Have you been investing in PPC repeatedly, yet achieving minimal results? Well, you're not alone.
And this situation is pretty common.
What if we said your PPC campaign can be affected by external factors? Hidden obstacles could be blocking your profit. Even a flawless campaign can take a nosedive.
But it's not your fault. The key themes aren't obvious to the untrained eye. Read below to discover what could be restricting your Google PPC campaign profits.
How Do You Know If It's Not Working?
We live by data at CreateTheWeb. We love it. In fact, we always go by data.
Our top tip is to analyse your PPC data. Dig deep into key metrics. You will be surprised by the marketing gold dust you may find.
So, sit back, grab a drink, and pull up your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Ads data.
But what key metrics are you looking for?
High Bounce Rate
Firstly, what's a bounce rate? According to Backlinko, a bounce rate is "a metric that measures how engaged visitors are with a web page."
Bounce rates are presented as percentages. Someone who bounces from your website has likely followed this pattern:
- Saw your ad
- Clicked on your website link
- Had a poor experience
- Clicked off the ad
- Continued with their day
The percentage you see is the number of people who clicked on your website and immediately clicked back off.
QuickSprout claims the average bounce rate is 70-90%. You must always attempt to reduce this by troubleshooting the issues we mention soon.
Low Conversion Rate
A low conversion rate is exactly what it says; people are arriving at the point of purchase, and for whatever reason, they aren't ready to buy.
In this case, we mean the conversion rate of your ad, or again, your landing page.
According to WordStream, the average conversion rate sits at around 2-5%. That means around 2-5% of those viewing your ad are taking action.
The exciting news? There's a lot of growth potential to push that percentage higher.
High Costs
Your final enemy lurking in the shadows is a high cost per action (CPA) or low return on ad spend (ROAS).
Scaleo defines CPA as "the cost incurred to acquire a single customer or conversion," and ROAS as "revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising."
Ideally, you track both metrics frequently to understand your return on investment (ROI).
CreateTheWeb calculation tip:
- CPA: campaign cost ÷ purchases
- ROAS: ad revenue ÷ ad spend
Simple.
Now you have the possible issues that could be flunking your Google PPC campaign, let's dig into why these factors are affecting customer purchase decisions.
What's Killing Your Google PPC Campaign?
While there can be many issues behind a Google ad's poor performance, we have all the answers. After all, you deserve a stellar PPC campaign that generates revenue.
Confusing Copy
Unfortunately, for those who neglect writing or actively avoid it, poor copy directly reduces your conversion rates.
What's poor copy?
- Jargon heavy
- Failed attempts at humour
- Forced puns
- Unclear phrasing
- A vague call-to-action (CTA)
We've seen them all. Most websites make these mistakes. A well-written ad can make all the difference.
Essentially, anything that makes a customer stop and think rather than take action can considerably reduce the conversion of your PPC campaign.
Bad Website
Despite what your mother said, humans DO judge a book by its cover. According to WebFX, 75% of website users judge your credibility based on your web design.
Often, poor design increases loading times. Reffine claim that when a loading time rises by three seconds, the bounce rate is multiplied by four.
And that's a recipe for a Google ad disaster.
How do you avoid this? Optimising images and code is the best place to start, or check your hosting plan.
Worried this may be the case for you? Check PageSpeed Insights.
Poor Landing Page
Generic, crowded landing pages can seriously kill your Google PPC campaign.
Think about it: this is where customers likely land when they're ready to purchase. If you confuse them, will they really convert?
No. Parting with money is something nobody wants to do, so you had better make it dead simple when trying to convince somebody to do so.
Avoid this by aligning your ad message with the content on the landing page you point them towards. As a bonus, Google rewards these specific landing pages in search.
Keep these pages clear and easy to navigate.
Finally, use this checklist when you look at your landing page:
- Does your headline match or relate to your ad?
- Is the message clear?
- Are you making the purchase easy for them?
- Is the CTA clear and visible?
- Do you have trust signals like social proof in plain sight?
Hidden Pricing
Ever grabbed your card to make a purchase, excited, and then the hidden fees roll in? Delivery. VAT. Service. Fulfilment. You name it, they'll slap it on.
Transparency always wins. Customers are apprehensive.
Our founders, Otis and Luke, have prior experience running an e-commerce store. When they removed hidden fees, or included them in the initial product price, conversion rates increased significantly.
Remove hidden fees at checkout, and you might just solve one of your conversion problems.
Bonus: A/B test various pricing transparency methods to decide which one to roll with.
Competitors With Higher Budgets
Sadly, competitors may have a larger budget.
If you're still stuck in a rut after making the above changes, PPC may not be the correct marketing channel, but that's only if you're certain competitors will relentlessly outbid you.
While this rarely occurs, competitors that spend heavily on paid advertising may leave themselves with smaller budgets for organic marketing. That leaves you an opportunity to take advantage of SEO and content when others neglect them.
Together, these external factors could cause your Google PPC campaign to fail and throw your money down the drain.
But what about the internal mistakes, the overlooked issues within your ad?
Technical and Strategy Issues
What mistakes do companies often make with their PPC campaign, even when everything seems correctly set up?
Conversion Tracking
How can you expect to succeed without tracking your conversions? Without tracking them effectively, you're stabbing in the dark. By analysing accurate data, you can make educated changes to your campaign. When did you last track your conversions?
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords are your friend. Without them, irrelevant traffic reaches your ad, which wastes the customer's time (they bounce) and your money. Review your search terms weekly and add negatives for anything irrelevant to your ad, like "free" or "jobs", to improve your click-through rate.
Poor Budget Allocation
If you spread your budget across many different ad types or groups, you're removing potential from your top-performing ad. Instead, focus on investing more in high-converting areas. Analyse which ad groups bring you the customers you want, and move your budget to invest in those wins.
Neglecting A/B Testing
How do you know which ad will perform better without testing? A/B testing is a cheat code, because it lets you split two ads across different audiences to test performance. Afterwards, you know which ad to roll with, and you can test again to improve it. Test headlines. Then test CTAs. Then play with the ad length. This way, you craft a high-performing ad that generates more revenue.
Quality Score and Algorithm Updates
Your Quality Score determines how much you pay and whether your ad appears for customers to see. Here's how it is calculated:
- Expected CTR: Google's prediction based on past data
- Ad relevance: does your ad match the searcher's queries?
- Landing page experience: how useful and relevant is the landing page for your ad?
Google Ads Help keeps a quality score tool. Check the list and improve your campaign's weak points. Find something below average? Start planning an A/B test to improve the content.
Common Problems
Here are the common problems we come across at CreateTheWeb, and our top tips to fix them.
High bounce rate and low session duration. Likely a user experience (UX) or landing page issue. Use heatmaps and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to analyse your traffic's behaviour.
- Spot the page with the issue
- A/B test headlines
- A/B test CTA buttons
- Replace trust badges
Clicks but no conversions. This could be unclear prices or an issue with your conversion forms.
- Survey after-click users
- Try variations with prices
- Analyse your form
Random performance drop. Check auction insights, competitors, and account for the season.
- What changed ahead of the performance drop?
- Has your cost per click (CPC) increased?
Your Action Plan Checklist
Check out our action plan checklist below. Check each, test, and track changes:
- Is your bounce rate under 70-90%?
- Is conversion tracking properly set up?
- Do the dedicated landing pages match the ad clearly?
- Fast loading speeds under three seconds?
- Clear pricing and no hidden fees?
- An updated negative keyword list?
- A/B testing weekly?
- Ad extensions in place?
- Have you checked the latest algorithm updates?
- Is your sales funnel built around this?
By following our 10-step list, you can be sure to improve the performance of your Google PPC campaign.
Sweet Success Stories
Pinpoint Foot Measurement needed help. Like many businesses, they wanted an effective campaign to increase revenue, but they didn't know where to start.
We started by understanding the purpose of the campaign and the target demographic. Once we implemented our research and began the campaign, the results were remarkable.
"An excellent PPC service! We have been using CreateTheWeb to drive our online campaign and engage the public with a revolutionary new method for measuring children's feet. We realised early on that we simply did not have the necessary expertise to manage online marketing by ourselves. Luckily, Otis, Luke and the team have been fantastic, guiding us through the world of impressions and click-throughs, homing in quickly on our key market demographic to deliver growth. An excellent service. I would recommend them!"
Similarly, the owner of Little Helium Heads wanted to kickstart a stellar Google PPC campaign to generate the revenue they deserved.
We sat down to understand the purpose of the campaign and the target audience. Again, the results were highly successful. Here is what they had to say:
"Spot on. Wow, super impressed with the service Otis and Luke have provided my business. They are amazing at what they do and I would never go elsewhere for my marketing and advertising needs. You are in safe hands with them and they go above and beyond for you. Thanks again gentlemen."
Stop Wasting Money on Ads That Don't Convert!
Worried you're throwing money down the drain on ads that don't make any money? It's time for change. Let's fix this before you spend another penny on useless clicks and ghosted ads.
CreateTheWeb is a results-driven agency with over a decade of experience helping businesses create ads that convert.
Let us transform your Google PPC campaign into a profitable one. Get a FREE quote today, and make PPC the winning channel of your marketing.
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