Get Pay Per Click Traffic By Avoiding These PPC Flubs
If you’d like to get pay per click traffic, you need to know about the most common errors businesses make – and how to avoid them. Avoid PPC mistakes here!
Anyone with an online presence knows that traffic matters. We’re living in a world with 3.5 billion internet users. That’s a lot of eyes.
Internet advertisements expose your product to more people and hopefully create more sales. It’s a simple enough concept, but one that gets mishandled all the time.
When most people think of increasing traffic, they’re looking to build their organic traffic. And, rightly so. It’s a great strategy to attract potential leads, and SEO is too important to ignore.
We’re not talking about SEO though. Most web focused businesses already have a decent SEO strategy, even if there is always room for improvement.
Our focus is on how bungled most pay-per-click campaigns are.
In 2014, 10 percent of surveyed businesses said they planned to increase their PPC budget for the upcoming year. The rest of those businesses misread the market.
Seventy percent of surveyed businesses ended up increasing their PPC budget in 2015.
We believe this increase in spending is likely related to the growing number of mediums allowing businesses to get pay per click traffic. It’s a good thing for smart advertisers and a bad thing for naive ones.
Not only did most companies not see the PPC success coming last year, but now they have to contend with new and ever evolving platforms. It’s not going to be a smooth few years for small businesses without the large budget to adapt.
So we’re stepping in, so we can champion for the little guy. We’ve broken down the two biggest mistakes we see that prevent people from getting pay per click traffic.
You Aren’t Using Mobile to Get Pay Per Click Traffic
Mobile traffic accounts for 51 percent of our digital media consumption per day, yet some people still choose to ignore it.
Don’t be one of those people.
In fact, in 2015 Google reported that mobile searches had outpaced desktop searches on its platform.
Another study showed mobile platforms make up an estimated 58 percent of U.S. internet searches.
The shift in users device preference means businesses either adapt or suffer. The number of resources you’re putting into mobile ads per year needs to increase drastically.
We’re seeing more and more studies come up with numbers supporting mobile’s ability as an advertising platform. An astounding 93 percent of people who use a mobile device for research go on to make a purchase.
That’s an unheard of percentage. Conversions are what make pay per click campaigns worth running, and with mobile, they’re easier than ever to come by.
The results of a Florida law firm provide real world proof to any doubters that these studies aren’t one-off anomalies.
When the law firm increased mobile ad bids by 25 percent their conversion rate tripled, their click through rate increased, and their cost per click decreased. New customers also increased by 149 percent.
That’s an increase in business and a lowering in cost across the board. You don’t even have to question why this works so well for small business, just understand the results and climb aboard.
Confused Keyword Targeting
Keywords are important. So important that we’re using them right now in this article.
People fail to realize that your keywords and how you apply them are the fundamental basis of your marketing. Everything goes through a search engine, and your ad success is going to depend greatly on what people are searching for.
You have two basic choices when choosing keywords, short-tail, and long-tail.
The highest Google AdWords bid on a keyword is for “best mesothelioma lawyer,” at $935.71 per click. That’s a short tail keyword and an insane price for a small business budget.
There’s just no way to compete with companies like Progressive or Geico, but you don’t have to.
Long-tail keywords cost significantly less than short-tail, and also help target customers likely to purchase your products.
That’s the easy part, though. Once you’ve established a keyword you have to know how to use it.
We feel that half the battle to using keywords correctly has to do with budgeting.
Many advertisers champion what’s called “broad match.”
It’s a feature that displays ads based on keywords that are similar to your desired text string. If your keyword is “black sweatshirt,” and someone searches for “black sweatpants,” your ad could still show up.
Bing Ads has reported companies receiving as much as 57% of their total impressions and 43% of their clicks through broad match.
That’s a great statistic for those with money to burn on failed conversions. People will be less likely to purchase sweatpants if they were searching for a sweatshirt.
Instead, try out phrase match and negative match targeting.
Phrase match only shows your ads if the search incorporates your keyword. Our example “black sweatshirts” ad would appear in a search for “buy black sweatshirts,” but not “buy black sweatpants.”
Negative matching allows you to exclude keywords altogether. For example, when people searched “red sweatshirts,” you could exclude your ads from appearing.
In theory, these keyword options will make sure you only pay for ads that target your demographic.
Google also allows businesses to share customer email addresses they have collected to better target ads.
Create lists with the Google Display Network that tell the platform what ads to serve based on specified criteria. Customers who have added an item to their shopping cart in the past thirty days can be specifically targeted with unique ads.
Health food service, Julian Bakery, saw a 35 percent increase in conversions using Google Display Network.
Avoiding cross-matched target ad groups can further this success. Try to target the most specific demographics you can without overlap to save money and increase conversions.
Small business will never be able to go shot-for-shot with massive corporations. This doesn’t mean we’ll fail, only that our pay-per-click strategies need to stay savvy and mistake free. Keep in mind these two mistakes and take steps to avoid them to watch your traffic grow.
If you’re in need of a professional service to manage your online marketing, get in touch with us. We’re experts in internet based advertising and search engine optimization, and would love to show you how your business can succeed online.
