The PPC Myth: 4 Reasons Why You Should Reconsider Your PPC Strategy

A lot of discussion regarding PPCs have been floating around lately with different people making different claims about its effectiveness, sustainability and ease of implementation.

With more and more companies trying to set up their in-house digital marketing teams where the focus is mostly on scaling the business by all means, often times the PPC is overlooked and marketers settle for a lackadaisical approach towards their paid campaigns.

There are a lot of preconceived notions regarding PPC campaigns but I’ll try to point out a few important ones that can prove to be fatal for the business.

Myth 1: PPCs Are on Autopilot 

You can just set them and forget about it! Well, it holds true if you plan to slide down the conversions curve. Your campaigns require consistent monitoring and testing in order to optimise your efforts and bring in positive ROI.

Try different ad copies and keywords, try to set a TG that is more responsive to your communication, have multiple copies of the same ads and have them optimized for delivery based on days of the week (you can even narrow it down to the time of delivery), use negative keywords to curb the spend on unnecessary search results.

This is just scratching the surface, there is n number of permutation and combination you can do to make your PPC campaigns a success. The key is to analyse and adjust as and when needed. 

Myth 2: More Keywords = Better Performance 

Let’s first understand the difference between impressions and conversions; Impressions are simply views that your ad gets or the number of times it gets displayed on a web page. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, impressions are the way to go. However, PPCs are run with an intent to increase conversions or simply converting your site /ad visitor to a paying customer.

The bulk of keywords will definitely help you boost your impressions and increase your clicks but they never guarantee conversions. The relevance of the keyword to the product or the service you provide is of prime importance.

Bid high for the most relevant ones and low for the ones which do not contribute much to your SERP result. Moreover, get rid of the junk keywords if you want to save money and generate a satisfactory ROI.

Myth 3: Ranking Number 1 On SERP Makes the Campaign Profitable 

Not always! It definitely gives you more visibility and might lead to marginal increase in conversions, however, this does not hold true most of the time.

The number one position attracts a lot of clicks but a lot of users on the internet are searching for services or products with no intent of purchase. Every time your ad is being clicked, you spend a considerable amount from your campaign budget.

Again, the key is to experiment with different ad positions and find a sweet spot. I have run successful campaigns by deliberately being second to the competitors in the search results. However, make sure you do not compromise on your off-page and on-page SEO efforts and strive to rank first in organic results.

Myth 4: Test Ads All the Time

This might sound contradictory to what I have been saying so far but like everything else, there is a fine balance. 

First of all, give your ads enough time to realise their full potential. Even if they fail to meet your desired benchmark, it does not mean they are useless. Wait for the add to reach about 150-200 clicks before you start analysing its performance. By being restless and disabling campaigns too early you are killing the potential of an ad with outstanding performance.

Also, when testing ads, decide if you would like to pause it or keep it running. In my experience, it takes about 4-5 days for an ad to stabilise before you can start drawing conclusions on its performance. 

A proactive approach is what is prescribed for a successful PPC campaign. You can evaluate your ads against the points I mentioned. There are plenty more that can be added to this list but I would like to hear it from you!