For those who think they can just set up their PPC campaigns and let the search engine do the rest, I have a story for you. Once upon a time, there was a Google AdWords campaign with a seemingly harmless keyword – cryolator. If you’re in industrial manufacturing, you likely know that this word is just a synonym for liquid chiller. If you’re anybody else, you either have no idea what the word means, or you’ve played Fallout 4.
In 2015, the video game was released with a legendary weapon known as – you guessed it – the Cryolator. So, if you were managing a campaign for someone who sells liquid chillers (like we were), you better have been on top of your account. For us, it was a quick and easy fix with only a few dollars spent because we caught it right away. Alternatively, if you were just letting the campaign run itself, all your budget would have gone to giddy gamers with no interest in buying your product.
It sounds like a unique example, but this kind of thing happens ALL the time. And it costs companies a lot of wasted money! Not convinced? Here are five other reasons it’s non-negotiable to have someone actively managing your PPC campaigns.
1. False Clicks
This first reason is like the above example, only less extreme, where people are basically searching for something other than your product, but for whatever reason your product is coming up in their search. For example, a search for “careers in cnc machining” shows ads for companies who offer precision machining services. Unfortunately, Google may not know the difference between users trying to buy your product and those searching for something similar to your company’s offerings (like jobs in your industry). Having someone actively creating negative keywords based on irrelevant searches is the only way to protect yourself against this.
2. Tapped Text
Regularly changing your ads’ copy ensures that your getting the biggest return on your investment. Good PPC managers know that testing ads against each other and tracking their progress is essential to finding out what’s working for your customers. Not to mention, what’s working now, might not work in a few months. Just like sales and seasons change, how your customers want to be marketed to is likely to change.
3. Budget Eaters
Popular keywords can easily take over a campaign if they’re not controlled. Whether they’re regularly searched for, or they have a high cost per click, these budget eaters can damage the overall effectiveness of a campaign. For instance, we have one client who sells wire rope that was getting a ton of traffic on their “wire rope tools” keywords, even though this is only a very small part of their business. So, we had to halt those keywords to bring the focus to their cable assemblies, which generate the most profit for the company. It’s essential to have someone tracking what percentage of the budget each keyword is using, to make sure this matches up with your revenue goals in each respective area of your business.
4. Bid Battles
There will always be new players entering the industry and messing with your perfectly adjusted bids. Thus, leaving an account unattended for too long is bound to leave your ad sitting off the coveted top page positioning, and out of customers’ view. For this reason, PPC managers are accustomed to regularly monitoring keyword positioning and altering bids to keep the optimal ad placement. Bid battles can be frustrating, especially with the growing competition in search marketing, but they are a necessary feat if you want to win the war of increased revenue
5. Progress
Last, but probably most important, is progress. Let’s say that you’re a rare case and nothings ever changing in your industry, you have excellent text copy, you’ve entered in all the negative keywords possible, and your keywords are well-balanced in their usage of the budget. First off, kudos! That’s an impressive (and pretty much impossible) accomplishment. Secondly, you STILL need someone to actively manage your PPC account.
Why? Because if you don’t do anything to your PPC, then you’re not going to get anything new back. Sure, you might keep getting the same return, but your progress will be halted. You’ll be forced to sit and watch as your advancing competitors are optimizing their PPC, and discovering new avenues to bring in loads of fresh business, and barrels of money.
At this point, I’m hoping those of you who haven’t checked your PPC accounts in a few months have AdWords open in a new tab. I imagine frantic faces, trying to determine if your campaign is eating up budget without results. If you can’t commit to managing it regularly, maybe you should consider getting someone to handle it for you.
PPC campaigns are truly one of the easiest, and most cost-effective ways to grow a business. In fact, we’ve helped clients expand from just three employees to over two hundred employees with paid placement. However, it’s not something you can just opt into and then watch the revenue roll in. If you’re going to invest in a PPC campaign, active management is essential. No, it’s non-negotiable.
To close the story, those who utilized active PPC management lived happily ever after.