If you are new to the AdWords platform, you might not fully appreciate what a difference the right management can make to driving the right traffic and increasing conversion rates through your PPC. Every eCommerce website is different, so experiment and optimise until you find your winning formula, then start pushing the boundaries. Knowing what not to do in AdWords is just as important as knowing what you should be doing. Here are a number of common mistakes that people can often fall victim to, so you can check you’re not making any easy errors.

Ads directed to your homepage

Directing customers to your homepage is bad practice; it’s invariably more lucrative to point them in the direction of a relevant page based on their search.


If a customer lands on your homepage, they’re far less likely to spend time navigating your site than if they are taken directly to a page that contains what they were searching for originally.
For example, if the customer searches ‘little black dress’, you want your ad to direct them to a page on your site with little black dresses.

Failing to use negative keywords

Using negative words provides a barrier against your ads appearing in irrelevant searches.
For example, if you sell business internet, you should choose to exclude searches featuring words such as ‘banking’, as you could inadvertently spend a significant amount of money on potentially expensive clicks which will not convert.

Using the wrong match types

We don’t often recommend using broad match keywords; these can use up your campaign’s budget and run the highest risk of your ads showing for irrelevant searches.


Using appropriate keyword match types is critically important to avoid featuring in the wrong searches and thus potentially wasting AdWords budget.


Make the most of phrase, exact and broad match modifier keywords, these may lead to fewer impressions, but your ads are likely to show up for more relevant searches. 

No experimentation

It is illogical to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Experiment with headlines, use various words and phrases, and highlight different USPs in each ad. Something as small as using the phrase ‘Free P+P’ instead of ‘Free Delivery’ could earn you more conversions. Make sure you use at least two ads per ad group, this way over time you’ll discover which one performs the best. You should then remove the worst and add a new variant into the mix. This process should be repeated as part of an ongoing process allowing you to continually refine and improve.

Lack of campaign maintenance

AdWords campaigns should be treated like a work in progress. Constant monitoring and tweaking is the best way to ensure your campaigns are as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Use AdWords data to adjust bids and budgets, and make changes to your keywords and ad text. It is bad practice to create a campaign and leave it to run itself. Invariably doing so will result in poor performance and decreases in efficiency.

Eliminating these five cardinal sins from your campaigns will hugely increase your chances of AdWords success.

 

by Oliver Lees, Digital Marketing Manager at eCommerce agency, Space 48

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