An example of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns - What not to do
Once in a while I like to go and look at the current adverts running for a marketplace I know well and get a feel for what people are doing well and what they could need help on.
Today I have chosen Packaging as a market area and I will be looking at the commodity product in that market place using the keyword “Packaging Tape”.
If you go to Google and do this search you’ll get a list of all the people currently advertising for the phrase “Packaging tape” and from this list we will pull out a few examples of good and bad practice for PPC.
First of all lets have a look at the adverts themselves, here’s the screen shots of the first three pages: -
Now looking at these first two pages there are a few things that jump out at me. In no particular order: -
Customtape.co.uk have been aggressive and included their telephone number so people may call without even costing them a click. They also have a nice obvious call to action - Call now!
Tapes-Direct.co.uk seem to have some experience - they are in position 3 (A good place to be in my opinion) and they have clearly stated the term again in their advert (Which is shown in bold by google indicating it matched what you searched for)
Satco.co.uk on the other hand are sitting at number 1 however their message of ‘Try us now’ lacks the conviction of the two below it and they chose to use the advertising space to tell people they had to buy 36 rolls. That might be the minimum but why put a barrier up before the user has even been given the reason to buy from you. In my opinion this isnt pre qualifying the lead its just putting people off. Their ad also smacks of a advert created by someone internally and some money has been thrown at it to make it rank, I would suggest that this isn’t going to give them a positive ROI.
discountofficeproducts - not a good advert - where’s my reason to click?
Rajapack - lazy looking advert in my opinion
Packaging2u.co.uk - Again no call to action at all here!
www.ezpack.co.uk - not a bad advert provided your looking for only Tesa brand
www.TrekRemovals.com - They didn’t even try to be relevant - sure people moving house use packaging tape but are they really going to choose your advert based on a search for ‘Packaging Tape’ ?
Well that’s all the ads that made it to or bought their way on page 1
Page 2 doesn’t fair any better…. for a start you’re on page 2 and getting beaten by a removals firm!
www.bsdonline.co.uk - is the only one that looks new on there for me, I think they could get a better result with some tweaks to their bids.
So what are all these people sending us to? Lets have a look at the highly important landing pages
Satco.co.uk - You are sending paid for traffic to this page? !!
No product - no way to buy - wasting your money!!
Customtape.co.uk - Better than Satco but still not making it too easy for me to part with my money or even to give you an enquiry. Its obvious that your looking to upsell me onto a custom printed tape instead so I would have expected that the landing page would try to explain to me why that is a good idea. Tell me its for security, for branding, for vanity - something!
Tapes-direct.co.uk - Getting better, if i was in the market for packaging tape this is a nice page to be sent to. I can see what i need to make a decision and I can buy! - Well done.
Packaging2u.co.uk - not too bad but I feel the bounce rate on the page they are sending us too will be pretty high
After all that what have we learnt from this?
Well I would take the following lessons: -
Make sure you make your ads very tight and relevant - they should include the search term and tell the user what to do.
They should link through to a landing page that is targeted to the search term, is relevant and makes it obvious and easy for the user to convert that interest into actions.
I would also suggest that in Pay Per Click you should make the call to someone who can help manage the whole process for maximum results.
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