PPC Management: How Even The Big Names Can Miss A Trick!

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Google Adwords is a marketing tool that allows many small companies and brands to have a share of a previously unattainable online market. Pay Per Click Advertising allows companies to put a niche product in front of their captive audience who are ready to buy. A limitless Adwords budget may help many of the big companies to have a consistent presence within the PPC platform but this is not as important to Adwords success as having a clear PPC Management strategy in place. Understanding Google Adwords, all of it’s nuances and how the variables of Adwords work is very much a skill of its own.
This post intends to look at several big name companies using Adwords who could potentially improve their Adwords strategy. The PPC accounts in question may be extremely profitable and there may be a reason as to why the companies in question are not taking advantage of certain features within Adwords. This is only our humble opinion! We will explain what what we like about the advertisements and where we feel an improvement could be made to fully maximise the success of the ad.

Case 1:

Advertiser: Tesco

Search Term that triggered the Ad: Buy Mens Jumper

What We Like:

• Summer Clubcard offer.  Extra incentive to regular customer shoppers. A very big number of the UK population.

What We Don’t Like:

• Tesco’s are not utilising any Ad Extensions, in particular Sitelinks. Sitelinks, in summary, can increase the size of your Ad by up to a quarter, increasing the size over and above your competitors Ads, pushing their Ad further down the page. Sitelinks can be used for specific pages to your site to improve relevance and cost no more than a click on any other part of your Ad. When Google give you an opportunity to showcase your Ads, over and above your competitors, take it! – before Sitelinks become common knowledge.
• No visibly Display URL. Display URL’s can give a searcher an insight into what would be on the next page if they clicked an Ad. This could include your USP or offer and a highly relevant URL can increase your CTR. The Display URL is an easily overlooked area of many Ads.
• URL poor structure. Tesco’s URL struture often reads as “Clothing Attes Co“. Is it just me who becomes confused when reading the Tesco URL?
• There is no call to action, failing to move the searcher to a desired outcome.

Case 2:

Advertiser: Boden

Search Term that triggered the Ad: Kids Clothing

What We Like:

• “20% offer for a limited time” – Everybody likes a sale.

What we don’t like:

• “kids clothing”  is at the early stage of the buying cycle and doesn’t have as much buying intent as “boys coats” (below) as this is a direct action. Due to this general approach the advert’s Click Through Rate (CTR) may be low, quality score low also and first page bid estimates high. Boden are not showing their adverts for a term further down the buying cycle, and Gap and River Island do not show for “kids clothing”. Both Gap and River Island understand that “kids clothing” does not have as much buyer intent as “boys coats” and not as far down the buying cycle, therefore closer to the conversion.

That being said, Gap also have no sitelinks and no visible destination URL. (slap of wrists!)

 

 Case 3:

Advertiser: Charles Tyrwhitt

Search Term that triggered the Ad: Buy New England Shirt

What We Like: 

• Everything about this advert, if it were targeted in the right place!

What we don’t like:

• Although Charles Tyrwhitt sell Mens Formal Clothing this particular advert shows for “buy new england shirt”. This search has a sport replica intent and Charles Tyrwhitt ( CT) advert should not show as this is a totally unrelated product CT do not sell. Nike and JD Sport are also bidding on this term which gives us insight into the search Intent and relevance. The reason CT are continuously being entered into the Adwords auction for this term is because they have not added “England” as a negative keyword. On first appearance this may not seem like an obvious negative keyword for CT, such as “womens” or “kids”, however, “England Shirt” is searched for 201,000 a month in the UK, on broad match, so if CT were to continue to bid on this term, this would be a serious waste of budget. Negative Keyword and The Search Query Report is the detailed subject of a future post from SEO Traffic Lab in the not too distant future. Also, as the search is completely unrelated to Charles Tyrwhitt Advert the CTR will be low and negatively effect Quality Score.

 
Again, In no way are we saying that these Adverts and Campaigns are unprofitable or unsuccessful.  Simply, there are improvements that could potentially be made. The purpose of this PPC Marketing blog was to show you bigger names in the market can still make mistakes within their Adwords Strategy and how smaller business can take advantage.  Adwords is an ever-evolving marketing tool and even household names within the Adword’s arena need to understand how this sophisticated, yet ultra-rewarding tool, actually works.
If you want to know anymore about Quality Score, Sitelinks, Negative Keywords, Enhanced Campaigns or anything Google Adwords-in-between please leave your questions below and we will look to answer your questions directly.
If you would like to find out how a Google Adwords Qualified Individual can maximise the results on your Adwords Account IMMEDIATELY now is the time to get in touch and discuss your strategy moving forward.