PPC Video Tutorial: In this edition of the Digital Marketing Postcard, Victoria Chemko is in Siem Reap, Cambodia to talk to us about Google AdWords and common mistakes you should avoid in your Pay Per Click campaigns.
Digital Marketing Postcard - Common Mistakes to Avoid when Running Google Adwords Campaigns
00:57 - Using the Wrong Keyword Match Types
01:22 - Forgetting to Use Negative Keywords
01:53 - Setting up Irrelevant Landing Pages
02:14 - Not Testing Your Ads
02:40 - Not Tracking Conversions
03:14 - Summary
When you’re setting up and managing your Google Adwords campaigns, there are a lot of variables to keep in mind on an ongoing basis. Here is a listing of some of the common mistakes people make, so that you can keep an eye out and make sure you’re not doing them.
Using the Wrong Keyword Match Types
There are multiple keyword match types that can be used when setting up your AdWords campaigns. These include exact match, broad match, broad match modifiers, phrase match and negative match types.
Make sure that you know what each one means, and start from broad match keyword types when setting up your campaigns and narrow your focus from there in order to fine-tune your targeting and reduce your campaign costs over time.
Forgetting to Use Negative Keywords
When you’re setting up your campaigns, you want to make sure you’re capturing as much relevant and targeted traffic as possible.
For example, if you’re a luxury car dealer, you wouldn’t want people to find you by searching the words “cheap,” “inexpensive,” or “value,” so make sure that you’re including these negative keywords in your campaigns.
The more negative keywords you have in place, the less likely you’ll have searchers clicking on your ads who aren’t your target audience.
Setting up Irrelevant Landing Pages
One key thing to keep in mind is what the goal is for your PPC campaigns. What is the call to action that you want users to take?
Make sure that your landing pages remove any additional distractions beyond encouraging any searchers from taking the main action that you desire to meet your campaign goals.
Not Testing Your Ads
Every campaign is different and it’s important to review and fine-tune them over time. In order to do so, you’ll want to run multiple variations of your ads to see what works best. You shouldn’t be doing any guesswork, but watching the numbers that are provided within Google AdWords in order to make decisions on what ads are providing you with the most conversions.
You should always be testing your ads so that you can continue making improvements based on results.
Not Tracking Conversions
If you’re not tracking conversions, you can’t be sure that your campaigns are being effective or not, if you’re trying to gain more business. Increasing traffic for brand awareness is one thing, but you really want to know if a campaign is helping bring in more sales!
Make sure that you have your Google Analytics and AdWords accounts linked and appropriate goals setup to track conversions.
This way, you can ensure that you’re running your campaigns effectively and can fine-tune based on those that are bringing in more leads and sales.
Now that you know more about common mistakes to avoid when using Google Adwords, make sure to check out our recent posts covering some more beginner PPC tools and tips: http://umamimarketing.com/blog/
If you liked this edition of the Digital Marketing Postcard, please subscribe to the Umami Marketing YouTube channel to get more tips on the road!
