Pay-Per-Click advertising is probably the most efficient way to draw attention to your website, your products, and your social media posts. There is a lot of fuss about how PPC is not a long-term marketing solution, but the biggest reason for this misconception is because of the sheer weight of PPC mistakes that people are making.
Try to remember that the world’s most common oxymoron is “common sense,” since common sense is both rare and typically wrong. Just because something seems to make sense vis-a-vis PPC, it doesn’t make it true. For example, the biggest budget doesn’t always win, the best advertisement doesn’t gather the most attention, and there is no way to predict which ads and keywords will generate the most success.
1. One of The Most Common PPC Mistakes
Trying to attract large numbers very quickly is probably one of the biggest and common PPC mistakes.
It may be frustrating if you have time-sensitive content that is not being read, but even those with massive budgets have trouble generating “many” meaningful clicks quickly.
You can attract clicks within ten minutes of posting your advertisement but getting “many” clicks quickly requires a big budget, lots of affiliate advertising platforms, and a lot of luck.
2. Believing Those Gosh-Darn Affiliate Advertising Tools
Jump onto something simple like Google Ads, and enter a bunch of keywords into your advertisement. Notice how many of them say, “low search volume.” If that is the case, how come some of them get clicks, and how come those clicks are most likely to convert?
The tools that come with your affiliate marketing platform are there to make you spend more. They want you to use the most contested keywords so that you pay more.
In addition, do not forget that affiliate advertising tools run on the algorithm that is set by the platform, which includes any priorities the platform has that do not coincide with your priorities. Plus, they are using historical data that doesn’t account for sudden shifts or even gradual linear shifts in keyword and spending trends.
3. Thinking That PPC Helps SEO
You may have read the many studies that say SEO is not enough, but the associated notion that PPC helps SEO is slightly askew.
If your PPC campaign makes your content more popular, then it may help your search engine ranking, but the two matters are only loosely related. A little like if you take a bus to work or a car to work, then your legs may not ache as much when you get home.
4. Misunderstanding Negative Keywords
If you want to avoid PPC mistakes, then start slow, learn from what occurs, and then change very slowly without fear of going back on yourself if something doesn’t seem to work the way it should.
Negative keywords are like the noisy toy you give to your kid at Christmas and regret it by Boxing Day. Negative keywords are the sort of toy you wish some PPC campaigners didn’t have access to.
There are plenty of unsuitable keyword variations that seem correct, and people are entering them into their negative keyword section and thinking they are honing their campaign when what they are really doing is limiting it.
5. Not Using A Landing Page
Forget the other PPC tips you have read, here is how PPC works. The advertisement is a question. At its very core, it generates a question. It puts a question in the mind of the user, no matter how subtle. That question is what motivates a click. The landing page needs to offer an answer.
Let’s say you are selling a car. People may be sold by the ad without clicking. The only reason people click is that they have a question. They may wonder if the listed price is for real, or if the car really has a roll cage, or they may wonder if the car will fit three kids in the back seat.
The landing page is there to answer the many different questions that may have attracted the click. Simply linking to a product page or a home page may result in said question being unanswered, which results in a bounce.
6. Using Phone Numbers
This mistake doesn’t apply to all forms of affiliate marketing, but there are many cases where phone numbers are simply wasted ad space.
Some marketers think they can avoid paying for clicks if people see the ad and then call the number, but study after study seems to prove that nobody calls the numbers they see on affiliate adverts. People will instead click the ad or a link on Google to get the number.
There are only a minority of cases where people will call the numbers they see listed on affiliate ads, and it is usually because they recognize the freephone number from a TV jingle.
7. Misunderstanding Ad Extensions
One of the benefits of PPC advertising is that you also get to spread a bit of your brand message too, and ad extensions may help you do just that. However, the assumption that ad extensions are vital (or even needed) is one of the many PPC mistakes to avoid.
There are times when they damage the value of your advertisement. Such as if your ad says, “Find Out Where Festival Number 5 Is Going to Be Held” and then the extension gives the location as Worcester.
The Biggest PPC Mistakes
There are plenty of PPC mistakes you can make, but the most common, obvious and dumb is not learning from your mistakes. There are still people out there who are generating hundreds of clicks per month with a conversion rate of a fraction of a percent. Committing the most common PPC mistakes is forgivable but sticking with it and failing to adapt is unforgivable.
If you are really having a hard time getting your PPC campaign to turn a reasonable return, then give August Infotech a chance to turn things around. What makes them different is the massive team they have and the sheer weight of staff hours they can invest in a project. If you want results, then there are very few who can offer them so consistently.