12 Dec 2021

What are the Potential Pitfalls of PPC Marketing?

Pay-Per-Click advertising or PPC is a way of ensuring that your ad, in the form of a clickable link and a brief description, appears at the top of the search rankings. It can be a very effective way of being found by those who use specific search terms.

However, it is not without its disadvantages.

For starters, there is the price. Because there are several people who want their links and description placed at the top, the spots are up for auction. You have to bid successfully to be placed at the top of the search results, and this doesn’t come cheap. It can eat into your advertising budget significantly. There is always the possibility of a competitor trying to run you down by clicking on your ad.

Because you pay only when someone clicks on your ad, what some unscrupulous competitors do is keep clicking on your ads till you run out of money. Your ad spend – you can specify the maximum you are willing to pay – soon reaches its limit, and you don’t have any conversions to justify your spend.

Another obvious disadvantage is the fact that Google and other search engines display the word ‘Ad’ next to your ad. It is easy to figure out that you paid for your ad to be placed above the organic search engine rankings. This can put people off from clicking on your ad, because they trust the search engine to display results that best fit their search query. So this bias can result in people not wanting anything to do with you at all – which is bad news.

PPC Company, PPC Agency, PPC Firms, PPC Consultants, PPC Services, PPC Companies

Negative publicity doesn’t achieve conversions or sales, but only costs you your reputation. And your money.

Done right, PPC can be a great way of being found. It can also achieve its goal of conversions and/or sales, but doing it right is the hard part. It takes time to fine-tune your strategy, until you find the right keyphrases that strike a chord with your target audience. The time you spend on PPC can take much longer than you expected.

It is always recommended that you leave your PPC marketing strategy to the experts. They have the expertise to figure out exactly which keywords you should be bidding on. There is no point bidding on a highly searched for keyword or set of keywords, as this can mean your PPC marketing costs will also be high. It makes sense, however, when yours is a high-value offering. That is, the benefits from a conversion or profit from a sale is enough to justify the spending on PPC marketing.

Of course, you also have to look at the conversion rates. If your conversion rate is 0.2% or only two people out of every thousand visitors become paying customers, then you have to do the math on whether the profit from two sales covers the ad spend on a thousand impressions. For a dealer of exotic supercars, this might make sense; but not so much to a seller of T-shirts whose profit margins are extremely thin and needs volume sales to survive.

This is where the experience of those offering PPC services in Dubai comes in handy. Those in Dubai would know a thing or two – Dubai has 3.33 million residents with considerable spending power. As such, there is a lot of competition from PPC marketers for that top spot – or even the second ad spot – above the organic search engine results.

The T-shirt seller might find it more profitable to bid on long-tail keywords, such as ‘blue cotton t-shirt’ instead of the highly sought after ‘t-shirt’. Those searching for ‘blue cotton t-shirt’ looking for something specific. The search volume for this keyword is low and so ad space is also cheaper. There is greater possibility of a sale happening this way.

A good PPC agency in Dubai would also tell you that a click-through is one thing, a conversion is another. With some clever copywriting, you can get people to click on your ad, but if the landing page isn’t good enough, they are more than likely to leave.

This calls for some technical knowledge, such as UX design that incorporates color theory. Some colors do have an effect on visitors. For example, if you are trying to get a visitor all excited about your product, then red might work in your favor. Orange conveys exuberance and energy, and so is the color to use if you are targeting a younger demographic.

If you trying to get people to part with their personal information, then blue conveys trustworthiness. Ever noticed how the majority of banks use blue in their branding? There is a science behind this. Green is recommended if your product or service has anything to do with nature. Any PPC Abu Dhabi expert would be able to tell you this.

Someone who is adept at the art of PPC management would also be able to tell you how to avoid further potential pitfalls, such as advertising to the wrong demographic. For instance, if you are trying to market a baby product, there is no point in your ad being shown to children or senior citizens. With Google, you can specify the age range of your target audience, and even their parental status. This is how you can save a lot of money and increase the efficacy of your campaign.

It is easy to think you can do everything yourself. Only when you start to do everything yourself do you realize that it will take longer than what you expected it to be. That leaves you with the question of whether it is worthwhile to do everything yourself or leave it somebody who is a master when it comes to PPC management Abu Dhabi. Would your time be better spent doing other things?

Sometimes outsourcing your PPC campaign to someone who has the time to monitor it is what would be best for your business.