Your PPC Sucks

This example is not exactly Earth shattering but we received it 2 weeks ago and it is still running today.

Sitelinks are a tool proven to increase CTR for your ads. Used correctly these will boost your CTR on average by 10% according to Google.

An incorrectly spelled site link may just put off a potential customer. Looking around the Gieves and Hawkes site it’s obvious they sell high quality, premium menswear (I’ve always fancied a good pair of Chelsea Boots myself). It’s not inconceivable that the type of customer who will spend upwards of £200 on a pair of shoes could be put off from clicking on an advert because of a misspelling.

Having said that, the Secret Sales ad seems to be giving 80% off with another 25% off – what a bargain! Could I get those £295 boots for £45? Of course not, in fact Secret Sales don’t even have G&H listed as a brand they stock (I had to sign up to get this information!)

Oh well, the search for cheap shoes continues…

Dynamic ad text in PPC ads can be very useful for improving click-through, but we know you sometimes have to be careful. You have to be especially careful if your landing page then also uses dynamic text insertion in any way. Especially if the original search term was a competitors brand term. Especially if a user can then quickly change the text that’s shown on the page as they please.

Step forward Angel water coolers, with dynamic text after their brand name…

As you can see some people have been having some fun with this already, with one blog describing nicely how to play around with the Angel Springs quirk. They describe how there’s a section in the URL

http://angelwatercoolers.co.uk/?key=eden%20springs

that sets the title on the page, just change it as you wish apparently. Just try not to get scared by the woman on their website who’s eyes seem to be following me around the room. Scary.

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Let’s start this post with answering a common question that will come to mind. No, I don’t know why anyone was searching for ‘leg amputees‘ on Google. But, a user gave me a link to the results page and I had to write a post about it.

“So, honey – when does our new leg amputee come in? You know we have to keep up with the Jones’s!”

What I really want to know is, what word was Shopzilla.com bidding on? Leg or Amputees?

Neither. They are actually bidding on the term “Leg Amputees” exactly. Naturally, I HAD to see the landing page so I clicked through. (is that click fraud? . . . sorry)

They did a great job building up my excitement! “You’re about to discover great deals on…. Leg Amputees”. Yes! I can’t wait!

.  .  .  . sad panda. It was disappointing. Nothing. They don’t actually sell any leg amputees.

Screw you Shopzilla!

I am sure you share in my disappointment, and I am sorry you can’t actually buy a leg amputee, but I have good new for those with a very specific kind of fetish: (still using the same search term ‘leg amputees’).

I love the internet, it does so much for all of us.

Just when I finished beating up Yahoo for having a horrible ad serving engine and failure to care about keyword-ad relevancy, they amazed me yet again. I searched for Mickey Mouse, and right in the middle of their ads was this little gem:

I’m no genius, but www.my.tupperware.com isn’t trying sell anything to do with Mickey Mouse in this bad ppc ad. Kids are out searching for mickey mouse all the time, might as well try and get them addicted sucked into the Tupperware parties scheme like a broke soccer mom who thinks their salvation is in a $60, 7 piece ‘heat ‘n serve’ set complete with a ‘no worry automatic valve’.

( … I want that … )

Just in case, I went back to Yahoo and re-performed my search to check out the landing page for that ad.

I mean…. if we are talking about a failure to be relevant to the users search, maybe they had a good landing page.

Nope. A log in page.

No selling of anything. No content of any kind. Nothing to do with Mickey Mouse.

Even IF the keyword and ad’s were 100% about Tupperware, and the searcher really was trying to find a website the sells or has info about it: My.Tupperware.com chose probably the least relevant page on their site.

Even if you could bid on this, would you?

I think ‘omnipresent’ indicates free shipping  at least.

(okay I am going to hell)

That's just too ballsy eBay. There are some things money can't buy. MasterCard would agree.

While looking for a theme to set up this very blog, I searched “Free wordpress themes” on Google. iThemes.com came up at the top with an ad that was somewhat enticing. I wanted a professionally designed theme that I could modify easily, and their add looked like it was going to give me what I wanted.

I should have known though. What were the odds that when I searched for ‘free wordpress themes’ that I could actually find a PPC ad for someone offering free products? Rule #1 for eCommerce sites: Don’t let yourself waste so much stinking money on users who don’t want to buy anything!

No mention of 'Free' in the ad, but it didn't pre-qualify with being 'paid' only either.

I searched for "Free WordPress Themes"

Remembering that I searched for “Free Wordpress Themes”, it’s crucial to pre-qualify your users by either mentioning you only offer paid products (and don’t trust that a Google Checkout button will do the trick) or by adding -Free as a negative keyword in your campaign.

Seriously? Save yourself some money iThemes. PPC can be a money-pit for your business if you make this mistake. Businesses too often will look at their PPC campaigns, see money being spent and not enough conversions to make it worth it so they’ll cut it with out knowing their clicks are coming from people wanting FREE STUFF!