7 ½ Myths about PPC

Posted by on Dec 6, 2011 in PPC, Search Marketing Blog | 2 comments

7 ½ Myths about PPC. Because there are just too many complete lists in the world.

1. Big Pockets only, during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

  1. If you’re selling TVs or Laptops, yes, you have an insane amount of competition and should Not do major holidays. *Only play with the big guys if your site has the right offers and value-adds to your visitors. I would also stick to long-tail keywords that have been proven winners for you in the past.
  2. BUT if you are specialized in B2C or practically any B2B, don’t worry about big retailer competition. You should be able to run smoothly with your normal budget. Target and Amazon won’t be bidding on cold air condensers or 3M label glue.

2. Just press play, it takes less than an hour to start PPC

  1. It takes hours of research, years of experience, and hours of implementation to do it right. Those who say otherwise, Self-made Guru or Agency, are probably not doing a great job – and you should look elsewhere for PPC services.
  2. True Pay Per Click / Search Engine Marketing professionals specialize in one main skill. If they are also a designer, UXer, programmer, and delivery driver – it’s very rare that they would be great at PPC.

3. Cha-ching. Instant sales!

  1. Google AdWords defaults to a 30 day cookie for a reason. They understand that sales don’t happen instantly, and often times not on the first visit.
  2. If you as a business owner think that PPC is a magic bullet to your bottom line, I have some snake oil to sell you. It takes time to figure out the best use of PPC for each business. And if you don’t have a few months to invest and fine-tune, then you should wait until you can afford it. PPC is an investment, treat it as one and give it time to grow, but also have an exit plan to cut losses if it goes poorly.

4. I run the business, so I can run PPC! And my nephew can when I’m on vacation.

  1. *See #2 above.
  2. Let a pro handle it. But work with the PPC professional, for goodness sake. Work as a team. You are THE expert in your business. You know the keywords regular customers use. You know the hot products or products with the biggest profit margin. Share that insight with your Agency, Consultant or In-house PPC expert. Just don’t micromanage the keywords too much.

5. Set it and forget it.

  1. Active management, active profit. That is my PPC credo.
  2. If you set-up your account and don’t change a thing, a few things will happen. You will either slowly begin to slip in the rankings and fall off of Google’s 1st page, or you will pay too much per bid and waste money. You will also grow into a terrible PPC manager.
  3. It’s not only about managing bids. Ad copy needs refreshed and tested, budgets need updating, settings need tweaked, and keywords need updated and expanded – to name a few things.

6. You’re not allowed to bid on competitors or trademarks.

  1. Short answer: You CAN bid on brand names and some trademarks.
  2. I don’t condone it, but you can. If another company is bidding on your name, why not retaliate until they receive your cease and desist letter? Or if you legitimately sell a brand name product, you will obviously want to bid on the brand. It can get messy when big brands are involved, but it’s possible.
  3. *Bid away – but not in the ad copy. Brands and trademarks can often times be bid on, but they can’t be used in your ad copy. You’ll be stopped before you even start.

7. Google is just a call away for help.

  1. 866-2-Google
  2. That’s the number. Call it, see how much they can do for you. Google will be helpful for some things, but you get what you pay for with the phone number above. It’s FREE.
  3. In order to get some attention and some more valuable help, spend somewhere close to $100k per month for a few months. They’ll call you this time. Spend more than $1 million per month and you can have a Google rep help you with strategy, create reports, make bid and copy changes, and even do some big account restructuring. Plus you can get into some cool Alpha and Beta AdWords programs. Work for a big retailer and maybe they’ll even take you out to dinner ;)

7 1/2.  Online ROAS is King.

  1. It’s nice, but up to 6x the sales can occur offline if you have a physical location. And don’t forget cookies for retargeting, and customer acquisition for remarketing. If you break even to gain a customer, you have already made money in the long run.