10 Popular but sometimes counter-productive PPC tactics

There are lots of things people do to increase the performance of their campaigns and here at Converted we have seen a fair few of them to know which ones are good and which ones are likely to hurt an account. Here are 10 popular but counter-productive PPC tactics we have seen:

1. Don’t change your campaign settings

When we carry out our account reviews we make a point of checking campaign settings as there are usually things we will suggest changing to aid performance. A recent one involved a client serving North London whose campaign was set to target the entire UK. This was obviously diluting his budget and wasting quite a bit of cash on traffic from outside of their area.

As with anything in your account there should be an element of fluidity in your campaign settings and you shouldn’t be afraid to make a change.

2. Use conversion optimizer on all your campaigns

We have seen a large number of accounts that use the conversion optimizer in all campaigns and many clients ask us why we don’t recommend using for some campaigns and not others.

As with anything in PPC the conversion optimizer will work well for some campaigns and poorly for others. The only way to find out is to test it. If you get good results, continue with it, if you don’t then don’t use it just because you’ve read an article telling you that you should.

It’s a great feature that can work well for you and it can take a lot of time out of your day, but make use of the feature with great care.

3. Have unique landing pages for all your campaigns

It is true that unique landing pages for your PPC can work wonders for conversion rates but not everyone has the time nor the resources to create landing pages for every single campaign they’re running. If you are running a number of landing pages you need to invest time and resources into testing them to get the very best from them.

4. Best Practices are always the best way to do things

Adhering to policies is a must for keeping your accounts running but this does not necessarily mean sticking to best practice. If you find a formula that works, stick to it. It may not be the how the experts would run their accounts but there is an old saying  “There is more than one way to skin a cat” (Do not skin any cats though), which is as true of PPC management a anything else.

5. Always set ads to rotate

Rotating your ads is a great way to test different copy, however this will only really work, if you have the time to proactively and consistently manage them. Ad testing is something we as an agency strongly recommend to everyone running a PPC account no matter how big or small, however if you don’t have the time to constantly write new ads you may benefit more from the optimise for clicks or conversions features.

6. Use daily budget to increase your spend

It’s a common assumption that increasing your daily budget will mean you will spend more, get more traffic and therefore more conversions. However, if your campaign is not limited by budget your campaign spend will not necessarily increase if you increase the budget. Make use of the impression share stats to determine if your budget is the issue, if you aren’t losing any impression share to budget you’ll need to look elsewhere for opportunities to increase your spend.

7. Always separate brand and non brand

Although we normally suggest separating brand and non brand, it is something we will test before making a decision on it as it has proved a better tactic to keep them together for some clients. If you have a small spend you may find your brand keywords cannot generate traffic/spend if placed in their own campaign, in which case it may be a good idea to incorporate them into another campaign.

8. Keep PC and Mobile separate

Often, costs on mobiles are less than on PC’s and in most cases they should be kept separate but sometimes there is no real need. Again this is one for testing but if your accounts are performing well, don’t just dive in the deep end, test it slowly and methodically.

9. Go super granular

We love structured accounts with targeted campaigns that allow us to target people with very specific messages. Sometimes we even go as far as one ad group = 2 or 3 keywords. However we only do this on larger accounts as it does require significant budget. If you go this granular, the budget of a campaign is likely to be fairly small which in turn can mean that 2 or 3 clicks could use up your entire budget.

Find what works then make mass changes

If you have a PPC account that is performing well, you shouldn’t really be making mass changes. It is a sure fire way to make your client or your boss ring you at 5pm in a state of panic as to why the account has gone from a steady number of sales to zero in the space of a few days.

If you do have an account that is ticking along, by all means make changes you feel will benefit the account but do them slowly and test results before making more changes.

The main thing to take from this post is that just because a tactic is a popular one doesn’t mean it will work for your account. Don’t be afraid to test different things out as this can and does  lead to fantastic results.