By Raleigh Kung
Digital Marketing Manager
Burns360

I hear it all the time about Search Engine Marketing (SEM), otherwise known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns:

“We’ve tried it before, and it just doesn’t work.”

It doesn’t stop there. Those who’ve given SEM a shot often have a laundry list as to why they didn’t get the results they wanted. Their conclusion in many cases?

“We just didn’t get enough bang for our buck.”

Because ads don’t always perform as expected, SEM gets a bad rap. But, with Google changing its Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to highlight paid ads and make them look more “authentic”, too many companies are missing out on a great opportunity to place their site above the competition.

Best of all?  It can be done without breaking the bank, all while maximizing return for your efforts—especially if you’re smart about it.

How to Avoid Three Common SEM Mistakes:

Mistake #1: Setting your home page as the destination page.

Softball question for you: First of all, why are you paying someone to click into your site?

The answer is usually to generate a lead or capture a user’s information. Both are valid reasons.

The follow up question then becomes, “which page on your site is best suited to achieve your goals?”

And most people would say “the home page.”

Would you believe it if I told you that nine times out of 10, that’s NOT the optimal answer?

By far, the most common mistake I see in SEM campaigns is that companies lead potential customers to the home page when the information they’re actually looking for is 2-3 more clicks away. What’s more, a lot of home pages don’t display the call to action (CTA) directly, whatever it may be, such as downloading a whitepaper or demo, scheduling an appointment or making a purchase. Without a specific CTA, you’re far less likely to achieve your goals.

Remember: A home page is made for all visitors, not just the ones who are ready to act.

That’s why custom landing pages are needed. Rather than directing paid searches to a home page with all your general information, create a page to highlight the product or service you actually want to sell. A customized landing page should be made and optimized to convert your targets to take a specific action—right then and there.

Mistake #2: Overspending on Keywords

Google Adwords, one of the primary channels for SEM, is one of Google’s top revenue generators. What’s made it so successful is that, over time, Google has made paid search very user friendly.

One of the things they’ve made easy is the ability to control how much you spend. Google provides recommendations on how much to bid for your ads and keywords, but you still have the ability to be flexible in your own bidding process. For example, if you want to purchase 100 keywords, you might propose $5 per word for each of your 100 words. Conversely, you can submit customized bids for one keyword at a time.

When are you most likely to get burned?  When your ads start to run.

Let’s say you have a budget of $5000 for the month, and you’ve decided to run 100 keywords at $5 per word, as cited in my previous example. If you run a campaign with around 100 keywords (which is pretty common) and set a global bid of $5/keyword, you can easily find yourself spending anywhere between $500-5000 in a hurry.

What I recommend to clients and colleagues is to limit your daily spend at first, and then monitor it closely. Taking the example above, you might set your daily limit to $165 initially. That should be plenty for what is essentially a trial run.

Then, during the first week, monitor the performance of your keyword groups. Which keywords are getting the most clicks? Consider raising your bid for those that are either underperforming or not ranking. Also, eliminate bids for keywords that are simply too competitive or too expensive.

For more advanced users, you can also track your site conversions back to the keyword searched via the Goals function in Google Analytics. Once you do, you can raise your bid for that particular keyword, to push the performing ad further to the top.

Mistake #3: Running a “One and Done” campaign.

Yes, you may be spending exactly what you set out to spend. You might even be getting the visibility you wanted and paid for. But is it producing the return you expected?

It’s easy to be misled by good statistics.

“Wow, our impressions are up!” “So many people clicked on this!” “It must be working!”

When your end-of-year reports roll around, however, you discover your ads have produced far less return than you had hoped for.

Maybe the quality of the clicks actually didn’t turn into enough qualified leads. Maybe you found yourself overpaying for a low visibility keyword, or even competing in a highly visible but overly broad keyword that didn’t apply directly to your business.

It is critical you know whether your keywords, ads and landing pages are performing as they should be, and to make changes as needed. Tweaking and optimizing all of the critical components can turn a good campaign into a great one.

Here are some final SEM optimization tips once you have a campaign fully up and running:

  • Pay close attention to Google’s quality scores for your ad. If it’s relatively low, that means Google doesn’t consider your landing page and your ad to be closely related. This causes Google to delist your ad for that keyword, even if you bid a high $ amount for it. Adjust either the ad or the landing page to more closely match each other, or drop the keyword completely.
  • Follow up with your sales team on all leads generated. Once you see user information coming in, consult with your sales team to see whether these leads are valid. You paid for information that, in theory, should already be more qualified than your average lead. Check with your sales department to determine if your leads actually turned into business or not. If not, consider reviewing your landing page’s content, and see what might be causing your lack of conversions.

Avoiding these common pitfalls will help set you on a path to running a great paid search campaign. SEM can be a very profitable tool, but like any marketing option, the real work lies in the hands of the user, not in the tool itself.

Have any questions? Feel free to ask below! I’d love to hear from you.