The 7 Deadly Sins of PPC: Gluttony #ppcsins

So you cheated on a test in 5^th grade? Skipped English class in high school? Perhaps you paid your rent late or consumed too many cocktails on a work night? As marketers, we sin all the time, but in another fashion that could waste loads of money and potential ROI…

Come again? I’m referring to the deadly PPC sins you may be committing within your very own PPC account. Last month, my colleague Erin Sagin and I explored the seven most devious PPC sins that one can commit, and how to turn your crimes into good money-making deeds.

 

So, you think you’re an angel? Think again! All this month, we’ll be blogging about the Seven Deadly Sins of PPC. Follow along to see if you’re committing a crime that needs to be addressed before your start paying (literally) for your sins.

Let’s get this guilt fest started with PPC sin #1: GLUTTONY.

PPC Sin #1: Gluttony

Gluttony, otherwise known as overconsumption, is often thought of as inhaling too many nachos and Ben and Jerry pints, or consuming several bottles of wine in a single evening.

 

In the PPC world, gluttony is when your PPC is account is a disorganized and overstuffed mess. How do you know if this is the case? There are several warning signs to consider.

Perhaps your ad groups are jam-packed with keywords or your account has so many campaigns and ad groups that your head begins to spin as you attempt to optimize (like the account below):

 

This a problem for several reasons. For one, the majority of your overpopulated keyword farm isn’t even receiving impressions, but rather cluttering up your account and making it more difficult to optimize. More importantly, when your account is packed with campaigns and ad groups, your budget ends up being stretched too thin, eliminating the chance to focus on the keywords, ad groups, and campaigns that are actually bringing in a profit.

The Solution: Give Your PPC Account a Makeover

Clearly, if you’re committing this overconsumption sin, you need to get into gear and makeover your PPC account before you end up in PPC hell. Consider these three solutions to fix the mess you’ve made.

#1: Restructure Your Account

If you’re unsure why your account is structured the way it is or if you’re taking over the account from an unsuccessful past employee or third party, restructuring is most likely in order. Even if you set the account up yourself originally, it may make sense to structure your account in a more profitable manner. Check out our Ask the Experts video below to get some inspiration of ways to structure your AdWords account to yield more profitable results with your PPC efforts.

#2: Delete the Junk

In a WordStream analysis of an account with 269,765 keywords, we found that only 1.2% of the keywords in that account are getting any impressions at all! That means that 98% of their account is packed with unproductive junk!

If your account looks similar you need to delete the clutter. Sort by impressions and determine which keywords are simply rotting in your account. Your focus should be on optimizing the keywords that are actually doing well and slowly testing out new keyword opportunities, ensuring that if the tests are unsuccessful the keywords are eliminated.

 

#3: Utilize Perry Marshall’s “Peel and Stick” Strategy

If you haven’t heard of Perry Marshall you’ve probably been living under a rock somewhere. Perry is to PPC as Ina Garten is to the Food Network i.e. legendary. Anyhow, Perry coined the term “Peel and Stick” years back as a strategy when one pulls out the lowest performing keywords, typically in terms of lower CTR’s and Quality Scores, and moves them into a separate ad group. Then you would focus on the highest performers to allocate more budget to as well as create move relevant ads and landing pages.

 

About the Author:

Margot is a Content Marketing Specialist at WordStream with a background in PPC, SEM, content and digital marketing. Margot is passionate about writing and is also a regular contributor to Search Engine Journal and Social Media Today. Margot was recently named the 25^th Most Influential PPC Expert in 2015 by PPC Hero. She enjoys running, sleeping on the beach, and eating ice cream during her free time. Follow her on:

Twitter: @ChappyMargot

Google+: +Margot da Cunha

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/margotdacunha

 

Ephemeral Vs. Perpetual Messaging: Thinking Outside The Timeline

If you are following the battle of the short messaging systems, you might think it is a one-dimensional contest between the systems that maintain your chat history for all time – like Twitter and Facebook – and the so-called disappearing messengers – like Snapchat – where messages vanish after being read. Read More

Facebook Fuels Ad Tracking By Nagging App Users To Instantly Log In On Safari

35 million people run into a Facebook email and password login roadblock on iOS each day, and over half of them bounce. That’s why Facebook confirms to me that it’s testing a new tool that lets users log in to Facebook on Safari with one tap, rather than having to type in their credentials — which most don’t. It could ease frustrations for users while boosting… Read More

#Curvy forced Instagram to rethink how it polices hashtags

Curvy girls are no longer banned from Instagram, thanks to new technology implemented by the social media platform.

After the hashtag "curvy" was banned earlier this month from being searched on the site, Instagram is using new, automated systems designed to keep the hashtag "clean" of porn and nudity, a spokesperson told Mashable.

"We’re unblocking it, but we are also unblocking it in ways so the content's going to be able to stay clean on the hashtag," he said.

See also: 8 times Instagram policed women's bodies

The same technology, when needed, was previously implemented on trending hashtags to make sure they were free of nudity, porn, hate speech and other "bad" content, the spokesperson said. Read more...

More about Social Media, Social Good, Activism, Instagram, and Online Activism

Instagram reveals its top cosplayers from Comic-Con

Comic-Con may be receding into the distance like a pleasant geek dream (or nightmare, if you're not the biggest fan of crowds). But there's one question left to ask: Who wore it best?

That's a question Instagram is attempting to answer. The Facebook-owned photo service crunched some numbers for Mashable, and came up with the 12 most popular Instagrams from the massive San Diego event that contained the #cosplay hashtag. (Instagram also removed the obviously branded and staged shots, to keep the focus on regular fans.)

See also: How 'Star Wars' won Comic-Con 2015 — while revealing nearly nothing Read more...

More about Instagram, Social Media, Cosplay, and Comic Con 2015

Integrated Marketing, the Number 65 and Why it is so Significant for Every CMO

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the number 65? Like many of you I'm sure I think of social security, medicare and so on. Or perhaps you thought of an athlete who wore or currently wears that number? In terms of the literal meaning of the number itself, according to one source "the number 65 is a compilation of the vibrations and energies of the number 6 and number 5. Number 6 lends its attributes of stability and grace, acquisition, love of home and family, protection, care and nurturing, reliability and responsibility, integrity and honesty. And number 5 adds its vibrations of major life changes, motivation and progress, learning lessons through experience, free-will and personal freedom, making important life choices."

Now I don't know how much stock I put into all this - feel free to debate it amongst yourselves. However, those "important life choices" most assuredly come into play when we're talking about the number 65 and chief marketing officers of the world - both the B2B as well as the B2C variety.

Let's Start With the B2B CMO Side First.

In an article this past February, McKinsey released some findings of research they had conducted regarding the B2B buyer and their path to purchase. The article's subtitle said it all and should come as no surprise to any B2B CMO: "B2B purchasing decisions increasingly trace complex journeys, challenging the long-standing practices of many sales organizations."

In other words the B2B buyer's path to purchase is an integrated one - just as is the case with a consumer on the B2C side. I'll get into the B2C side a little later.

Include in the article was one particular finding and without further ado, I give you Exhibit A when it comes to Integrated Marketing, the Number 65 and Why it is so Significant for Every CMO.

"Our research shows that, on average, a B2B customer will regularly use six different interaction channels throughout the decision journey, and almost 65 percent will come away from it frustrated by inconsistent experiences."

This finding should be screaming off the page at a B2B CMO/head of marketing. Anytime you see words like "frustrated" and "inconsistent experiences" it's not a good thing - not by a long shot. One reason why as to we see words and phrases like these may very well have to do with the content these B2B customers are receiving.

In a piece on Business 2 Community entitled Effective B2B Marketing Requires an Integrated Approach, the author makes a very notable point when it comes to content. "The effectiveness of your website, social media, email, marketing automation, videos, blog, white papers, webinars, etc. all hinge on having the right kind of content. No matter how powerful any one channel may be, it’s only as good as the content you create for it.

Ok B2C CMOs, It's Your Turn

For Exhibit B, I'm going to cut right to chase here for the B2C CMOs of the world: "65% Of Marketers Are Not Giving Consumers What They Want."

That is the title of an article I wrote for Forbes last year. And while the findings of the research I referenced then may be a year old, it has no bearing whatsoever on this discussion for, if anything, that number (65%) may be even higher today.

Here's an excerpt of that article:

Everyone knows of the infamous acronym that is K.I.S.S. — Keep It Simple, Stupid. Perhaps there are other variations I am not aware of but the meaning and intent and context remain the same: Don’t over complicate things but rather keep it simple.

Remember that while reading the following two excerpts, courtesy of InternetRetailer.com and MultiChannelMerchant.com, respectively:

• “35% of e-commerce executives plan to invest in creating a ‘seamless shopping experience’ across stores, web and mobile…”
• “Study Shows Consumers Want Seamless Shopping Experience. The study found that 89% of consumers said it was important for retailers to let them shop for products in the way that is convenient for them, no matter which sales channel they choose.”

***

You'll notice I threw in another number, 89%. Obviously I did that for a reason to show the juxtaposition between what marketing leaders are doing/planning on doing vs. what consumers, AKA their customers, want.

Why?

To me the obvious question is Why?

Why would a CMO, be they of the B2B or B2C variety not provide the person on the other end of that line, what they want, when they want it on the channel(s) they want it?

Could it be these same CMOs are not using the right technology or marketing platforms? Could it be these same CMOs are not even aware that such technologies and platforms even exist?

Well as luck and fate would have it, earlier this year, we partnered with The CMO Club on The CMO Solution Guide to Leveraging New Technology and Marketing Platforms. If you are a CMO and either or both of the above scenarios apply to you - you will want to download this Guide today.

The guide contains results of a survey of over 100 marketing leaders plus the five key solutions we identified to help CMOs and marketing leaders tackle the challenge of providing a seamless customer experience across all marketing channels via the use of technology - the right technology that is.

Stop Trying To Make Sense Out Of The Reddit Saga

Why does reddit exist? How does reddit exist? Who are all of these people who participate? Who knows? They’re anonymous. How does something like reddit attract $50 million in funding? I have no idea, and a lot of the people I’ve been speaking to in tech circles over the past week don’t know, either. Read More