Scary PPC mistakes
Halloween is the time of year to embrace all things spooky! As a result, I’ve been inspired to put together a list of Pay Per Click (PPC) mistakes that will frighten even the most fearless of Dentists…
PPC is a great way of attracting new patients, you get immediate visibility at the top of Google, but if the campaigns are not set up correctly, then they could be a horror story waiting to happen.
Not utilising negative keywords
Probably the scariest mistake in the list – negative keywords prevent your ads from being displayed for untargeted keywords, the keywords you don’t want your advert to display for. For example, you may be a practice in London looking to attract new private patients, you wouldn’t want your advert to show for ‘NHS dentist London’ which would attract many untargeted clicks, wasting your budget.
Adding negative keywords is simple but really important in order to optimise your Google Ads campaigns.
Geographical targeting errors
Another spooky mistake, and extremely important for smaller local businesses such as dental practices, because patients will only travel so far for a given treatment. If you are a London practice who has setup a campaign to promote ‘teeth whitening, it wouldn’t be a good idea for the ad to show to users with a Liverpool IP address. Users will click on your ad but then realise your location and then bounce. Poor location targeting leads to many wasted clicks and lowers return on investment.
Keyword match type mistakes
Users new to PPC often don’t realise the tremendous power of keyword match types. There are 3 different match types, and here is an example of how each would handle the search phrase “teeth whitening”:
Exact Match: Triggers ads only when the exact phrase “teeth whitening” is queried.
Phrase Match: Triggers ads that include the exact phrase “teeth whitening” and any words or phrases that surround it such as “teeth whitening london”
Broad Match: Displays ads for an even wider range of keywords, including variations that only loosely match such as “whiter teeth” “best tooth whitening in London”
There is significant opportunity within each of these keyword umbrellas. For example, broad match keywords often have a lower bid price than their exact match counterparts, however phrase and exact match keywords are more likely to drive targeted traffic to the website and have higher quality scores. Broad match will drive more traffic to the landing pages and, using the search terms report, are very useful for discovering keyphrases that a driving traffic that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought of.
Selecting keywords that are too broad
Many companies make the painful mistake of targeting keywords that are too broad. Specificity is paramount in pay per click advertising, as broadness directly correlates with saturation, expensive costs, low match, and negative ROI.
A perfect example is when a Dentist who offers dental implants advertises for the keyword “implants” While this keyword is perfect for those search for dental implants, who’s to say the searcher isn’t looking for breast implants? Look for keywords that communicate not only direct product/service, but also intent.
Sending traffic to your Homepage
I see this mistake a lot when I’m surfing online. The amount of times I’ve clicked on an advert looking for a certain product and ended up on an irrelevant home page. A specific landing page is much more likely to convert – if I’m searching for ‘dental implants’ and I land on a page with implant information, before and afters, unique selling points like 0% finance, a prominent contact form and a map, that is all the information I need to make a decision to contact that practice. If I land on the home page, I would still need to search out the information I need, making that visit much more likely to bounce rather than convert.
No conversion tracking
Probably the worst mistake you can make! No conversion data at any level means that a campaign is essentially flying blind (which is scary since the vast majority of campaigns I’ve taken over are fraught with waste even with campaign tracking).
Conversion data allows users to quickly understand the financial returns from a campaign, ad group, and keyword level. This data affects every aspect of campaign optimization from ad testing to landing page performance to bid adjustments.
Not outsourcing your PPC
Google Ads can certainly be a bit scary. If you set up your campaign incorrectly it can be expensive and you won’t be getting the ROI you could be. However, we can help! If you have any questions about Google Ads, and how they can help your practice attract new patients, please contact us on 01202 677 277.
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