Google Adwords – How to waste your money on PPC Advertising

Google Adwords is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to market your business online. Quicker than SEO, it allows you to use a truly commercial message in the search results on Google and it also lets you react quickly to changes such as stock levels and competitor pricing changes and offers. That is not to say Google Adwords shouldn’t be used in conjunction with SEO and other online marketing, just that it is very good. So how do so many companies manage to waste so much money on something that is such an effective way of marketing on the web?

The Three ways most companies waste money on Google Adwords:

1) Using Overly General Keywords. An example of this from the truly exciting photocopier industry is this keyword: Sharp ARM125 set on broad matching. Many marketing executives in my experience would say “We sell Sharp Arm125 photocopiers, so this is exactly the keyword we want to be seen on.” But stop and think about the searches that could bring up this company’s advert. Examples of these would be “toner for a sharp arm125” “how to make copies on an ARM125” and you can see that none of these searches are from people wanting to buy a Sharp ARM125. So you’re probably thinking these people will see the advert and say “Well, I was after toner so I won’t click on the advert.” This will of course cost you nothing right? Wrong. Every time this advert is shown and not clicked on, your CTR (click through rate) goes down and your ads start to cost you more but it doesn’t stop there, which brings me neatly on to point number two.
2) Writing adverts to encourage everyone to click. Getting as many people to click on your advert as possible is not the objective. Getting the right people to click on your advert is. Many companies I have come across have understood that a lower click through rate can increase the cost of your clicks so they have done everything they can to get people to click. No bad thing you might say, well yes and no. By writing an advert that gets everyone to click through you will no doubt have an excellent click through rate but, and it is a big but, you will waste money by having people who will never buy your product clicking on your ad. When writing the advert try and strike a balance between encouraging the right people to click and others not to. It’s not an easy thing to do that’s for sure but you should always try.
3) Bad landing pages. I have saved the worst until last. In my opinion bad landing pages waste more Google Adwords money than anything else. The reasons for this are: firstly bad landing pages reduce your ads quality score making it more expensive to achieve the same position in the Google search results. Secondly bad landing pages stop visitors staying on your site and doing whatever the thing was you wanted them to do.
Basically if you get everything right and the pages your prospect lands on are irrelevant, unpersuasive or poorly designed you have wasted your money, as most prospects will simply go back to the search results.

So in summary use specific key words and make use of the different matching types in Adwords, try and write ads that will attract only realistic prospects and spend time making good landing pages. Thanks for reading this, all comments and questions are appreciated.