Many of you probably know that contextual advertising is filled with dangerous pitfalls. In this article, we’ve compiled the major mistakes for you to not waste your money on.
- Title without a key query
Every keyword found in the ad is to be highlighted in bold, something not to be overlooked. That’s a great way to increase your CTR and… profit! Please avoid any vague wording here. As long as it contains the keyword, a short title will work just fine.
Don’t do: “We offer horizontal drilling services”
Do: “HDD in Moscow”
- No quick links in the ad
What’s bad about missing quick links is that they can take you straight to the important pages of your site. Wisely inserted, quick links are a good way to get the user in touch with your business. Try placing a link to a cost calculator or some killer offer, for example. Another noteworthy feature is the callback request form.
- Same ads for GDN and search engines
As profound as the difference is, many people stubbornly fail to notice it. When it comes to a keyword in a search engine, it’s always typed in by an interested, “warmed-up” user. In GDN, however, everyone is cold as ice and it still takes a certain effort to get attention from them.
Don’t do: Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
Do: Come up with a new campaign and new ads for it
- Incorrect result evaluation
Be sure to set up proper goal tracking for your analytics when it comes to both “technical” criteria setting and the business logic itself. Do you want 1,000 clicks? Great, but what good will that do? This question should always arise first.
Don’t do: “I need more clicks!”
Do: Watch the number of people that proceeded to the order form and clicked the “Buy” button
- No negative keywords added
Our language has a way of giving different meanings to the same word depending on the context. For example, if your target audience is amateur botanists, you want to add the word “plant” to the negative keywords. Otherwise, what you’ll get instead of gardeners is a great deal of heavy industry experts.
Don’t do: Ignore the Negative Keywords tab and deal with untargeted traffic
Do: Compile and regularly update the list of negative keywords
With all that in mind, getting a whole flood of targeted traffic shouldn’t be a problem for you!
