As a leading local Atlanta search engine marketing firm, we’ve helped companies achieve the ideal results from their pay per click (PPC) campaigns. We believe that PPC is a great way to drive short-term results while gathering data for longer-term SEO efforts.  But, we’ve also seen the mistakes made when small and medium-sized business owners try to go it alone or fall victim to someone that doesn’t take the time to truly understand their business model. In this latest post, we’ll take a look at some of the most common PPC mistakes.

1. Choosing the wrong keywords
   The keywords for your PPC campaigns should only be chosen after comprehensive analysis has been conducted on your market using the latest SEO tools and a subset of your competitors. Make sure you review your campaign keywords closely on a regular basis to determine the return on investment for your campaigns. If you don’t take this step, you could be throwing money away on poorly directed campaigns. For example, if you offer commercial water pumping equipment, make sure your marketing firm understands the difference between relevant keywords for your business to business audience vs. water pumps used in cars or residential wells. You don’t want to waste time and energy answering phone calls and emails from people you can’t help.

2. Lack of a goal
   The goal of your PPC campaign is the most important consideration in building the campaign. After all, if a strategy is a plan that allocates resources to meet an objective you must start with the objective. What do you wish to achieve in using digital marketing? Is the goal lead generation? Are you trying to ramp up sales of a new product ready for a sales event? Make sure that your team has a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish and in what time frame. Also, make sure that your goal tracks back to a business objective.

3. Weak landing pages
   Your PPC landing pages should be expertly designed by a search engine marketing firm in order to attract interest and engage target customers. Many business owners try to create landing pages alone without expert help. This can be a significant mistake that will waste valuable time and money for the company. This is because the relationship between your ads and your landing page helps determine your quality score. Google wants to provide a quality experience for its users and they reward companies that help them in their mission by publishing relevant ads and landing pages and punish those who don’t by charging them more money.

4. Not setting a budget
   While the right keywords might cost your company money when running PPC campaigns, they shouldn’t bankrupt the marketing team. It’s important that you set a precise PPC budget in order to maximize your return on investment in campaign spending.

5. Focusing solely on traffic
   While traffic to your PPC ads and landing pages is an important element of the campaign, conversions are a far more valuable metric. Make sure you use Google analytics and work with your search engine marketing firm to track conversions within your campaigns, both online and offline. We always recommend putting call tracking in place to ensure that you have visibility into conversions via phone and not just clicks.

Our team at WSI Marketing Upside is here to guide you in achieving a long-term return on your investment in professional PPC services. To discover more about your options, call us today.

About the Author

Todd McCarty, WSI, has over 25 years of experience in Marketing and has worked for some of Atlanta’s leading companies in marketing leadership roles.