We've been elbows deep in paid search projects lately - some that we've setup from scratch, others that we've inherited. Paid search is a great medium for those who love numbers and stats. Being able to track users from first click through conversion and backing out an ROI causes us to geek out a bit. Here are the top five pitfalls we typically see relating to paid search that causes what could be a great campaign to sputter along in mediocrity.
- Poor ad group setup
Dumping keywords into a single ad group and not optimizing ad groups properly can cause quality scores to wane and CPC's to grow. - Too narrow of a keyword list
Throw the net out wide and see how many fish you can pull in the boat. Too many campaigns target too tightly and end up missing some low-hanging fruit. - No A/B testing of ads
No brainer, right? Use a champion/challenger approach and make sure you know what terms and copy are resonating with your audience. - Landing pages lacking clear calls to action
Assume your users are idiots. Place a huge and easy to recognize call to action right in front of them and don't make them work for it. Keep is simple. - Haphazard bidding practices
Blanket bidding across all phrases or overbidding on poor converting phrases can quickly zap a budget.



I'm a little upset this post pushed my story off the homepage. I'll get over it. Good info here.
Posted by: Hendo | September 03, 2009 at 12:46 PM