While the mistakes we have seen and corrected over the years are too numerous to fit into one document, we’ve managed to narrow the list down to the 7 most prevalent blunders that businesses make when setting up their PPC campaigns.

We highly encourage you to read all of these and then take a good, hard look at your current PPC strategy. If you are guilty of any of the things listed, you’re almost certainly losing money.

1. Bidding on generic keywords

This may seem like an obvious one, but the amount of people who waste money bidding on keywords that are too generic is astounding. People are always tempted by the high traffic numbers, reasoning that they only need to attract a very small percentage of the total to benefit.

In the vast majority of cases, this strategy is doing nothing more than donating your money to Google. While there are a few, limited situations when it does make sense, your money should always go to targeted keywords first.

2. Failing to exclude ‘negative keywords’

Google gives you the ability to exclude searches with words that indicate that the searcher is not actually interested in purchasing your product. Eliminating these negative keywords can make a big difference in your conversion rate, yet many people fail to utilize this useful tool.

A good example of a negative keyword to exclude from your PPC campaigns? ‘Free!’

3. Directing visitors to bad landing pages

Landing pages should include the same message that was in the original ad. You know exactly what message prompted them to click, so you should use that knowledge to your benefit and include it on your landing page. If you have a high bounce rate, chances are good that visitors aren’t finding the landing page very compelling. You need to fix this, otherwise your PPC budget is being wasted.

7 Mistakes That Can Ruin a PPC Campaign