It pains me when I have to make articles that highlight the common mistakes advertisers make in Google AdWords because it is clear advertisers out there are still not maximising the full
potential of their pay per click advertising campaigns. Putting this aside, by making articles such as this one which will illustrate some of the errors people are making and will hopefully help to enlighten those making the mistakes so they can correct them and maximise the potential of their campaign/s. Therefore, without further ado, here are some common mistakes that are made in Google AdWords.
#1 Homepage Landing Page
Now, let’s be clear that there are certain situations in PPC where it is actually beneficial to use your homepage as a landing. This is when your homepage is similar to the likes of Amazon where it is optimised for PPC traffic – ‘optimised’ being the important word here. If you are using your homepage as your PPC landing page and it is clear it is not optimised for PPC traffic, you will be pouring away your campaign’s budget down the drain…metaphorically.
Therefore, have a look at the different types of PPC landing pages out there and design one based on the selection out there that best suits your campaign’s needs.
#2 Broad Keywords In AdWords
Another area that results in a poorly converting campaign is the keyword selection being too broad for what you are targeting. Keyword selection is critical to your campaign’s performance because it is the keywords you select which single handedly makes your campaign contextual. Therefore, it is the keywords that brings the traffic you want to the landing page you chose and created.
For this reason, if you chose broad keywords, not only are you expanding the audience that can see your advert (so, in essence, the traffic is not as targeted and interested in your campaign), you are also eating away into your budget as it is common for broad keywords to have a much higher cost per click since there is generally more competition for them.
#3 Not Analysing Landing Page Stats
Yes, if you have created a landing page the right way, you should expect for the results to come in (and by looking at the statistics in Google AdWords you should be able to see this too). However, the truth of the matter is that you should be analysing the statistics on your landing page using programs such as Google Analytics as this will give a clear indication into the strengths and weaknesses of your campaign. For example, if you analysed a heat map of where the mouse is on your landing page from web users for a click through landing page and discovered that the cursor is generally not on the area you want the web user to click on, it is clear you need to change something about the landing page to increase the CTR of it.
