Pay-Per-Click is currently delivering the highest returns on investment for our clients. It is the most effective way to digitally reach your target audience, and beat competition in search engine rankings.
Creating an AdWords account, finding keywords, writing short ads- sounds pretty simple? This is indeed a common misconception.
In fact, creating and running PPC campaigns is a full-time job. It takes time and effort, and if done badly, it can be detrimental to your business.
Here are 5 reasons why you should stick to your day job and leave your PPC campaigns in the safe hands of an expert.
1. Do not undermine keyword research
A successful PPC campaign stems from plenty of quality keyword research. If you don’t invest enough time laying the groundwork you will spend money on the wrong type of keywords for your business. This will inevitably result in low quality traffic and wasted resources.
Using broad keywords will get your ad displayed more often but it will also target the wrong consumers for your business. Moreover, broad keywords tend to be more common and therefore more expensive.
For example, if you are selling waterproof earphones, what keywords would you decide on?
Our guess is you would start with “earphones” and “headphones”. However, people looking for “earphones” are not necessarily looking for “waterproof earphones”. Every time someone would type “earphones” they would end up on your site but soon realise your product is too specific for their needs and leave. Conclusion- you will end up with a hefty AdWords bill and nothing to show for it.
PPC is all about researching the competitions’ tactics, and targeting very specific keywords that are not being used very much. This way you attract an audience that will actually be interested in your product/service and save money in doing so.
PPC experts think outside the box. If I were advertising waterproof earphones I would think about targeting keywords such as ‘how to survive a hard swim practice’ or ‘how can I swim faster’. Not only will these types of keywords allow you to target the right audience, it will also be cost effective as less competitors use these keywords, and hence they will be cheaper.
2. Producing effective Ad Copy does in fact require expertise
Writing punchy, compelling and engaging Ad Copy does not come naturally to everyone. If done badly it can repel potential customers away from your website and damage your business’ credibility. However, create compelling ads and it will increase your click rate.
Experts often use ‘Split Testing’. This is a powerful method used to increase conversions whereby you post two ads and see which one performs better.
In addition, Ad Extensions can be used to fine-tune your campaign, boost conversions, give your ads more presence, makes ads look more professional and help sieve out the wrong target audience. Once again it is crucial to use the right Ad Extensions, because the wrong ones won’t appeal to your users and might even scare them away.
3. The art of manipulating AdWords campaign setting
The campaign settings practically govern your AdWords success (or failure).
There are plenty of campaign ‘switches’ and ‘advanced’ settings to play with to increase your campaign performance. Nonetheless unless you understand which setting does what, it can get very overwhelming.
The real art is understanding how to manipulate them to maximize the benefits for your business model. PPC experts have the experience and time to perfect the right campaign model for you.
4. Risk auto features becoming your enemy
If you venture into the land of PPC campaigning, you will find plenty of features and tools developed by Google to help you run and optimise your PPC campaign. They do this to encourage business owners to take matters into their own hands and run their very own online marketing efforts.
It is worth noting that Google Adwords is Google’s #1 source of revenue. By that we mean Google want people to invest money, more preferably, as much money as possible. Can you really interpret the data Google is providing you to help get the most for your money? You would be surprised at how much Google try to push you to invest more and more money for very little benefit.
PPC experts know just about every term, symbol and description and don’t get fooled by Google’s tricks.
5. Time is money, and creating PPC campaigns takes a lot of time!
Yes, you may be able to learn all of the above but realistically do you have the time?
This post only covers a snippet of the work that AdWords requires. We haven’t even mentioned the technical aspects of tracking, Google analytics and optimisation (for another time…).
Not quite feeling up to the challenge? Let our PPC experts help you instead!
Click here to find out more and call us for a free consultation this month.