Is Your PPC Campaign Losing Ground?

PPC is effective – but it can be a waste of money for those who aren’t sure what their strategy is. The advertiser with the highest bid for a targeted keyword gets the most exposure. Seems simple enough, but what if you target the wrong keywords? What if your message does not have a high click-through rate? If you are not seeing the results you want from your PPC campaign, reevaluate your strategy. Here are a few tips to get you started.

• • Rethink your keywords. Businesses think that they need to get the most exposure; while exposure is key, you need the right exposure. When you allow broad matches, your ad will appear more, but it will often appear in irrelevant locations. On the other extreme, you can create exact match keywords in which your ad will only appear when searchers look for that exact word. You have to be careful to balance these and choose keywords that are highly relevant to your product, service, or site.You should also consider using negative keywords. These are keywords that ensure your ad won’t appear in the wrong context. For instance, if you repair iPhones but do not sell them, you would simply choose –iphone sales or something similar.

• • If you use PPC on both content sites and search results, make sure to tailor your ad to suit each forum. Keywords may be different; your message may be different; your entire target audience may be different.

• Consider your users. They’re not going to be happy if they click on an ad only to be directed to an irrelevant landing page. If you’re advertising your iPhone repairs, for instance, don’t direct them to a page that talks about Blackberry. Not only will this lose you the sale, it’ll give you a low ad quality score, which will hike your prices and lower your exposure.

Posted by Hitesh Patel, Managing Director at Bullseye Media