5 Common PPC Mistakes San Diego SMBs Can Avoid

For a successful PPC campaign, you need to be able to visualize the user journey and understand why online users choose to accept (or not accept) your calls-to-action. It’s also important to define a strategy and ensure no time or money is being wasted on common, often avoidable, mistakes.

However, many businesses proceed with PPC ads without thinking the strategy through. This is a sure way to waste a marketing budget while spending time on an audience that has no interest or need for whatever your business might have to offer!

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In this article, we’ll take a look at some common PPC mistakes that you should avoid.

1. Creating Landing Pages with No Tracking, Testing, or SEO 

There’s no point in building a landing page if it’s not done right. Many landing pages have too many distractions, while others are slow to load or fail to identify a clear purpose. Is there tracking, A/B testing, or search engine optimization (SEO)?

Most San Diego businesses fail to pay attention to these very basic, yet critical, components. This is an opportunity for competitors to get ahead. If you focus on these areas that most others are ignoring, you’ll notice a significant increase in overall traffic and conversions on your PPC landing pages.

Tracking and testing are necessary for the success of any PPC campaign. A San Diego PPC Agency will also help ensure your landing page is optimized for search engines so it receives more and more traction over time.

2. Targeting the Wrong People with Your PPC Ad Campaign

It’s important to be specific with your targeting to reach the right people, yet not so specific that you don’t reach enough people. This is an area where a San Diego PPC Agency can help you excel above the competition because they have the knowledge, experience, and tools needed to define the right target audiences for your PPC campaigns. 

The process of defining targeting can often take a lot of time and data to complete. Yet, everything you do with a PPC campaign relies on targeting the right people, so it’s more than worth the investment. 

So, why do so many San Diego businesses fall short when it comes to PPC ad efforts? 

If you do not take the time to narrow your targeting parameters down to a specific location, keyword, topic, etc… you may end up targeting groups of individuals that produce zero results. 

This is how many PPC campaigns run out of money and why most businesses turn to marketing agencies for help with defining and reaching their target market. 

3. Failing to Use Exact Match Keywords & Long-Tail Keywords 

As you know, there are many categories of keywords (location, topic, etc…), and these will need to be determined before starting a PPC ad campaign. However, there are also three different keyword match types that you need to consider:

Broad - Concise keywords that are not specific but reach a very wide audience.

Phrase - Multiple keywords in a specific order to match a keyword term/phrase.

Exact - The exact word/phrase a user types into the search engine.

For a PPC campaign, it’s best to use a mix of keywords and a range of exact match keywords that will almost certainly target the precise people you want to see the ad. Long-tail keywords (phrase keywords) are also known to target users who are close to purchasing or taking action, which increases the chances of conversion.

Unfortunately, many businesses fail to use exact match keywords which causes them to waste the PPC budget on keywords that do not apply to the goals of the campaign.

Also, using exact match keywords and long-tail keywords ensures the campaign is casting a wide enough net to capture the attention of a large audience.

4. Low-Quality Copy That Produces a Very Low Return

Have you ever clicked on an ad with a terrible copy?

It doesn’t happen. Users are quick to click on what they like and just as quick to ignore or discard what they don’t like! Bad copy is one reason this happens so often. 

Users need a good reason to click on an ad, and low-quality copy is often more than enough of a reason not to click. This can also happen when the ad copy is too long, cluttered, or confusing. These are several examples of very ineffective ways to communicate with your audience online.

This communication challenge is another reason why a San Diego PPC Agency is often contracted by SMBs that want to more deliberately and effectively attract their target markets. Agencies have experienced copywriters that know how to incorporate the right message and a strong call-to-action into the copy.

5. Failure to Track, Monitor and Improve PPC Ads 

We mentioned the importance of tracking for landing pages, but tracking and analytics are crucial for every other aspect of your PPC campaign. This effort is not just applicable in the early stages but for the entire duration of a PPC campaign– and even after it’s complete!

For instance, a San Diego PPC Agency will monitor bounce rates, conversion rates, and keywords that generate no traction. Upon tracking these metrics, changes and improvements are made to PPC ads and the budget will be considered at every turn.

Without this approach, many businesses continue to waste their budget on ineffective PPC campaigns. It’s also a rather time-consuming process that further emphasizes the importance of working with a team of experts that know how to get the job done right.

Final Thoughts

It’s important to define a strategy for your PPC ads. Careful planning will give your business the best possible chance of success. Yet, there isn’t always a place for “chance” in your budget. A San Diego PPC Agency will create certainty for your business by planning and executing a strong PPC campaign that produces results.

Ready to get started? Get in touch with our team to discuss your next PPC project.