When managing a campaign, you usually only find out about a problem after it’s too late. If you’re watching accounts closely you should be able to minimize the damage though. It’s all about having a plan based on what indicator tells you there’s a problem.
For instance, if you suddenly see a dip in traffic, here are some thing to investigate:
• Has something fundamentally changed in the site structure? if landing page URLs have changed and the ads have not been updated, your quality score will take a hit, reducing your ad exposure.
• Check recent keyword changes. Sometimes if someone added the wrong negative keyword, it can suddenly prevent your ads from showing at all.
• Are you making first page bids? Ensure all of your bids are high enough to show up on the first page of search results. There’s a good SEO joke that says “Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? Page 2 of Google.”
• Does your landing page content match your ads? This is a factor in determining quality score, and if that score is too low, the ad might not show.
If your ad spend is too high:
• Review the daily budget. First and foremost, bust out the calculator and make sure the campaign wasn’t already setup to spend more than you intended.
If CPC is too high:
• What kind of bid management do you have set? If you’re using enhanced CPC, your CPC may be getting bumped up over time and you might want to switch over to manual bidding.
• What is the competition like on your keywords? If you’re going after highly competitive keywords, you might have a hard time keeping up with the average CPC.
• Does your landing page content match your ads? Again, if your quality score is low, you may have to pay more per click to have a decent ad position.
If leads aren’t coming in:
• Are you advertising anything out of stock? If someone clicks on an ad for a vacuum cleaner and you don’t have one to sell them, they’re sure not going to buy something else, they’re going to bounce.
• Are sales historically down this time of year? If sales are usually down in January, it may not the fault of PPC. Consider lowering spend until your busy months.
• What is the competition offering? If your competitors are offering lower prices or nicer incentives, you might need to evaluate what you offer to stay in the game.
PPC can be very confusing, so why not let our professionals take over your existing Google Adwords account. Our PPC and car dealer industry experts can dramatically improve your ROI.
Kevin Drongowski
PPC Manager
[email protected]
