The PPC team at Dental Design have just taken their annual Google exams to ensure we are up to date with the latest Google Adwords best practices – having Google qualified staff to run our client’s campaigns ensures that we can offer the best possible service and that we are more likely to get ROI on your accounts.
In this blog I’m putting together a list of the common PPC myths that I have come across and hopefully I’ll clear up some common PPC misconceptions!
1. You don’t need a PPC firm – you can easily manage your account on your own. Well, I can’t speak for other PPC firms, but for the same reason that you can’t ‘set it and forget it’, if you don’t have time to manage your PPC account at least weekly (at a minimum) you should probably hire someone to manage it for you. With all technology, things are constantly changing. Like previously mentioned, keywords can become inactive due to quality score issues, ads can be declined due to editorial issues, etc. Not to mention that if you’re putting money towards your PPC account, you probably want to maximize your traffic and revenue potential. Having someone manage your account and make the best changes and keep up-to-date with new features can really help grow your traffic and revenue.
2. Turn off your account at night, no one is searching or buying then. There are actually several reports that can show you how much traffic you get during all hours of the day or night, as well as click-through rates. Using Analytics, you can also determine your hourly conversion rates. Consider all of the different time zones you’re targeting, and remember that if you do turn your account off before doing the proper research you could be eliminating qualified traffic.
3. Dump as many keywords into your PPC account as possible to get the most traffic. While in theory you may get a ton of traffic from doing a keyword dump, it won’t all be qualified traffic. You really want to only target the most relevant keywords for your PPC account. If you do a dump you’re likely to blow through your budget quickly without generating much return on your investment.
4. Turn on only your best performing ad. Having only one ad text running can be detrimental to growing your PPC account’s performance. Ad text testing is a great strategy to help increase your click-through rates and conversion rates. If you stick with only running one ad, you’ll never be able to truly grow your account.
5. With PPC you can set it and forget it. A lot of small businesses think they can load in their keywords and ads, set a budget and walk away. PPC is not set it and forget it if you want to make the most of the money you’re spending. It takes constant monitoring, testing, bid lowering & increasing, turning off, and turning on in order to get the biggest bang for your buck. It is for this reason that many businesses choose to outsource their accounts to a PPC agency which can dedicate time and expertise to these tasks.
6. You should always run the content network. The content network can be a great source of extra traffic and leads. However you should research content network best practices before just turning on the content network and letting it run, and always make sure you monitor it very carefully. The content network has been known to drive a lot of unqualified traffic at very high costs when left uncontrolled.
7. You should never run on the content network. Again, the content network can be a great source for extra traffic and leads. Always try the content network, tweak settings as necessary, and give it a chance to work for you before you write it off.
8. Quality score is calculated on click-through rates only. Quality score is heavily based on click-through rates, but it is also impacted by landing page quality,among other factors that Google doesn’t want to define too closely
9. Good conversion rates will help improve your Quality Score. No, in fact Google says conversion rates are not calculated into your overall account Quality Score.
10. PPC is mainly click fraud serving your ads to invalid traffic. Actually, Google, Yahoo and Bing are very good at keeping track of fraudulent traffic. The search engines can actually refund your click money if they determine some of your clicks are invalid