7 Ways Your SEM Campaign Is Going In The Wrong Direction

A search engine marketing campaign, or a PPC campaign, are great tools business owners can use to increase their customer base. They are easy to set up, they can be very effective, and they don’t have to cost a lot. At least, that’s how it goes when they’re set up and run by PPC experts.

For someone who isn’t very proficient with search engine marketing, they can be the complete opposite. There are just too many ways a SEM campaign can get off track and fail to deliver to its full potential.

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You’re Giving Too Much Weight To The Wrong Metrics

There are good reasons why successful businesses love data. There’s nothing like quality actionable metrics that can point you towards areas of opportunity for improvement. However, not all metrics are equally useful and paying too much attention to the wrong ones will lead your search engine marketing campaign astray.

The most meaningful metrics are those that show you the return on investment of your PPC campaign. If you get bogged down into looking solely at metrics such as cost per lead or cost per click, you’ll only be looking at one part of the equation. And without the full picture, you can make bad choices for your campaign.

You’re Not Using Negative Keywords

One of the key components of a successful PPC campaign is careful targeting. If you want your ads to attract attention, you need to make sure that they are appearing in front of the people who are looking for what you have to offer.

Using negative keywords is a great way to fine-tune your targeting and ensure your ads appear only when they are relevant. If you don’t exclude the words that are often used together with your keywords but do not describe your offer, your campaign will suffer performance loss.

You’re Mixing B2B With B2C Keywords, And Vice Versa

Often enough, businesses and individual customers might look for the same thing. Think about online security tools, for example. Both businesses and individuals need anti-virus applications, right? They do, but the level of protection businesses need will often be greater. There’s a reason why the phrase “industrial grade” is used for enhanced versions of everyday products.

If you don’t choose the keywords appropriate for your customers, your ads might not reach the audience you want them to reach. Your sales will suffer, you won’t achieve good ROI, and your campaign will fail.

You’re Using Too Many Keywords In Your Campaign

There is such a thing as using too many keywords in a PPC campaign. Yes, you can say that you’re trying your best to reach as many people as you can and cover all possible terms that would indicate that someone might be interested in what you’re selling. But sooner or later, too many keywords will knock the wind out of your campaign.

So next time you’re wondering why you’re campaign is turned off when it should clearly be on, check whether the number and price of the keywords you’re using has blown through your daily budget in just a couple of hours. And then focus only on the best-performing keywords, and forget about the rest.

You Failed To Include A Call-to-Action In Your Ad Copy

There’s nothing that can match the power of a good call-to-action. They are a necessary part of almost any web page you come across, just as they’ve been a part of ad copy probably since advertising was invented.

The copy in your ads, the copy on your landing pages, and in each and every asset you develop for a search engine marketing campaign should include a call-to-action. If it doesn’t, you’ll be left with a campaign that’s failing to get enough people to take the action you want them to take.

You’re Not Tracking Calls (Or You’re Doing It Wrong)

According to research commissioned by Google, 70% of mobile searchers used click-to-call when purchasing products. For many businesses, calls are one of the most important sources of leads, which means that they should be tracked when running a SEM campaign.

But some people forget to do it. Or they only track calls from ads, and not from landing pages. Or they count all of their calls as conversions. Or they don’t use call conversions when calculating the ROI of the campaign. The bottom line is if calls are one of the possible outcomes of a campaign activity, they should be measured just like clicks, form submissions, and other outcomes are.

You’re Using Ads Past Their Prime

In some cases, ad copy has a very limited usability window. If you’re including holiday-specific language in your ad copy, for example, you can only use that copy during the holidays. When the holidays have passed, you need to use different copy.

But using old copy doesn’t matter only if it has words that will make it obviously outdated. The fact that you’re using a year old ad copy means that you haven’t improved it in a year. And not improving your campaign is the most effective way to make it go in an undesirable direction.

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