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PPC Ads With No Strategy
Many PPC campaigns simply throw money at Google without a real strategy.
A good PPC campaign should constantly monitor:
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Cost per click.
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Cost per lead.
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Conversion rate.
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Search terms.
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Negative keywords.
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Geographic performance.
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Return on Investment (ROI).
If your budget keeps increasing but your leads don't, something needs to change.
Your marketing company should have tools in place to track every part of your PPC campaign. One of the biggest advantages PPC has over SEO is that almost everything can be measured if the campaign is set up correctly.
Just like SEO, PPC traffic can be misleading. A good PPC campaign will often have dedicated landing pages for different products, services, and market areas. The more targeted the landing pages are, the easier it is to measure which ads, search terms, and markets are actually generating leads and sales.
Here's an example.
Your monthly PPC report shows that 300 people clicked on your ads. Sounds good. But your leads and sales haven't increased. You ask your PPC company which search terms generated those clicks. If they tell you they can't get that information, there is a problem.
Every click should be traceable back to the search term that generated it. Without that information, it's almost impossible to optimize the campaign.
Here's another example. Let's say your company name is one of the keywords you're paying for. I've seen campaigns where the company name generated nearly 80% of the paid traffic. Ask yourself this question. How many of those people were actually new customers?
Most were probably existing customers looking for your phone number, address, or business hours. They already knew who you were and were likely coming to your website anyway. Is that the best use of your advertising budget?
The same thing can happen with other search terms. One keyword may generate hundreds of clicks but never produce a single lead, while another keyword generates fewer clicks but consistently produces sales. Without tracking the performance of each search term and each market area, you'll never know the difference.
A successful PPC campaign is never "set it and forget it." It should be reviewed regularly, poor-performing keywords should be eliminated, successful ones should receive more attention, and the campaign should constantly be refined to improve your return on investment.