Did you know that PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors? Moreover, PPC could produce results instantly, whereas SEO needs time to cook and simmer. With information like that, who wouldn’t want to run a stellar paid search campaign this holiday season?
If you’re feeling daunted and overwhelmed at the prospect of reconfiguring your PPC campaigns, don’t worry. We’re here to help! We’ll let you in on how to avoid common paid search mistakes this holiday season while showing you how to optimize ads through our time-tested tactics.
Common Holiday PPC Mistakes
Improper Targeting Practices
It’s crucial to avoid improper targeting practices, especially during the holiday season. You should aim to target local shoppers who are searching on mobile devices for quick and last-minute gifts. If you’re currently targeting using a “one-size fits all” approach, you’ll lose some of your target market because they won’t feel like your website is appealing to them.
At the same time, however, you have to differentiate between your target audiences. If an online shopper doesn’t feel included or wanted on your website, it’s likely they’ll click the back button in an instant.
Wasting Ad Spend
You shouldn’t be spending on low margin and low converting products. Instead, focus on the high-performing ones. Odds are that a low converting product isn’t going to miraculously sell out during the holidays, so don’t feel the need to spend additional money on those.
Avoid having a broad budget or wide goals across all of your product campaigns. Instead, you should be spending smarter and spending more where it matters so you can have a successful season.
Website Outages and/or Account Outages
Don’t make any major changes during peak hours! Auto tag new ad copies two to three times per day before the offer officially goes live on your website.
While you shouldn’t be wasting money by spending on low conversion products, you should still be setting a budget for top selling products. We recommend setting up automated rules for budget control before and after peak hours. Just in case, you should have a backup credit card that can handle at least three days ad spend.
If you’re a victim of any of these common PPC mistakes, don’t worry. The NetElixir team has expertly crafted solutions that provide additional advice and insights that’ll surely optimize your PPC ads.
NetElixir Suggested Tactics for Avoiding PPC Mistakes
Mobile
First, you should isolate long tail, end of funnel market searches on mobile. Decrease your default bids to the lowest value possible while deploying aggressive mobile modifiers and mobile-specific ads. Utilize ad customizers to push ongoing promos. These mobile strategies are essential in targeting the rising mobile-user market.
Targeted Ads
Create hyper-targeted campaigns for top-selling SKUs. Revisit dayparting since that market of shoppers tend to be more aggressive during the holidays. While broadcasting your ads, have customized messaging in mind for an engaged audience.
Make sure all holiday specific promotions are included in ad copy, especially if you’re offering any deals on shipping that would catch the eye of last minute shoppers.
Target In-Store Shoppers with Geo-Fencing
Create urgency and convert price-sensitive millennials with a limited time, mobile-specific promo code. You should be targeting convenience shoppers who hate to wait in queues with “buy online pickup in-store” messaging.
Overlay customer match and audience lists to target repeat customers and capture competitors’ in-store shoppers with a hyper-targeted geo campaign. Another smart tactic is pulling customers’ search locations into your ads.
Google AdWords
If you plan to run separate holiday campaigns, make sure you aren’t bidding against yourself by pausing any active keywords that you want to include in your holiday campaigns. If you label any holiday specific campaigns in Google Adwords, it’ll make turning those campaigns off after the holiday season much easier and will ensure you’re not running these campaigns for an unnecessary amount of time after you’re done with them.
Now that you’re armed with awesome PPC strategies and can eye-up pitfalls in a flash, you’re ready to tackle the holiday season. By the end of the holidays, you’ll be a seasoned paid search optimizer with more cash in your pocket! For free resources to help amp your holiday season and help you attain your revenue goals, check out netelixir.com/holidays today!
