With the right PPC Marketing agency, a PPC Challenge is a piece of cake! A pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can be an invaluable tool for every brand. It provides an opportunity to jumpstart your marketing efforts, lifting you straight to the top of the Google search results. 

But PPC can be difficult to master which is why a PPC Marketing agency is helpful. It takes time and repetition to gain experience, hone your skills, and fully understand its capabilities. By preparing for some of the more common PPC challenges ahead of time, you can fast-track the learning process and prevent costly mistakes. 

Here’s what you need to plan for.

#1 A Lack of Analytics Visibility and Poor Conversion Settings

There’s no universal playbook for the perfect PPC campaign since every company and its clientele base will have unique qualities. What works for one brand may not for another. 

Mastering PPC requires trial and error. 

To continuously fine-tune your strategy, you’ll need to lean heavily on your analytics. But that’s impossible if you lack visibility or improperly set up your campaign KPIs, specifically in relation to conversions. 

Fortunately, Google makes it easy to import your desired Google Analytics conversions into Google Ads tracking to accurately analyze customer activity. 

Once they have been imported, double-check these metrics to ensure that they’re goals you actually want to optimize for within your PPC campaign, especially if you intend to leverage automated bidding. 

Setting clear parameters and then regularly reviewing your numbers will help you refine your campaign results over time. 

#2 Low Impression Share (IS)

IS measures the total number of impressions your ad receives compared to the total number of impressions it could receive. Various factors go into the eligible impressions equation, ranging from targeting settings, ad quality, bid budget, and approval status. 

What the impression share metric tells you is whether your ads could feasibly reach more people if you made changes to your budget, bid ceiling, or to the ad itself. 

How can you fix a low impression share? 

Typically, there are four primary adjustments you could make: 

  • Increase your campaign budget to improve the percentage of total impressions 
  • Raise your bid to improve the chances that the ad is considered in an ad auction
  • Improve your ad quality by shifting keywords and optimizing the landing page
  • Restrict regional targets, though this may lower the potential number of impressions 

#3 Unaligned Keyword Intent 

Many brands make the mistake of attempting to rank for keywords that don’t align with the product or service they offer. That often results in a mismatch between what users are searching for and what the ad displays. 

Remember, Google decides what ads to show a specific user according to behavioral factors like search history, trends, and intent indicators. If you want to ensure that there’s alignment between keywords and user intent, take the following actions: 

  • Perform a keyword audit, removing any keywords that don’t match intent
  • Run split-test messaging variations to see which keywords resonate more 
  • Integrate keywords that match a user’s state of mind, such as: 
    • Buy
    • Sale
    • Purchase 
    • Review 
  • Use long-tail keywords, which receive fewer total searches but have higher intent 

#4 Increased Ad Spend 

A PPC ad campaign can be expensive, especially if you don’t keep a tight rein on it. Many brands make the mistake of setting and forgetting, which can result in an ineffective campaign that garners plenty of impressions but only a few conversions.  

If you’re paying more and receiving fewer results, something needs to change. As the witticism goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” 

Put simply, passive bid and campaign management is not the answer to the challenge of a blooming budget. Even if you want to utilize a sophisticated automated program, a PPC campaign will still require a hands-on approach. 

You must constantly monitor and tweak the campaign to ensure that you’re generating the best ROI possible. 

Semgeeks—The PPC Marketing Agency

On the surface, PPC campaigns may seem relatively straightforward. You bid on keywords and the user clicks on them. 

But because there’s so much competition and every single click can cost you, mastering PPC can be difficult, even for established brands. There are numerous challenges you must prepare for, whether it’s maintaining visibility over your KPIs, finding the right keywords, optimizing impression share, or managing your PPC budget. 

Fortunately, you don’t have to handle PPC on your own. As a PPC marketing agency, Semgeeks knows how to design and deploy a winning PPC campaign—one that proactively addresses many of the common challenges discussed today. 

We’ve done the research and know exactly how to get your campaign in front of your target audience the moment they begin their hunt. By leveraging keyword planning, campaign forecasting, and powerful analytics, we can help you craft a lucrative and effective ad campaign. 

Want to learn more? Let’s chat. 

Sources: 

Google Ads Help. Import Google Analytics conversions into Google Ads. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2375435?hl=en

Google Ads. Improve your impression share. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7103386?hl=en

Pete Schauer
Marketing Director

Pete Schauer is the Marketing Director with an MBA in Communications from William Paterson University. Leading client development and implementation of Brand strategy, he diligently works to ensure the delivery of a fully integrated and multi-solution approach. Schauer is married and has two dogs. In his free time, you can find him outdoors, scouting a new brewery, or playing trivia.