5 Red Flags To Look Out For In Your PPC Campaigns

Unfortunately, those of us working within PPC rarely get to put all of our time and energy into just one account. If we do, it’s usually enormous – think: multiple markets, multiple products, multiple languages, and more! So, with so many metrics to consider, the optimization process can quickly become overwhelming. 

In my near-decade experience of PPC marketing, I’ve narrowed this mega-list of things to check down into 5 key red flags to look out for — to keep your accounts in tip-top shape.

A poor CTR

One of the north stars of search marketing, there are not many PPC managers who can get away with having accounts with bad CTR (click-through rate). A high CTR is, according to Google, “a good indication that users find your ads and listings helpful and relevant”. The benchmark for a good CTR used to be 2-3% on Google Ads, but with the recent advancements in algorithms, automated bidding strategies, and RSAs (Responsive Search Ads), this is now closer to 5-6% for most industries.

Therefore, a CTR below this target is a bit of a red flag. As well as being indicative of poor ad group relevance and a lack of helpful content, it’s likely making your account inefficient. As Google goes on to say in their explanation of the metric, “CTR also contributes to your keyword’s expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank.” A weak CTR is a contributing factor to falling short at auction time.

Luckily, there are two fixes for a weak CTR! For data-driven marketers, view your Asset Reports – these offer a breakdown of how effective each headline and description in your ads is. For any marked ‘Poor’ or ‘Average’, swap these out for alternatives.

The second potential fix is to review your ad groups. If you’re managing your accounts properly, your ad groups will have shifted with the addition of new search terms and the omission of negative keywords. Check whether all your keywords in each ad group fit into a single theme, or multiple themes. Multiple themes will make it tricky for the platform to match your ad copy to keywords and the user’s search terms, so split these out back into unique themes to boost your CTR.

Default campaign settings

Whenever I audit or take over the management of an account, this is almost always the first place I check. Your fundamental campaign settings have a direct impact on your performance and results! 

By now, we’re likely all aware of the default location settings that will show your ads to people ‘interested in’ your target locations, rather than those currently within your target location. (It’s always worth double-checking this setting if you’re not sure). But default language settings have a part to play in performance too. 

By default on Google, language targeting matches when “the keywords match and Google believes that the user understands at least one targeted language”. On Microsoft Ads, the language setting “determines the language that you will use when you write your ads and should be the language of your customers”. 

Even if your ads have a global appeal, your ads aren’t legible in all languages. If your intent is to get in front of an international audience, create separate campaigns and distinct ad copy to address each location, with relevant language settings selected to the campaign. This will ensure your ads are legible by the audiences you’re reaching and will help you to create relevant ad copy including local dialects and regional nuance for each target audience.

Google Ads default settings may also mean that each variation of your ads will be shown equally, rather than prioritizing your best-performing ads at auction time. So, a brief double-check of your campaign settings can save you hundreds of hours of wasted time in unnecessary optimizations, and potentially thousands in wasted ad spend.

No exclusions

PPC pros know that exclusions are a must-have for your accounts. Without exclusions, your campaigns might be inefficient, targeting the wrong keywords, spending budget on already-converted customers, on harmful or unsuitable content, or in the wrong place entirely!

And, with pushes to non-keyword-based campaigns such as Performance Max and Demand Gen, combined with the renewed push for all users to use broad match keywords, exclusions have never been more important.

Types of exclusions to consider are:

  • Adding negative keywords to your search campaigns
  • Using brand negatives within your Performance Max campaigns
  • Excluding audiences (such as converted customer data) from campaigns
  • Controlling placements and excluding certain topics for brand safety purposes
  • Location and geographic exclusions.

An easy first step  is to apply negative keywords and look at your audience targeting. Simply excluding irrelevant keywords, adding customer data to your account to include or exclude, and reducing your wide demographic targeting down from 18-65+, is a strong start to getting on top of exclusions on your account.

Weak quality scores

For accounts running search ads, inefficiencies can quickly be created if you’re not monitoring quality scores. Google Ads says that “quality score is a diagnostic tool meant to give you a sense of how well your ad quality compares to other advertisers”. 

Quality scores are available at the keyword level and are scored from 1-10 (from worst to best).  These calculations take place by using the last 90 days of data. While 10 is difficult to achieve for generic keywords, aim for a quality score of around 7 or more to meet best practices.

It’s calculated overall by using three factors that are ranked ‘below average’, ‘average’, or ‘above average’. The factors are ‘Expected CTR’, ‘Ad rank’, and ‘Landing page experience’. Start by optimizing each of these factors by prioritizing those marked  ‘below average’ first. Although this may sound daunting, the overarching goal with these metrics is to create a campaign where the keywords, ad copy, and landing pages are helpful, relevant, and consistent.

No conversion data

Finally, a big, huge, enormous red flag is having no conversion data. If your account has conversion tracking but no conversions, that’s a separate issue! But if your account has no conversion tracking whatsoever, that’s a significant problem.

Not only is conversion tracking critical, it needs to be up to scratch. The conversion tracking of yesteryear may not meet today’s standards and could be contributing to widespread account inefficiencies. Whether you’re running lead gen or e-commerce campaigns, you need to be comprehensively tracking the journey to that end goal. Today, we’re encouraged to do so by add tracking for ‘lighter conversion events’ on the path to conversion, which could include a newsletter sign-up, product page view, or the initiation of the checkout process. 

Without proper conversion tracking in place, you’re limited in your ability to use smart bidding strategies such as Maximise Conversions or Maximise Conversion Value to their fullest potential. Once your conversion tracking is set up, make sure you let the platform know which conversions to measure as default, and as ‘Primary’ conversion actions, as opposed to conversion actions for observation only – ‘Secondary’ conversions. Having all conversions set as ‘Primary’ goals will quickly confuse the algorithm, and you’ll find yourself with campaigns auto-optimized to generate page views rather than successful checkouts! 

Similarly, ‘Enhanced Conversions’ is a must-have for modern conversion tracking. Without it, you’re missing out on valuable data-driven insights and truly accurate conversion tracking.

Summary 

Whether you’re brand new to the world of PPC management or not, you have to keep your finger on the pulse. Frequent platform changes, shifts in algorithm preferences and enhancements to conversion tracking and privacy will keep you on your toes! But by correcting these five red flags – or by turning them green(!) – you’re sure to keep a good handle on the performance of your accounts.

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