PPC campaigns can fail for a number of reasons, whether it’s through failing to track conversions or just plain bad advertisement copy. When done correctly, PPC can completely revolutionise a business, but when it’s not, you could end up spending vast amounts of money for very little in the way of results. We’ve put together some of the most common reasons PPC campaigns fail to get off the ground.
Lack of goals
It may seem obvious, but if you fail to make effective plans, then you can expect to fail. Setting clear and defined goals is crucial to PPC campaigns. Many advertisers simply believe getting an ad on Google is a plan in itself, but simply aiming to have your advertisement featured on Google is neither a goal nor a strategy. It’s important to think about what you want the end result to be. How much do you want to increase your conversion rate by? Who do you want to target? At what stage in the purchase cycle do you want to advertise to them? Knowing the answers to these basic questions will help you set out your goals and form a strategy aimed at achieving them.
Not enough conversion tracking
It’s all well and good setting out an end destination, but you need to establish how you arrived there. If you don’t have proper conversion tracking in place, in many respects, you’re flying blind. Put simply, you won’t know if your goal has been achieved. By refusing to feature conversion tracking on your website, trying to find out your ROI will be close to impossible.
Poorly thought out campaign structure
The structure of a PPC campaign is vital to its success. Plenty of PPC campaigns look good on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, problems can unmask themselves. Simple problems such as non-brand keywords in a brand campaign can throw your PPC efforts off track. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix to campaign structure – you simply have to manage it effectively.
Landing pages
You could have a fantastic PPC campaign, complete with all the key ingredients such as structure, ad copy and keywords, only to be let down by your landing pages. If you have poor landing pages but spend money on PPC campaigns, then you’re effectively throwing your hard earned cash away. There are plenty of resources online that outline landing page best practices. Following these to achieve a clean and well-organised landing page will ensure you’re ready to convert as many PPC clicks that come your way as possible.
Poor copy
A quite common problem with PPC campaigns is the ad copy. You have just a few characters to convey the product or service on offer, how it solves your customer’s problem and instruct them what to do. It’s a tough challenge, which is why so many PPC campaigns fail. In order to give yourself the best copy possible, look at some successful PPC campaigns. What are they doing that prompts customers to click on their site? You have a small window of opportunity through PPC, so it’s vital that you grasp it with both hands, and that means writing flawless copy.
