Love them or hate them, pay-per-click advertising campaigns are (and have been) a staple of the social media advertisement space for years. Many of these campaigns have been directly responsible for increasing businesses profits tremendously while some have cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars with little to nothing to show for it. Part of the problem lies in the so-called “best practices” of running an effective PPC campaign. Here are some common pay per click advertising misconceptions to be aware of and the truths behind them.
Common Pay Per Click Advertising Misconceptions
Click-Through Rate is the Most Valuable Metric
CTR may be the main goal targeted for certain campaigns, and that is generally fine. If that’s the case for yours, then you needn’t pay any attention to this one, but for the vast majority of campaigns run by businesses, there are other factors at play that need to be paid attention to. Conversions per impression, for instance, may paint a more vivid picture of the overall profitability of your campaign. While it might be tempting to set your rotation to optimize for clicks above all else, this is a dangerous move to make. Just because a potential customer is more likely to click through on your campaign, doesn’t mean that he or she will convert just as easily.
Using “Exact Match” Will Always Yield the Best Results
Depending on the nature of your campaign (and your niche in general), it may be prudent to utilize exact match instead of broader keywords or phrases. However, when it comes to a high-volume target, this often is not the case. The narrower your point of entry is, the harder it is to scale down your cost per acquisition, leading to a less-than-effective campaign, all told.
Keyword Position Doesn’t Matter/Keyword MUST Be Number 1
During many campaign runs, advertisers will generally not care if their keywords drop below 5 to 6 for their respective categories. By the same token, many will ensure that their keywords never drop below the number 1 spot across their entire campaign. There is a happy medium to be had here, and it’s all in the details. Your average spot being high up is very important, but if you are in the 2 to 4 range, you may be paying less for virtually the same results as the number 1, per category. It is important to “play the game” from keyword to keyword, optimizing the most effective ones and underplaying the under-performing.
Using Broad Match Alone is Enough For A Campaigns Success
This one is a bit tricky in practice to perfect, but the idea is that lots of brands will use very broad terms with no additional information, almost in a “set it and forget it” fashion. While this approach can be effective in large volume campaigns where CTR is the king, adding in a few negatives, or even a modified broad match term can really do a lot to lower the overall cost per acquisition, increasing the results of your campaign dramatically!
Keep these misconceptions in mind when planning your next PPC campaign.
