A vital cog in the success of any SEO marketing machine is efficient and traffic driving pay per click (PPC) campaigns. Effective PPC campaigns are not as common as one might think especially among smaller companies. Missteps and outright disasters continue to happen despite careful planning. The challenge is that PPC will have a direct and long term impact on both your ROI and bottom line as well as your long term reputation. There are some certain disasters you might want to side step.
- Perhaps the most common mistake made by both the PPC rookie and the PPC veteran is that their search terms are almost useless to them because they are so mundane and common. If you are going with something like “plumber” or “real estate” or “construction”, you are likely doomed to fail because you will be relying almost totally on some manner of GEO targeting. The more finely tuned you are, like “plumber, 24 hours, Atlanta”, the more success you are likely to have. Even for ecommerce and brick and mortar retailers, the more specific the better. Again, rather than simply going with “men’s suits”, you may want to try “men’s suits, big and tall, 50% off, Richmond”.
- Too many campaigns fail because of the broad brush. Too many make the blunder of using ad copy that is the same across the board. For a PPC campaign to succeed, your ad copy needs to be highly structured and highly specific or your ROI and traffic will be almost non-existent. You can’t get lazy and leave things on autopilot is you want the campaign to succeed. This is costing you money and labor so you need to make it count or don’t even bother at all.
- Finally, you know when your best seasons are and you must plan for them or your rivals will leave you in the dust. During your seasonal times, you can get highly specific and drive traffic that you normally might not get. Stay on top of the trends and carefully choose your spots. Like all of the rest of your SEO efforts, any PPC campaigns you run have to be tight and specific. It is a lack of attention and care that usually destroys the best PPC intentions.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
