If you’re keeping up with digital marketing, you’ve probably heard the term PPC. PPC stands for pay-per-click and, according to WordStream, “PPC is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to ‘earn’ those visits organically.”
PPC works by allowing marketers to set a budget & display ads in the paid search section (top & right-hand side of the search engine results page). Every time the paid ad is clicked on, money — in the amount of the current cost per click for the keyword that landed the visitor at your ad — is deducted from the budget you set. Once your budget is all used up, the campaign ends. (Of course, you can always up your budget to keep it going.)
Start Amplifying Your PPC Campaigns
In order to justify this sort of investment, you’ll need a concrete way to prove that the juice is the worth the squeeze. More professionally speaking, you will need to use call tracking in conjunction with your PPC campaign to ensure that you’re collecting the data you need to analyze your campaign from all angles. Here are 5 mistakes that are commonly made when it comes to creating PPC campaigns.
Not Scheduling Ads Correctly
Look at your call tracking to see when your PPC campaign generates the most calls. If you’re seeing a major influx on weekdays between 9 AM & 11 AM and 3 PM & 5 PM, schedule future ads to run during these times. You can also use this information to ensure you’ve staffed appropriately by having more of your team available during popular calling times. Likewise, if you can’t take phone calls after 5 PM or on the weekends, don’t schedule your ads to display at 10 PM on a Saturday. A general rule of thumb is to avoid scheduling ads between midnight and dawn. Most people online at these times are just killing time or just doing research. They’re not likely to buy and their click is most likely costing you money.
Neglecting Landing Page Leads
While almost two-thirds of consumers will use the click to call button on a search ad, it’s still common for users to make their way to a campaign-specific landing page before calling your business. Therefore, if you’re not tracking calls from both your main website and your campaign-specific landing page, you’re only monitoring one-third of your leads.
Not Using Ad Rotation
Once you’ve started converting regularly, you’ll want to start using ad rotation. This sets you up for future success by helping you determine which of your ads get the most clicks & generate the most leads. Most importantly, it will help you decide which keywords are investing in and which are wasting your money.
A big, general mistake you can make with a PPC campaign is to treat it with a “set it and forget it” attitude. PPC campaigns are ongoing, so they require continuous monitoring & tweaking to be successful.
Google Adwords & Google Analytics are great tools to help you get started with both PPC and tracking your success.
Consider All Calls Conversions
When it comes to lead generation, always go for quality over quantity. There’s no point in paying for 50 clicks if 49 of those clicks amounted to nothing. If you consider all 50 of those leads as conversions, even though 98% of them were a waste of your time and money, you’re going to get a false positive & think your PPC campaign was more successful than it really was. Remember the overall goal of running a PPC campaign should be to get more, qualified leads — not random phone calls. So instead of considering every single phone call you receive as a conversion, only consider those that result in a sale, a partnership or at the very least, a really great conversation.
Not Evaluating Keywords
Make it a point to analyze your call tracking reporting regularly and note which keywords have generated the most phone calls and earned you the best leads. This will also help you optimize your campaign. There’s no point in paying for 100 keywords if only 20 are drawing in clicks.
Stay Up To Speed
The best way to ensure success when you’re implementing a PPC campaign is to make sure you’re constantly up to speed on its performance. Before you begin a new campaign, set you measurable goals and determine what you’ll consider a success. Remember that data collection and analyzation are two key factors that will help to make your campaign a success. The optimal way to collect data is with call tracking — so get started with that before you make any major investments. If you’re interested in discussing call tracking & how it can help amplify your PPC campaign results, complete the form below & we’ll give you a call.