4 Common PPC Mistakes That Are Sending Crappy Leads to Your Landing Page

Day 113/365- Late Night Snack
In case your touchdown web page and PPC marketing campaign setup don’t go collectively like peanut butter and jelly, your advertising and marketing {dollars} are going to waste. Picture by Sean Kelly by way of Flickr.

Pairing your PPC campaigns with a touchdown web page is among the finest methods to safe a excessive conversion price, however provided that they’re working collectively towards the identical aim.

All of it boils right down to this: In the event you’re sending poor high quality site visitors to your touchdown web page, then your conversion charges will undergo. Simply as you may’t take again the truth that you simply mistook your new girlfriend’s mother for her grandma, it’s fairly important to get it proper on the primary impression. (Yeah, that’s a PPC nerd joke.)

Listed below are 4 frequent PPC errors that forestall you from operating profitable campaigns – and the way you would possibly go about fixing them.

Mistake #1: You’re not ditching poor-performing key phrases

Particularly on bigger accounts the place you might have much less visibility, it’s straightforward to fall into the behavior of including new key phrases to check however neglecting to scrub out poor-performing key phrases periodically.

Most frequently, this ends in a lose-lose state of affairs:

  • It creates a poor expertise for prospects who click on in your advertisements and arrive at a vacation spot that isn’t quite what they were looking for.
  • For you, this advert to touchdown web page mismatch results in decrease conversion charges, increased price per click on and decrease High quality Scores throughout the account.

To keep away from this, it’s important to cease and set some onerous guidelines for your self round what expertise your key phrases ought to be offering and the way they join with the touchdown pages by way of the provide, name to motion and intent.

Key phrases, like Tinder profiles, must be reviewed and segmented into buckets that you just’ll both reject, wink at or contact – and you should do it often.

Answer: Solely hold key phrases that pull their weight

Do your self a favor and don’t let freeloading key phrases take over your finances. Run a simple keyword report on the advert group or marketing campaign stage and set guidelines for your self round CTR and CPA. The principles you set for your self will likely be distinctive to your account and key phrase listing, however ought to all serve the identical function of reaching your income or lead era targets.

Listed below are some tips to start out evaluating your key phrases:

  • Click on-through price (CTR) is huge indicator of relevance and if it’s low, you’re almost certainly additionally shouldering a low High quality Rating (QS), which implies you’re paying a better price per click on (CPC) than you must.
  • You need to have a perfect price per acquisition (CPA) in thoughts. How a lot is an excessive amount of for that conversion? In the event you don’t know, you must do some homework round the price of doing enterprise on the whole.
  • When you have a key phrase with a CTR of lower than 1% and a CPA that’s twice the price of the product that the key phrase matches to, that’s an “costly” key phrase.

Downloading your key phrases by advert group or marketing campaign after which filtering by fundamental guidelines equivalent to these may also help “bubble” up any downside key phrases rapidly and permit you to both pause or delete them.

Mistake #2: You’re not being strategic about spending your every day finances

Is site visitors to your touchdown web page getting reduce off in the midst of the day? AdWords finances operating out earlier than you even get to 10am?

That’s a PPC difficulty round quantity and price.

You would have probably the most fantastic touchdown web page within the universe, but when your first date finances is for McDonald’s, don’t anticipate a Nobu restaurant-like response. You must pay to play.

In the event you don’t have the bucks to go all out, then get artistic like a picnic within the park.

Answer: Use advert scheduling to drive site visitors when individuals are able to convert

To be extra accountable along with your every day finances, use ad scheduling to make your advertisements out there throughout peak instances:

ad scheduling examplead scheduling example

By adjusting your bids to be much less and even turned off fully throughout sure instances of the day primarily based on efficiency or peak site visitors instances, you may stretch a finances a lot additional.

An actual world instance of utilizing advert scheduling for higher ROI

I used to have a marriage invitation consumer, and I discovered that her prospects would browse throughout their lunch hours however by no means buy. As a result of the method required a lot of thought (and the opinion of their vital different), individuals hardly ever had sufficient time to buy throughout their lunch hour – they’d go residence at night time and full the conversion.

Realizing that, I turned the finances up throughout lunchtime on the east and west coasts (when individuals appreciated to browse) then turned it down for the afternoon. I’d flip it again up once more after dinnertime (when many individuals have been prone to full the conversion) after which again down once more at bedtime.

In brief, the important thing to saving cash was turning down the finances between lunch and dinner ­– since nobody was changing.

In the event you’d prefer to carry out your personal stalker-like stage of hour-by-hour and day of the week bidding, I extremely advocate trying out this Econsultancy case study, the place they noticed a 69% elevate in CPA after implementing advert scheduling. In the event you’re in search of a strong the way to information, hit up this Wordstream 5 Step Tutorial and also you’re off to the races.

Further methods to increase your every day finances:

Or…. get more cash. 😉

Mistake #3: Your advert doesn’t match your touchdown web page

After I met my husband on Match.com, his profile image confirmed a clean-shaven younger man who didn’t look a day over 25. Then we met in individual, and a bearded man that seemed nearer to his precise age confirmed up, a lot to my shock and actually, the sensation of a message mismatch.

Goal, Amazon and eBay was once infamous for creating message mismatch as a result of they’d use dynamic key phrase insertion of their advertisements and bid on each key phrase within the universe, trying to drive site visitors to look outcomes pages for gadgets they might or might not have.

ebay ad examplesebay ad examples

Two real-world examples of how exploiting DKI can result in critical message mismatch. I used to spend far an excessive amount of time making an attempt to get advertisements like this to look.

Nobody likes a less-than-accurate advert and touchdown web page mixture and in case your CTR is on the upper, more healthy aspect – say north of 5% – however your conversion rate is less than 5%, there’s something disconnected between the 2.

Answer: Delight your prospects with good message match

It’s actually fairly easy. Your advert textual content must mirror the advert copy in your touchdown web page.

Take a look at this profitable message match example from Oli Gardner:

He looked for “packaging design” and noticed the next advert:

custom-packaging-design-ad copycustom-packaging-design-ad copy
The advert copy incorporates a selected name to motion and hyperlinks to an article on Wired for social proof.

Clicking by way of takes you to a touchdown web page headlined with with the identical key phrase from the advert: “customized packaging design.” As an added bonus, each advert and touchdown web page enchantment to a way of urgency through the use of terminology like “right now” and “in simply hours.”

custom-packaging-design-landing-pagecustom-packaging-design-landing-page
The touchdown web page you’re dropped at from the advert pictured above is headlined with the very same key phrase from the advert. Excellent message match. Image source.

Fairly candy.

Excellent message match like that earn us factors in PPC in direction of a decrease CPC, increased conversion price and higher High quality Scores. Better of all, it creates an amazing expertise to your guests and reassures them that they’ve made a “good click on.”

P.S.: In case your advert and touchdown web page *do* have correct message match however your conversions charges are nonetheless low, then it’s protected to imagine that your touchdown web page is scaring away all the great individuals who got here out of your advert. Time to look into some good ol’ landing page optimization.

Mistake #4: Your advertisements ship the fallacious message

I really like creating personas. I like researching, writing and being imaginative with them, however should you haven’t stopped to scent these roses, you’re going to have a nasty time.

PPC key phrase lists ought to be bucketed not simply by a sort or theme but in addition considered in context of the shopping for cycle (consciousness, info gathering or prepared to purchase). In different phrases, when choosing key phrases, you must be conscious of user intent.

On the finish of the day, you need to just be sure you’ve answered the query that somebody looked for.

In the event you’re not taking note of person intent and begin shopping for phrases accordingly, you’ll see a low CTR due to the mismatch in what appeals to them versus what you’re proposing to them.

After which nobody will get to see your stunning touchdown web page.

Answer: Know your persona and ship a message that may resonate

I had a consumer that offered ready-to-eat dinners made by cooks on a actuality TV cooking present. These weren’t drive-through kind meals, however extra complicated (meals like hen saltimbocca). My consumer had been bidding on key phrases associated to quick meals, chain eating places and frozen meals.

This was problematic for 2 causes:

  1. They have been going after key phrases within the fallacious stage of the shopping for cycle: of us who’re in search of a drive by way of or supply so they might eat instantly.
  2. They have been concentrating on advertisements at individuals seeking to pay little or no. As a result of my consumer was promoting contemporary, high-quality meals meant to feed a household of 4, the common value level of their product was within the $30+ vary. Not precisely related to somebody in search of a $5 pizza meal.

After we sat down to speak about their purchaser persona, we discovered that their demographic was primarily girls over 30 who work, have youngsters, a twin revenue and need to feed themselves and their households in a more healthy, deliberate forward manner.

These weren’t “proper now” patrons; these have been planners who’re prepared to spend just a little further, and have been seemingly within the consideration/consciousness part of the shopping for cycle.

As soon as we reduce all of the “proper now” key phrases and added key phrases, advert textual content and touchdown web page copy to talk instantly to those women, we began seeing good outcomes. Total site visitors quantity went down (there may be a whole lot of search quantity across the key phrase “Pizza Hut”) however the high quality of the site visitors went up considerably.

knowing-your-persona-chartknowing-your-persona-chart

Total site visitors quantity drops (blue), however conversions (orange) keep regular, finally rising with elevated finances to the appropriate key phrases.

Fast! Carry out a persona test in your PPC campaigns:

  • Are your advertisements and touchdown web page speaking to consciousness, consideration or buy? Is that matching up with applicable key phrases? For instance, “can you purchase a spouse” is a key phrase individuals seek for after they’re within the consciousness part, whereas “the place to purchase a spouse” is for prospects within the buy part.
  • Do a Google seek for your key phrases – do the advertisements and articles that seem match up along with your targets of your PPC marketing campaign?
  • Ask somebody. If you understand somebody in your required persona vary, present them the advert or touchdown web page and see if it appeals to them.

Is it your touchdown web page or is it your PPC?

In terms of PPC, there are hardly ever any one-size-fits-all options, however my hope is that these examples will offer you a guidelines so you may assess the present state of your campaigns.

Checking for these errors ought to show you how to decide whether or not your PPC is sending poor high quality site visitors to your touchdown pages… or whether or not you must hit the touchdown web page optimization books.

Are there another frequent PPC blunders that you just’ve seen? Let’s nerd out within the feedback.

— Elizabeth Marsten

Take heed to Elizabeth on the Name to Motion podcast:


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