On the surface, pay-per-click (PPC) with Google seems easy enough. Pick some keywords, write some ads and watch the website traffic arrive.

Unfortunately, something can go wrong at every turn.

The biggest mistake? Sending searchers to existing pages. Say what? That’s right. Most companies seem to take the easy route and use current website content as the destination for each ad.

What’s wrong with that?

Well, for starters, if you’re going to pay every time someone clicks an ad, you want to have a good chance to get them to do something – call, fill out a sales lead form, etc.

If your website page is filled with lots of text and navigation, you risk overwhelming the searcher or confusing him.

Paid advertising should be about custom landing pages with limited or no navigation. Promote a major call to action and back it up with the right messaging, a testimonial, a quick video – anything to play up your expertise.

Ads can look differently depending on a company’s PPC strategy.

Here are some other PPC tips:

1. Use different combinations of broad, phrase and exact match types.
2. Use negative keywords to help Google know when not to show your ads.
3. Test ad variations. You don’t need to use every character that Google allows – and not every extension. Try different combinations.
4. Use multiple campaigns.
5. Place your most expensive keywords in a separate campaign. If you have only one campaign, the most costly and competitive keywords may gobble up your daily budget before your inexpensive keywords even have a chance to help bring in website traffic.
6. Use geo-targeting.
7. Don’t run ads all day long.
8. Test out which days to run your ads.
9. Be sure to activate auto-tagging in your settings. Otherwise, your paid search traffic might be interpreted as organic traffic in Google Analytics.
10. Don’t assign too many ads to an ad group (use restraint so you can focus on relevance).
11. Adjust your ads (update the wording and introduce new ads).
12. Refine the keywords you’re using (remove the ones that aren’t working for you).
13. Adjust your bids.
14. Don’t pay to be No. 1 among the paid ads if No. 2 can produce a solid ROI.
15. Use display remarketing to show your ads to people who came to your website and left. Sure, it’s weird to “chase” a visitor when he or she ends up at another website. But that’s marketing – and technology. Either leverage it or miss out while competitors connect with the same people you ignore.

Go in depth with this guide from How Does Pay-Per-Click Work? (2021 Guide to PPC).

Preconceived Ideas Ruin Marketing

I can’t tell you how many companies have told me that they want to cap their PPC budgets.

I get it – be fiscally conservative. But if paid search drives traffic, leads and sales, why would you create a ceiling? If anything, you’ll want to keep adding money to your PPC efforts. Don’t put the brakes on success.

PPC can be an effective way to market your products and services. Sure, you want everyone to become your next prospect or customer. If you pay $5 for a click, maybe you want to get something for your cash.

But what if you pay $100 for 20 clicks? What if 2 people fill out a form and three people call your company? What if someone buys something for $1,000?

Why would you care about the 15 people who clicked and did nothing? Why be annoyed with the other four who engaged with your business and didn’t buy anything?

Your goal is to achieve an ROI. You should evaluate that over time – not the first week and maybe not even the first month.