Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Tips For Small Businesses

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I’ve been in the internet marketing industry for a few years now. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients in every facet of the industry, and I have noticed a pattern, especially in clients who want help with Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.  They have tried for several months, or even years to make PPC a successful form of advertising with a positive ROI for their business… but it was to no avail.  They are frustrated, and often times infuriated because it just isn’t working for them.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on posting about some of the most common and easily avoided mistakes when attempting to manage the PPC campaigns for your company… especially if you’re working on a small budget. (PPC campaigns with small budgets are my specialty.)

The first and most common mistake in a campaign that is not performing well can be attributed (almost 100% of the time) to campaign structure.

The most efficient PPC campaigns with high CTRs, a low CPC and high conversion rate almost always follow the same pattern.

1. Campaigns and Ad Groups must be clearly and specifically labeled. Currently, if you log into your Adwords account and find between 1 and 3 ad groups, and they are named “Ad Group 1,” “Ad Group 2,” and “Ad Group 3,” and they are all part of “Campaign 1,” you can be absolutely sure that you are not using PPC in a way that maximizes your results.
2. Each Ad Group should contain a small handful of highly specific and relevant keywords. If you are selling red bicycles and blue bicycles, don’t put them in an Ad Group labeled ‘Bicycles’ and move on. Break it down! Make an Ad Group for blue bicycles, and one for red bicycles.  If you have different brands of red bicycles, then break down your red bicycle into multiple, smaller Ad Groups.
3. Each Ad Group needs to contain 2-3 slightly distinct ads that are relevant to (and hopefully including) the keywords in the Ad Group they pertain to.  Make sure each ad contains a call to action! The reason for multiple ads is to perform A/B testing or multivariate testing.  Almost always, one ad results in a much higher conversion rate than the other.  Knowing which ads work best for your campaign will help you to maximize your ROI.
4. Each ad and keyword needs to be sending whoever clicks on your ad to a highly relevant landing page. This is probably the most consistently made mistake in the PPC industry.  You trigger your highly specific ad about blue K2 mountain bikes with very specific keywords only to drop your potential client on your homepage, implying, “Good luck! Hope you have a good time finding the product you thought we were going to send you to!” If you’re advertising a blue K2 mountain bike, send them to the blue K2 mountain bike page on your site, for heavens sake!

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but campaign structure is the foundation to a successful and lasting PPC campaign that can generate significant revenue for your business. The Adwords Editor is a great PPC tool that can help you fix a messy campaign, or quickly and efficiently create a new one.  If you’re just starting PPC, save yourself the trouble, and just set things up right the first time.