited budget campaign lower position is good to get relatively more clicks.

A study revealed that the top positions are more likely to get almost 7% CTR. The study also takes the search partners, display networks and Google advertising channels into account.

And it showed that in many cases the number 5 position got greater click through than that of number one position.

For the Google search partners the position does not have great influence on CTR.

On the other hand on Google display network number 3-position sometimes gets the higher percentage of CTR.

Discover the Optimal Position of your Ad

In spite of having the top position, your ad may be unable to convey overall performance. In this case you should opt for another display position.

Maybe the top position is eating too much of your budget in comparing to healthy return.

You should lay different ad copies to test the suitable placement for your ad. Sometimes it may happen that your ad is drawing more revenue when it appears on side position.

You must compare different position in term of conversions. After running different placement testing compare the data after a certain period. Now study the breakdown of the account metric.

It is not that a single position will always be able to return same revenue. A static position may work for a certain period.

And sometimes your optimal position may changes to another position for another time frame.

You need to understand the improved performance of your account whether in increased or decreased placement.

Through testing you will certainly identify a position, where your ad performs the best. Now you are there to optimize your account eyeing on that exclusive placement.

Test and track the result

Testing ad placement is the ultimate way to find optimal position of your ad. In PPC ad brand recognition is not all.

You are always looking for great ROI.

You can change placements of your ad by using various variations- headlines, keywords and body text etc.

Brand bidding or bidding on your own brand is another great option to change your ad placement.

Your goal is not to get only clicks but quality clicks that can drive quality traffic. Testing to know the optimal position can give you a complete data where you can have quality traffic.

Testing for optimal position will also tell the number of CTR and how much of them can give good conversion.

Run a single ad copy in a single time frame for a certain placement. After finishing one test run opt for another ad copy. After running separate test segments compare the data to know the optimal position for your ad.

There are different variables that affect your ad rank- Max CPC, Extensions and Quality Score.

These variables only determine your ad position. That is why you should experiment with these variables to change the position.

Though there are many sets of variables that also determine your net profit but here we are discussing only on how the optimal position can generate maximum revenue.

The main thing you must know is that your conversion may not improve as your placement increases.

There is no fixed position, where your ad will always generate good revenue. You must analyze your data and optimize your account for a certain placement for a fixed time frame that comparatively yields healthy revenue.

Soon you will come to know how testing the Optimal Ad Positions affects your account and boosts the overall performance. At the same time you must notice the external factors like your competitors sometimes determine your ad position.

Always bid for profitability not for position. And only the series of testing will reflect the good result.

CONCLUSION

Final Thoughts

You are here in PPC ad to generate potential customer base and to earn great ROI. PPC ad is a great source of making business. However, if you are unable to run the campaign properly the result will be reverse.

You must be careful in campaign running and should try not to commit any of discussed mistakes in order to save money from being wasted.

Proper PPC ad optimization needs great sense on controlling PPC campaign without a single mistake. You have gone through some of the major mistakes that can drain your money without reflecting any result. Now, you are enlightened on how and why not to commit those mistakes and what you should do. Hope, this entire guide will help you to optimize your PPC ad Campaign. Along with the discussed mistakes you should need to find other small pitfalls yourself to be more perfect.

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