Why Do Some PPC Campaigns Fail?

In today’s digital marketing world, pay per click (PPC) advertising can be one of the most effective techniques to grow your business and increase sales. However, for every PPC marketing success story, there’s a company that’s wasted tens of thousands of dollars on paid media companies without significant results. So, what separates the winners from the losers? Why do some PPC campaigns fail?

Many ad managers and companies experience difficulty with PPC campaign management. They’re either mismanaging their AdWords and social media ad accounts or have they’ve started on the wrong foot entirely. Most businesses are making a few of the same common mistakes, which are preventable and easy to fix.

Every PPC professional has made mistakes in at least one of his or her campaigns and failed to meet the client’s or boss’s expectations. Learn about poor management techniques that result in failed campaigns and what you can to avoid it in the future. Stop spending money on ads that don’t give a solid return on investment (ROI)—get out of harmful cycles and use your dollars usefully.

A New Brand or Product

If you’re introducing a new product or brand, you may be advertising to an audience wholly unfamiliar with your company. Expensive PPC campaigns don’t necessarily make sense for a product and business that still needs to build brand awareness. If you start off right away with pay per click advertising, you’ll run into a few issues:

• Initial expenditures will be high for Facebook Ads, AdWords, and other platforms because you don’t have a high quality score from Google and other advertisers.
• Your new campaign will start with off with high cost-per-click (CPC) and subsequently receive low engagement, low click-through rate (CTR), and low conversion rates.
• Your engagement and other metrics don’t get any better, so you end up with higher costs and a failed campaign. This PPC campaign is spending too much money on too few conversions.

What’s the fix here?

You have two options. Either build your brand awareness before running pay per click advertising or advertise to a group of people who are already familiar with your product. If you have an already interested group, your ads are more likely to be successful.

Target people who already follow you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to see better engagement, click-through rate, and conversion for your PPC marketing. If you don’t already have a community of users who love your product, invest in a branded campaign before spending money on paid advertising.

An Existing Brand or Product

PPC marketing can be one the best ways to grow your business, but when done ineffectively, you’ll end up wasting your money. There are mistakes that many PPC managers make that are avoidable. Advertisers with an existing brand or product who don’t understand proper PPC campaign management make errors which can sink a campaign and waste money. Here are a few common blunders:

• Obsessing over Cost Per Lead (CPL)
  • Cost Per Lead is an indicator rather than a measure of success.
  • Even if you have great CPL, it doesn’t guarantee profitability.
  • You should instead focus on profitability.
  • Learn which keywords drive the lowest cost-per-sale, what search terms produce the most revenue, and which of your ads are giving you good ROI.
  • It’s about concentrating on the right metrics.
• Utilizing Too Many Keywords
  • Don’t overload your account with too many keywords.
  • Most conversions come from 12% keywords in a campaign.
  • You can waste ad spend on keywords that aren’t performing.
  • Find the search terms your customers are using and modify your keywords to match those.
  • Use the correct match type for you (broach match, exact match, etc.)
  • Consider using more long-tail keywords.
• Bidding Too Low
  • It might seem like the wrong move to start bidding high, but CTR and ad rank are linked. Early in your campaign, raw clicks matter.
  • Try to figure out what combo of keywords, ad copy, and landing pages work best for the campaign, and then lower your bids later.
• Not Implementing Tracking
  • Call tracking and local tracking are necessary to make sure you don’t miss any conversions.
  • Use call forwarding numbers and other platforms to integrate into your CRM.
• Not Writing Quality Ads or Landing Pages
  • Spend time writing good ads. A/B test ads that have a different intent while focusing on your customers’ issues and how to solve them with your product or service.
  • Your landing pages also need to be well-written and organized. Don’t spend money on PPC campaigns only to have your customers land on crappy landing pages.
• Not Devoting Enough Time to Management
  • Many business owners are only managing their campaigns once per quarter, according to Larry Kim. You need to spend at least 20-30 minutes a week managing your AdWords campaign.
• No Specific Goals
  • What is your target CPC? Do you have a marketing strategy? You need specifics before spending money on an AdWords campaign.

Make Sure Your Campaign Doesn’t Fail

These mistakes can cost a company thousands of dollars and tank a PPC campaign. With the fixes to these simple errors, you can turn a poorly performing AdWords campaign and transform it into a moneymaker. Get the return on investment your business is looking for by running your pay per click advertising the right way. Whether you’re launching a new product or need to revitalize an existing PPC campaign, the right tactics will lead to your success.

For the tips you need to drive your pay per click advertising to success, consult the experts at Leverage Marketing. You’ll get the strategies you need to take your campaign from disappointing to successful and meet your internal goals. Contact us today and bring your business to the next level.