5 Common but Killer Pay-Per-Click Mistakes to Avoid

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) services are really powerful marketing strategy for creating potential customers on the web. It is perhaps the fastest way of promoting your business and getting targeted customers in the online world. Using various tools like Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc., PPC advertisers create and display impressive ads in the sponsored results of search results pages of different search engines.

The ad would ultimately be clicked by a customer happy, but, alas, it probably doesn’t happen due to inappropriate execution of the ad. Such incorrect ads may cost you a significant amount of money and bring almost zero customers to you.

In order to run a profitable ad campaign, here are five critical PPC mistakes that you should always avoid:

Mistake #1: Sending Visitors to Home Page Instead Of Service/Product Page

By clicking your ad, visitors only want to check the details of what is given in the ad title. But some non-experts and novice PPC advertisers set up their ads with the URLs that redirect the visitors to the home page rather than a relevant landing page. On the home page, visitor finds a lot of information, but not what they want and expect. In this case, you forced your engaged visitor to navigate through your website to find the relevant information. They get frustrated; leaves and you lost a new customer. So it’s important to have a product-specific landing page that contains the exact information that the reader wants.

Mistake #2: Redirecting Visitors to your Contact Page

Unfortunately, many businesses redirect their customers through a PPC ad to their contact page. They do so for newsletter opt-ins, record keeping and lead generation. But nobody wants to fill the contact form. After scanning some interesting pages on your website, when visitors get the contact form to fill, they just bounce from your website. So be aware that forcing your customers to fill contact form is against the guidelines of ppc services.

Mistake #3: Not Split-testing the Text of your ad

It is the text of your ad that makes a place in your visitors’ mind and forces them spontaneously to click it. To avoid any mess, it is important to split-test your ad text before running them. It helps you find the right elements to promote your ad and to effectively speak to your target audience. Every PPC tool allows you to split-test in which you can create multiple versions of your ad text that will help you decide which version leads to more clicks and on-site conversion.

Mistake #4: Considering ‘broad match’ keyword ads only

Broad match keywords are undoubtedly a great way to drive lots of clicks. But when you rely entirely on broad match keywords, it will bring you irrelevant traffic only. Set your ad for phases and exact matches also; this may decrease your traffic, but will bring you only relevant and interested visitors, while avoiding irrelevant customers and saving you money.

Mistake #5: Not Taking Benefits from Negative Keywords

Negative keywords prevent your ad from displaying on search result pages appeared for irrelevant keywords. For example: you’re an optometrist and sell eyeglasses. You want to prevent your ad from showing on search result pages for “drinking glasses” since the searcher is not interested in eyeglasses. Negative keywords do this for you. Thus adding these negative keywords can help you reach the most interested customers and cut your costs.

These are the 5 mistakes that must be avoided. To avoid these mistakes outsource your services to a white label pay per click services agency. The agency has well qualified PPC experts that can help you to setup and manage your PPC campaign.

Why Shouldn’t  Small Businesses Skip A PPC Campaign?

How to Market Yourself as a PPC Expert?

The demand for Pay per Click marketers in at an all-time high as small and large businesses alike are spending billions of dollars on this marketing strategy. It is estimated that 87% spend on Search Engine Marketing goes into PPC and mere 11% into SEO with other strategies accounting for the rest. So if you thought SEO was bigger it is time to think again. This demand has encouraged many PPC specialists to leave 9 to 5 jobs and start their career as freelancers. Here you get to use all your technical skills and marketing acumen to set up campaigns for your clients and run them successfully. You must get to the bottom of the pit as far as different Ad Networks are concerned and maximize Return on Investment for your clients.

However starting your career as a PPC freelancer is never easy. Marketing your services and attracting clients often becomes a bigger challenge compared to managing the project itself. If you have worked with an agency in the past you may have bothered little to know how projects are sourced from clients and how the service is marketed to customers around the world. It’s never easy and there is no single route towards success. Below we take a look at some of the ways in which you can market yourself as a PPC freelancer.

• Set Up Your Website – Not owning your own domain is a sin if you would like to start your freelancing career with PPC.  A website not only establishes your credentials as a specialist but acts as your best marketing tool and helps you reach out to potential clients.
• Try PPC – If you aren’t broke and have set aside some budget to market your services, there can be no better way than marketing yourself by running a PPC campaign. It will not only generate immediate leads but would also help you exhibit your skills in front of your target audience.
• Start A Blog – Blogs have become one of the best ways to generate strong leads in today’s world. Blogs help you connect with potential customers and also educate them on the importance of PPC marketing.
• Craigslist – Millions of people around the world post ads on Craigslist and consider it to be one of the best marketing platforms for freelancers. The fact that it is free and allows you to market yourselves in different cities around the world makes it popular.
• Network With PPC Specialists – PPC freelancers around the world are seeing merit in collaboration. When you collaborate with other freelancers you stand a chance to get a project from them and also share your excess work and make a small margin out of such engagement. It also allows you to take up large accounts that cannot be managed by a single individual.  
• Word of Mouth Marketing – In your early days as a PPC Expert freelancer this is perhaps one of the best ways to grow your business. When you achieve goals for your clients and they are happy with your work, ask them to write a testimonial or share your name on social media. This would go a long way in promoting your services.

The above marketing ideas are mere suggestion and there is no harm in trying other ways to generate leads. For instance if you believe newspaper ads would help you attract clients, you should surely market yourself accordingly.

Summary
This article talks about ways in which one can market themselves as PPC freelancers and make a career in this industry.

Tips To Improve Performance in Google Shopping

If you are an online shopping store owner looking to drive sales then Google Shopping is your best bet in that endeavor. Actually the competition in this channel is pretty low due to the large volume of work involved in developing the product data and then maintaining that data. Means currently setting up ad campaigns in Google Shopping is a profitable option. Here are some useful techniques which you can apply to boost performance in Google Shopping, including tips that can help you reduce your work time.

Develop High Quality Data

In order to develop a high quality data feed you have to concentrate on 3 factors –  perfection, applicability & fine points. Fill your feed with plenty of relevant information. Try to stretch beyond minimum requirements. Put as many relevant attributes regards to your product as are feasible. In order to achieve your objective you'll have to invest a bit of time reviewing diverse websites of the product manufacturer to gather plenty of images, collecting ASINs, etc. Probably you will also have to modify titles and descriptions of items.

Here are key guidelines you need to follow to boost quality:

Images

• Go for top quality images (max file size 4mb).
• Maintain a square (1:1) aspect ratio and stick to 800 pixels height and width.
• Use all possible angles, positions, features to show the  product images.
• In case your product has variations in color, size, shape get an image of each & make a separate list of each variant.

Titles

• Make sure to insert key specifics, for example, color, size and manufacturer part numbers.
• Put the vital sections of the title to the front.
• Don't try to use irrelevant words.

Descriptions

• Keep in mind that Google is gonna use your text to locate an item.
• Write descriptions focused on pattern, texture, shape and technical aspects.
• Don't exceed the 750 characters limit.
• Avoid promotional text.
• See there are no grammar and punctuation errors.

Look for Authentic Source for Your Data

In order to improve quality keeps data fresh. Means you must keep the data feed up to date to avoid going ‘out-of-sync’ with website the after a price revision or deletion/addition of products. Of course, searching for new product info and then populating it can likely strain your resources so you must try to lessen the length of time spent on this activity. Use the following ‘shortcuts’ to collate the basic data for the feed, so that you have more time to concentrate on improving its quality.

Content API Will Make Things Easy

If your product range changes frequently then this is the best solution for merchants like you. I agree that the initial development work will be tough; however, once everything is in place it will automate the process of organizing the data and keeping it fresh. You will end up saving both cost and time. The API will deliver your product data straight to Google Merchant Center & regularly update it thus keeping the data up to date. If you cannot install the Content API for Shopping you'll have to create the data feeds manually.

Ask For Exports From The Shopping Cart’s Database

A short cut method to get the product data is to ask for an export from the shopping cart’s database & then compile it. Some merchants may deny direct access since the database can have sensitive data like history of customer transaction, contact details, etc. It's not a bad idea to ask if they can export the product table from the database, or ask whether the shopping cart incorporates an export feature. Lack of common structure to URLs means you'll have to get the product URLs manually.

Google Sheets' IMPORTXML’ Feature Can Come In Handy To Collect Data From The Merchant’s Website

It's one of the quickest ways! Use the Google Sheets'  function termed IMPORTXML to import data from an XML document. Simply make use of Xpath to discover data on a web page at a defined URL &  import the data into Google Sheets. Just develop an ‘import template’ to collect data and later re-visit this template  for updates to the info. Look within the ‘Inspect Element’ attribute of the browser to find the Xpath for each element. Make sure you repeat this for every single element of the product page that includes the Name, Description, & Price. Later populate the sheet with each product’s URL. Just drag the formulas down the columns to get info on product from varied URLs. Getting URLs is easy. Use a spider program like ‘Screaming Frog SEO Spider’ to crawl the website.

Data & Campaign Optimization

Product Groupings

After finishing the data feed work your next focus is seeing how you’re using it. Initially consider using custom labels. It's a handy attribute. This feature enables you to group and filter your products into separate Shopping Campaigns in Google AdWords. Groupings like profit margin, seasonal promotions, offers, and so on will allow you to carry out bid management and develop relevant Product Listing Ads.

Splitting Product Groups

Splitting  product groups by Item ID is another smart option. It enables you to fix Max CPC bids at a product level. Plus gives info on the performance of each product. Although the overall ROI you see from Google Shopping is positive, possibility is there that some money is being lost on specific products while profit is coming from others. So make sure to fix bids at a product level. For instance, if one of your products value is $100 while another is $1,000. To get profit you have to  spend max. 20% of the product’s sale price on AdWords. You have a Max. CPC bid of $0.50 fixed for the entire product range in your feed. All that means mere 40 clicks will be enough to lose money on your first product. While 400 clicks will mean you lose money on the second. If you go for splitting the product groups on the basis of  custom label, brand, category etc. you'll be able to see which products are not performing. Means you'll be able to spot varied problems with product data, products that are under-performing, even your website. After getting this info you will be able to adjust the data feed, modify the website, plus change product prices.

Review Your Incoming Keyword Search Reports

Your campaigns' outcome hinges on this factor. Because you can't insert vanilla keywords to your e-Commerce campaigns you can instead set up a level of control via usage of negative keywords. Google will consider a host of factors, to identify the keywords that prompt your products. However, the key ones are title and description of items. Often ‘generic’ keywords are not very effective with Google Shopping so I recommend you must exclude these at an early stage. The logic is that customers avoid buying at the beginning of the buying cycle. Means showing an image of a product together with price won't prompt a sale. What searchers usually look for is image of a product with a price underneath. Means searches specific to a product are awesome since customers are willing to buy. For instance, if you are putting Nike Trainers on sale. Probably your title of the item is “Nike Air Max 90 Men’s Trainers” and your description lends the keywords in the item title a natural boost.

On your keyword search report you see this:

As you can see the CPC of search keyword ' mens trainers' is a bit higher. Reason for this is that competition on the keyword is high compared to search specific to the item. Implying clicks are gonna cost more, while users making a search on the keyword haven't yet decided to buy.I conclude my article with the hope that now you'll be able to greatly improve your Google Shopping campaigns.