Paid Search Mistakes

Paid Search Mistakes

When you are actually paying each time someone clicks on one of your paid search listings, you want to try and keep your mistakes that can result in direct losses of money to an absolute minimum. We have gone over using content and management to maximize your paid results. Here are some other you can do and avoid to get the most bang for your buck.

Not Monitoring the Account

You set up your campaigns, set your budget and then just let it go and hope for the best. No adjustments, no analytics, no changes. Just let it run on autopilot.  That does not sound like a good idea for any type of marketing, but especially one that you are being charged per use every few weeks. You may think who would do this? It happens all the time. Companies set up their paid search marketing campaigns and then get too busy to think about it. This is a waste of money and loss of trust in paid search, since you’re paying and not seeing results.

Not Using Geo-Targeting

When looking on the web for a brick and mortar business like a restaurant, car wash or dry cleaner your online search is going to include the area you are looking. If your paid search keywords do not include the location, you are missing one of the best searched keywords. Even if your business is worldwide, it would be wise to cater to the many people who feel more comfortable shopping local. Create different campaigns for each state and/or major city to let potential customers know you service their area.

Losing Landing Page Relevance

When potential customers read your ad and are enticed to click on it, they expect to see similar information on your landing page. If you make an offer or talk about a service in the ad that is not reflected when they click, they will very quickly lose faith in you and move on.

Fitting in

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try and do what everyone else is doing. What is going to make someone click on your ad over the next guy if your offer is the same?  You need to, as Apple would say, “Think Different”. Make your ad completely different.

Not Using Negative Keywords

Here’s a big one. You pay per click. That is how the paid search systems work. So why would you want to pay for people searching for stuff you do not offer? If you offer new truck tires, you would not want to pay for people searching for used truck tires or new car tires. Set “used” and “car” as negative keywords and only pay for relevant searches.