Although it is easy to get set up on your Pay per Click (PPC) ads platform of choice, there are things you need to do to ensure your advertising budget doesn't rapidly deplete.
Here are three common mistakes that waste your PPC budget, and what you can do to not only keep your clickthrough rate healthy but save money too.1. Bidding on the wrong keywords
When you are starting on PPC, you need to do thorough keyword research to determine the right keywords to use.
Don't just type keywords into your ad group off the top of your head, as you don't know if these are the keywords your customers are looking for, and you may potentially waste money on them.
Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising have free keyword planning tools you can use to plan the right keywords before you start bidding.
Similarly, when your campaign Is up and running, keep an eye out for search terms people are using that result in wasted clicks. You can set up negative keywords to ensure if someone searches using a specific keyword or phrase, your ad will not be displayed.
2. Targeting the wrong people
As sad as it may sound, not everyone will want to buy your product or service, so you will want to make sure your advert is not served to these people.
An excellent place to start is location. If you only sell your product or service in a specific country or local region, you will want to set it so your advert only shows to people who live in these places.
Similarly, let's say you sell women's shoes. You may decide you only want ads for your shoes to be shown to women, so men do not accidentally click on your ad, wasting your precious budget.
Think about your target customer and tweak your PPC settings to suit your needs.
3. Having a low quality score
In both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, all keywords you use are assigned a quality score. This score takes into consideration the keyword's clickthrough rate, the quality of the ad copy and the landing page experience on your website.
A high quality score is great as it can help you save money when you bid. However, a low quality score is bad as you can end up spending more money when bidding on that specific keyword. In the worst-case scenario, your PPC of choice can refuse to serve an ad for your keyword.
As an example, Google Ads sets an average quality score of 5 out of 10. If your score is 7/10 you can expect to pay 28% less for your keyword. If it is 4/10 you can expect to pay 25% more!
How can you improve your quality score? You can improve it by using keywords relevant to what you are selling, optimizing the content on your website to ensure it is relevant and accurate and testing your ad copy to make your clickthrough rates as high as possible.