PPC advertising is a great way to get your products or services in front of potential customers. But, if done incorrectly, it can lead to subpar results or even costly mistakes.
Now is the perfect time to review your PPC advertising and make sure your tactics are up-to-date. To help you get the best possible results from your campaigns, here are the top PPC mistakes you should avoid in 2023:
Keyword Stuffing Landing Pages
An outdated tactic that continues to prevail is over-stuffing a
landing page with keywords in an attempt to draw attention from a larger group of potential customers. Not only can this lower your ads' quality scores, but more often than not, users will hit the back button upon seeing spammy content and irrelevant keywords.
Overlapping Campaigns
When managing multiple PPC campaigns, it’s essential that you keep each campaign segmented and distinct so they can perform at their best. You should also consider factors like seasonality when setting up campaigns because the same ad might do well in the summer but fail miserably during the winter holiday season and vice versa.
So while it might be tempting to use overlapping campaigns and retargeting strategies, this will quickly exhaust your budget and deter potential customers away due to irrelevancy.
Sticking Too Closely to Current Successes
Although it's important to have your key messages remain consistent, keeping a campaign too focused on its current successes can stifle innovation and limit potential advantages that new messages may provide. Instead, focus on identifying unique opportunities that expand your campaign's performance.
Ignoring Competitor Analysis
One way to avoid wasting your PPC budget is by looking toward what your competitors have done to gain success in the space, as well as other useful insights related to upcoming trends or changes within paid search or the PPC platform itself.
This will enable you to stay ahead of the competition and avoid missing any nuances that could lead to errors within your existing or future campaigns.
Poor Targeting Practices
Thanks to advancements in AI and machine learning technologies, improper targeting is a thing of the past. Advertisers now have maximum flexibility in building target audiences and segments, selecting bid strategies, optimizing ad schedules, and more to drive even greater ROI.
Not Updating Creative Assets
Creating successful PPC ads involves more than just finding attractive images or compelling words — you also need to consider improving performance by adjusting elements like copy length, graphics, calls to action, etc.
With ever-changing user preferences, it's vital to update your creative assets so your ads don't become stale with your target audience.
Not Tracking Progress
Ensuring long-term success heavily depends on how successfully you're able to track performance metrics to determine exactly where improvements are needed. This means keeping a constant watch over clicks, transactions, bounces, and other stats to fully understand what failed and why, then adjusting tactics in the next test-and-measure cycle.
When you don't monitor progress, you're more likely to waste money. Plus, it becomes almost impossible to take advantage of future opportunities.
Overlooking Mobile
More people today are searching on their phones than ever before. Marketers need to
optimize content specifically for mobile devices since smartphones can interact differently with visual elements on a page compared to desktops or tablets.
Additionally, make sure to test how your ads appear on mobile so you don't run ads that have a too-small logo, illegible copy, etc.
Evolve Your PPC to Improve Results
PPC advertising is a powerful
digital marketing tool, but it’s not enough to just launch a campaign and wait for the results. Campaigns must be actively managed and tracked to maximize the return on your investment. By avoiding these PPC mistakes in 2023 and beyond, you'll be able to get a bigger bang for your buck!