1. WordStream & Hanapin
Marketing (PPC Hero) Present:
Good Intentions Gone Wrong:
7 Worst Practices in PPC
Larry Kim, Founder & CTO, WordStream
Sean Quadlin, Account Manager, Hanapin Marketing
Sept 13, 2012

2. Today‟s Agenda
• Even the best of best practices can have unintended
side effects!
• Top 7 best practices gone wrong and common
mistakes to avoid
• Questions & Answers
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3. Speaker Introductions
• Sean Quadlin
– Account Manager at Hanapin Marketing and
Writer for PPC Hero
– Manages clients ranging up to $130,000 in
PPC spend/mo.
– Focuses primarily on lead generation
– PPCHero.com is the leading site for PPC
Strategies, News and Information
• Larry Kim
– Founder, CTO, WordStream, Inc.
– Been doing PPC & SEO for 10 Years!
– 5 Years ago, started WordStream
– We‟re the provider of the 20 Minute PPC
Work Week and the AdWords Grader
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4. Take Part in Live Blogging on Twitter / Google+
• Include the hashtag #ppcblunders in your Twitter
tweets, Google+ status updates, etc.
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5. Live-Poll Question 1
Question: How would you describe your Search Marketing
results? #ppcblunders
a) I‟m new to Search Marketing
b) Who knows – I don‟t measure my results
c) Disappointing – I expected so much more from PPC
d) Satisfactory – I‟m seeing return on my investment into PPC
e) Stellar – PPC is my most successful lead/traffic generating
channel
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6. Live-Poll Question 2
How long have you been involved with Search Marketing?
#ppcblunders
a) Less than 1 Year
b) 1-3 Years
c) 3-5 Years
d) 5+ Years
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7. Live-Poll Question 2
Good Intentions Gone Wrong:
How long have you been involved with Search Marketing?
7 Worst Practices in PPC
#ppcmetrics
a) Less than 1 Year
b) 1-3 Years
c) 3-5 Years
d) 5+ Years
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8. 1) Always Be Expanding (Your Keyword List)
You want every impression possible
-Regularly scheduled expansion
-Browse the opportunities tab
-Add in keywords your competitors are bidding on
Over time your ad groups got out of control
-What’s your average number of keywords per ad group?
-Your quality scores are dying slow deaths
E
Expanding 8

9. Perform Regular Keyword Research
Look for keywords, not expansion
• Regularly schedule research
• Just because you did research doesn’t mean you
have to use it
• Any new keywords you add deserve their own ad
groups Quality Scores!?
– Won’t anyone think of the quality scores?!
Two main ways to accomplish this:
• Keyword tools. Use them wisely.
• A calendar. Cycle back and remove
stuff that never catches on.
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10. 2) Overreliance on Industry Expertise in Keyword Research
In conducting keyword research, we can sometimes overly
rely on industry terms specific to our business.
For example, here at WordStream, we sell PPC Management
Software, so we bid on various industry terms such as:
• PPC
• AdWords
• Pay Per Click (etc.)
• SEM
• Search Engine Marketing
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11. Many Small Businesses don‟t use the industry-standard
PPC terminology!
For example:
• keyword ads
• click marketing
• search ads
• Etc.
How to discover the keywords you haven‟t thought of already?
• Mining Search Query Data
• Surveys
• Intelligent Keyword Expansion Tools (such as WordStream)
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13. 3) Wait for the Data to Tell the Story
So much of PPC is about testing and finding the right thing
• Whether that’s bids, benefits, calls to action, landing
pages, whatever
Performance is relative
• Even when testing has a possible result, there are
confounding factors
• Other tests, site changes, seasonality, whatever (again)
PPC People are Smart
• They like to quibble over stuff
• Any confounding factors that you missed will surely
be pointed out by your peers/co-workers
It can be PARALYZING.
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14. Be Confident in Your Testing and Move On
There are tools available to help
• http://www.splittester.com/
Find a sample size that works for you
• Move too soon, you’ll get a bogus result
• Wait too long and your tests will never end
You know your account. Put that knowledge to use.
• You can’t have a 100% confidence level after every test
• If you waited long enough for the data to accrue, your variables
would really change
• You need to have forward movement in your account, so sacrifice
certainty for progress
• Aggregate Your Data Where Possible
• Google tried to do this for us by changing the ad rotation settings.
We didn’t let them, but they’re still onto something.
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15. 4) Copying Your Competitor‟s Ads
A popular best practice in ad copywriting is to “spy on
competitor ads”:
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16. Don‟t Forget What Makes Your Company Special
For Example, Your:
• Guarantee
• USP
• Offer
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17. Ad Text Example
1. Urgent
2. Unique
3. Useful
4. Ultra- Specific
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18. Example
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19. Example #1
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20. Text Ads Tools:
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21. 5) Focus Your Efforts On Where They‟ll Make the Biggest
Impact to CPL
In PPC this basically boils down to: focus on Google
• It has a huge portion of the market
• We use its interface more than any others
• We search on Google, so why wouldn’t we focus our
efforts on it?
For Cost-Per-Lead Clients, Google is what determines the
success or failure of a month
• If we’re reporting on CPL, the work needs to be done in
Google. It’s where we spend most of our money.
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22. 5) Focus Your Efforts on Where You Get the Most Return
Bing, Facebook, Ad Exchanges and Other Venues Might Just
Have the Best ROAS
• Track this stuff – find out what has your biggest return
– Tag URLs, use Analytics, find a third party vendor
• Google ROAS: $3.83; Bing ROAS $7.79
In Addition to Tracking, What Else to Do?
• Immersion Therapy
– Force yourself to spend time in there
– The more time you spend on it the more you will get used to
it
Don’t Leave Leads Out on the Table (with all of those snakes)!
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23. 6) Use of overly broad negative keywords
• Negative Keyword Research is Obviously a Critical Task.
• But it has to be done carefully!
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24. Beware excessively broad negative keywords
• What happened:
• A campaign level negative for „uniforms‟ was accidently
added into a campaign that was themed around selling
custom baseball uniforms.
• One excessively broad negative keyword wiped out
everything!
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26. 7) Make Sure You‟re Bidding to First Page
Do you want all of that keyword research to go to waste?
• You expanded your keyword base for a reason
• Maximize the amount of clicks you can get on your
desired phrases
• Blah, blah, blah
Look, You’ve Heard All This Stuff Before. Bidding to First
Page Makes Sense. You Should Do It.
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27. 7) Make Sure You‟re Bidding to Your Desired Average Position
(which is almost always going to be on the first page)
All “First Page Bids” are not made equal.
• Sometimes Google’s estimates are wrong.
• This keyword has an average position of 2.2
• The ad group it’s in has an impression share over 85%
• We were only paying $7.11/click
• Suggested bid = $100.00
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28. 7) Make Sure You‟re Bidding to Your Desired Average Position
(which is almost always going to be on the first page)
Are you TERRIFIED? You should
be.
This one stood out because the suggested bid was so high.
• What about these statuses with smaller increases?
• What about when your competition is also bidding up to
first page automatically?
• Doesn’t it make a bit more sense to bid to average
position?
What you need to do in your account:
• Set your bids to avg. CPC of related existing keywords in
your account
• Watch closely and adjust accordingly
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29. Bonus Best Intention Gone Wrong – The 8th Habit
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30. Never trying anything new (playing it safe, not
experimenting)
• Less than Half of SMB‟s have made a single change in
their AdWords account in the last month!
• Some due to general confusion, laziness, and fear of
breaking something.
• This is a significant missed opportunity for ROI.
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33. Summary: 7 PPC Best Practices Gone Horribly Wrong
A. Best Practices are great but have the potential to do great
damage if poorly implemented as we have illustrated
B. Hopefully by having reviewed some of the most common
pitfalls and PPC traps, you can avoid un-necessary PPC
suffering
C. For best results:
– Try WordStream‟s 20 Minute Work Week, or
– Get the experts at Hanapin Marketing to manage your
account for you!
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34. Live Poll Question #3
Q: Would you like…
• A free AdWords account audit and help in understanding
your score with a certified AdWords Professional
• A free trial/demo of WordStream PPC Advisor
• A free one-on-one solutions blueprint/account assessment
with Hanapin Marketing (for accounts with over $20,000 /
month in spend)."
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35. Your Questions
Thank you for attending WordStream and Hanapin Marketing’s
webinar on: Good Intentions Gone Wrong: 7 Worst Practices in
PPC. #ppcblunders
Don‟t forget to sign up for a Free Trial of WordStream:
http://www.wordstream.com/ppc-free-trial
Sign up for a Free Account Assessment from Hanapin Marketing
http://www.hanapinmarketing.com/solutions-
blueprint-sign-up
Or contact us : Larry Kim
lkim@wordstream.com
http://twitter.com/larrykim
Sean Quadlin
sean.quadlin@hanapinmarketing.com
https://twitter.com/seanquadlin
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