Brands and businesses pour a truckload of marketing budgets into launching these tiny snippets of ads in PPC campaigns, expecting a flood of traffic and conversions. But guess what? The results are overwhelming, and conversions are nowhere to be seen, stopping your business from achieving maximum profits.
PPC (pay-per-click) may feel like a magic trick, but you need to know it’s a high-stakes game! The bad part is that having a PPC campaign running right may seem challenging, but the good part is that you’re not alone.
Planning a PPC campaign may sound like finding the most relevant keyword and bidding for it, but it has always been more than that. Several factors could be holding back your PPC campaign, like the algorithm, a constantly changing marketplace, or a highly competitive environment, like really anything.
Just in case you are missing out on the term PPC (pay-per-click), let’s recapitulate it.
What is PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, and how does it work?
While browsing online, we see these eye-catching ads calling for our attention to click on them. These are pay-per-click ads. It’s a popular form of digital advertising. The advertisers (businesses) pay for every click each time you click.
PPC advertising allows businesses to bid on keywords or phrases for which they want their ads to appear in search engine results. So next time someone searches for those keywords, this ad from your business with the most relevant keywords pops up first, and the advertiser, which is you, will pay each time it is clicked.
Well, here is the twist: the search engine will next employ a complicated algorithm to choose which ads to display and in what order.
What are the factors considered by alogorithm?
- Advertiser’s bid amount
- Relevance of the ad to the keyword
- Quality of the ad
- PPC strategy and campaign planning
- Top PPC platforms
Is PPC important for your business?
First things first, many people confuse PPC with SEO, but PPC is different from SEO. Where SEO may take some time to draw traffic and show results, PPC gives you instant results.
Businesses looking to drive maximum profits in a short period with no marketing budget constraints should surely give this a try. PPC offers a cost-effective way to boost your online presence and grow your business.
Just listing quickly, the importance of PPC campaigns for businesses:
- PPC advertising can drive traffic to a website almost immediately.
- Reach a target audience that’s likely to convert into a sale.
- Businesses can track conversion ad performance and other key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Even though users don’t click, businesses create visibility and awareness.
- PPC supplements SEO efforts to drive immediate traffic to a website.
- Set ad goals and reach them more efficiently based on the ads’ performance in real-time.
- PPC offers a cost-effective way to boost your online presence and grow your business.
Based on their target audience, businesses use several platforms to run their PPC campaigns: Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Microsoft, Google Ads, Facebook, and sometimes TikTok. The most popular ones are Google, Microsoft Bing, and Facebook.
Usually, the fees for Google Ads’ paid advertisements are higher than usual because of their unmatched global popularity and reach. Hence, it is the largest pay-per-click platform, processing 99,000+ search inquiries per second.
So, there is the highest chance that your ads will be seen by your intended audience, turning them into your customers. And this means profit and revenue for the business.
Ads are usually in the form of images, videos, slideshows, gifs, and stories, especially for social media like Instagram and Facebook. PPC ads on YouTube are slightly different. They are mostly bumper, skippable, non-skippable, or overlay ads.
On highly professional and semi-professional platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, the ads are mostly sponsored or promoted. Advertisers, or businesses, target audiences based on factors such as demographics, interests, and behaviors.
Reasons Why Your PPC Campaign Is Not Working and How You Can Fix It!
1. No strategic keyword use
Keywords are the backbone of the whole PPC campaign, guiding your ads to the right audience. If you don’t choose your keywords wisely, there are likely very few chances for your ads to get clicked for something you always wanted your business to rank for.
For example, if you’re a B2B software company targeting “software solutions,” you might be too broad and face high competition. Instead, targeting “B2B software for logistics” might yield better results.
You just need to be precise and relevant while bidding for keywords. Broad or generic keywords may attract many clicks, but these clicks are often from users who are not even your target audience. This will lead to a wasted budget and low conversion rates.
Fix:
- Conduct thorough keyword research: Bid for keywords that you think you are known for. Think like a customer. What are your customers’ requirements for which your business is the solution? Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to identify relevant keywords with the right balance of search volume and competition.
- Focus on long-tail keywords: The difference between short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords is the “specifications.” The more specifications you add to a generic keyword, the more apt long-tail keywords it becomes. This means these keywords are less competitive and more likely to convert. Like in the example above, “logistics” becomes the specification for the short-tail keyword.
- Negative keywords are a real thing: Negative keywords are words or phrases that you don’t want your ads to show up for. If you don’t add such keywords, then your ad will end up ranking for an uninterested audience, wasting your money with one click. Hence, make a list of words that you don’t want your ads to be associated with and add them to your campaign as negative keywords.
2. Dull Ad Copy
You are selling. You cannot afford to sound unclear, bored, and irrelevant with your words. Ads must be eye-catching visually and appealing with words, address their pain points, and later give a queue to the call to action, which is click!
Fix:
- Go for the 3Cs with every ad copy: Clear, Crisp, and Concise. No complex language or jargon to sound cool. Just be straightforward and to the point with your ad copy. Also, do not forget to address pain points for readers to connect quickly.
- Highlight USPs: Does your brand or business have something different or unique? Highlight that. Try incorporating a “unique selling point” that focuses on what makes your product or service stand out. Sell through your benefits!!
- A CTA is a must. A compelling CTA tells your audience exactly what you want them to do next. Use action-oriented language. With a CTA, you usually create a sense of urgency that is taken immediately.
Additional Tip:
Emotional Triggers: Connecting with customers based on emotions is always a win-win game. Tell them how your product is a problem solver, making their lives easier and better with you.
3. Not monitoring low-performing keywords
In the world of PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, not all keywords are meant to serve the same purpose. Where some keywords drive more traffic and conversion, others merely attract clicks without creating meaningful actions. As an advertiser, you need to frequently check on your campaign to eliminate non-converting keywords that exhaust your budget but drive no results.
Fix:
- Frequent optimization: Use tools like Google Ads to analyze which keywords are driving conversions and which are not. Make it a habit of checking your campaigns every month to find out what is working and what is not.
- Pay attention to the keyword type: Understanding non-converting keywords requires a little extra effort. See which keyword type—long-tail keyword or short-tail keyword—is performing better. Sometimes, long-tail keywords may have the fewest search volumes but indicate a higher intent for conversion.
- New Bids and Budget: Having frequent checks on your campaigns not only helps you waive off non-converting keywords but also reallocates your budget towards high-performing keywords. You get the leverage to adjust bids to maximize ROI (return on investment) on converting keywords.
- Review search term reports: Customer choices and preferences change in minutes. And so will the pattern and style of their search. Regularly Check the Search Terms Report to identify new keywords that are driving conversions and refine your keyword strategy.
4. Poor audience segmentation
Businesses and brands bid for a broad keyword or phrase, trying to target a broader audience. But they forget that different segments of your target audience have different needs, preferences, and pain points, and your keywords should reflect that.
When you fail to segment your audience effectively, your ads may not reach the most relevant potential customers, which ultimately results in lower engagement, higher costs, and fewer conversions.
Fix:
- Leverage demographic and psychographic targeting: Advertisers (businesses) try to be everything to everyone in one campaign and want to reach all their targets too quickly. They choose too many keywords, hence yielding unsatisfactory results.
Narrow down your audience targeting using demographic and psychographic filters. Keep a close eye on interests, values, attitudes, and lifestyle preferences, or use demographic filters like age, gender, location, and income level. - Try remarketing audiences: It’s like taking cold calls. Start by targeting people who have already shown interest in your brand and business, whether they’ve visited your website, engaged with your social media, or made a purchase. Create custom lists to reach out to these users again.
- Develop buyer personas and then bid exactly match keywords. Google is anyway taking away broad match modifiers. Hence, research your target audience to create detailed buyer personas based on their pain points, interests, and behaviors to craft tailored messaging. Later, focus on exact match keywords in your campaigns that help you get clear and accurate performance data.
5. Set-it-and-forget-it approach
PPC is not a one-time task; it requires continuous effort and attention. Setting up an ad campaign and not checking back for weeks means you might miss the most crucial insight and opportunity that your data is trying to indicate.
Fix:
- Analyze performance data: Keep getting back to your campaign keywords to collect data on which keywords are performing and which aren’t. Check the click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per click, and overall return on the budget invested in the PPC campaign. Once checked, you can later optimize and adjust your bid on high- and low-performing keywords.
- A good number is equal to conversions. Your keyword is ranking for searches and, fortunately, attracting a fair number of audiences as well as clicks. You are spending on every click, but are they converting? High traffic is good, but if it’s not converting into leads or sales, it’s not beneficial. Hence, check for conversions too. By tracking conversion rates, you can see if your products resonate with the market later, helping you spot patterns and predict future performance.
- Rework on campaign structure: If there is no click or no conversion or is low or no return on your investment, consider reworking on campaign structure. If you see any specific keyword performing quite well on which you bid the least, restructure it. You can also go for A/B testing while selecting keywords for your PPC campaign.
Additional Tip: Signs of Unproductive Campaign Structure:
- Achieving consistent results is challenging for you.
- There are not enough queries from PPC visitors.
- There are no correct clients.
- Nothing has changed with your optimizations.
6. Landing Page Quality Letdown
Let’s say your ad copy talks about the best social media management, but you are redirected to a page that talks about why your business should opt for email marketing. Such ads have the shortest attention span.
Fix:
- Not always Home Page: Understandably, most of the CTAs talk about “Visit the Website” or “Contact us.” The home page of any website stands as the go-to page. But not necessarily. Homepages have greater bounce rates than other pages because customers do not instantly see the information that is important and relevant to them.
- Match ad copy with landing page: A more effective strategy is to direct consumers to a landing page specifically customized to their search or something that the ad copy says. This instantly increases the chances of visitors making the purchase.
Wrapping Up
Well, there could be many reasons for your PPC campaign’s lack of effectiveness. From being inactive to negative keywords to neglecting numbers to relevant keywords, there could be several reasons and patterns that can determine your campaign’s success.
Look, it would be very unrealistic of you to think of driving conversion and PPC campaign success within days. Optimizing and fetching your desired result from a PPC campaign is an ongoing process. The ultimate truth is that this needs strategic planning, work, and response to data.
