5 common PPC mistakes to avoid

Whilst it can be relatively easy to set up a PPC campaign, it is not easy to achieve the best Return On Investment unless you have time and know-how. Managing campaigns to 'best practice' standards and maximising Return On Investment is a complex and time-consuming process which requires significant experience.

Whilst we don’t wish to share some of our travel search secrets here, we are happy to email travel companies our advice on five of the most common mistakes we find when we audit accounts managed 'in-house' and by other search agencies less experienced in search for travel.

1. Poor targeting

One of the real benefits of PPC is the amount of control it offers. You can choose the precise region you wish to advertise to, the time of day you show your ads, the user’s language and the network on which your ads appear. However, if these settings are not applied correctly you will not only waste money in the short term, but could also damage the long term performance of your account.

For example, we recently saw one (villa rental) company whose campaign was targeting a French-speaking audience with ads and landing pages that were written in English. Needless to say they had a very poor click-through rate and an awful quality score – an example of budget wasted needlessly.

2. Poor relevancy

Contrary to popular belief, Google is not a straight financial auction. Google’s 'Quality Score' plays a huge part in determining your Cost Per Click (CPC) and position. For this reason, ensuring maximum relevancy is a must. Having tightly-grouped keywords ensures that the ads you display are highly targeted to the user’s interest, keeping your Click Through Rate (CTR) as high as possible. It also helps ensure that your creative is relevant to the keyword - another key factor in Google’s 'Quality Score' decision making.

It is also vital that your landing page is the most relevant one you have available. A user will have already made at least one search to find you, so if you then direct them to your home page (forcing them to make another search), you are likely to have a high bounce rate and therefore waste money.

3. Match types

The availability of different match types on Google, means that your ad copy can appear for completely different searches using the same search keyword. The keyword ‘cruise holiday’ on “exact match” means that your ad only appears when someone searches ‘cruise holiday’. But if your keyword was on “broad match” and you had not set up any negatives in the account, then you could find yourself appearing against searches such as ‘Tom Cruise and Katie’s holiday’.

As well as having a negative effect on your brand, this would also be a waste of money if people clicked on your ad. And if they don’t click on it, the effect could still be detrimental as it could lower your CTR, lower your Quality Score and potentially increase your costs!

4. No copy testing

It is always possible to turn your PPC campaigns on and off whenever you like but in order to get the best returns, constant testing and evaluation is vital. One key area for testing is ad copy because, as we have already seen, any small improvements you make to your CTR can improve your Quality Score and ultimately improve your Return On Investment.

5. No tracking

In order to be able to test and evaluate the overall performance of PPC and the impact of keyword testing, it is essential that tracking software is applied. Far too often we see companies (often managing their PPC in-house) failing to use tracking code, with the inevitable consequence of wasted budget. Without tracking data, companies spend too much on keywords which are not performing and not enough on the all important high converting keywords.

At Conrad Advertising we take our tracking a stage further, by analysing individual keyword performance. This allows us to optimize clients' search accounts at the most granular level, providing ROI data for every single keyword in the account and to provide a real understanding of the role each plays in the holiday booking cycle. If you think you might need some help with your PPC why not give us a call? You’ll see the benefits.