1) Advertisers don’t manage their campaigns properly – This may sound simple, but the reason that most PPC campaigns fail is that the advertisers plain just do not manage the campaign. Search Engine Marketing allows you to keep your campaign constantly improving. All too many advertisers find the keywords they want to target, and just leave the campaign alone. In order to be successful in the competitive search engine market, your campaign must evolve and grow over time.
2) Under-Budgeted campaigns – Along with not managing the campaign, under budgeting your campaign is probably the easiest way to have your PPC campaign fail. What are the current bid prices in your market? How much will it take you to compete with the competition? Do you have enough chips to sit at the table? There are a few techniques to improve the quality of your ads pay less than some competitors, but all in all you will usually want to be in the ballpark. Would you go to a no-limit texas hold-em game with $10 in your pocket. No way! You’d be strong armed out of the game. Think of the PPC world the same way, come prepared to spend in the range that the search volume and cost per click allow for.
3) Lack of Tracking – When I talk to a lot of local advertisers, it amazes me how many business owners are not tracking results. With all the tools out there such as Google Analytics, there is no excuse for not tracking results. How are you ever going to know what is working for you? How are you tracking ROI? With Search Engine Marketing, all the tools are there for business owners to see what is working and what isn’t. To not track results is a waste.
4) Low profit per conversion – For some business models, an owner can do all the right things, and the campaign still will not generate positive ROI. One huge reason is that the profit margin for your sales needs to be more than the cost of not only acquiring your customers, but also all the other visits to your site that did not buy. For some low margin industries, search engine marketing is just not cost effective.
5) Customers aren’t searching for your product – Some products the general population of consumers just are not going to search for. Think about a lot of products that are advertised on infomercials. Strange items that a person would not think to search for on their own. Another would be if you were trying to target C-Level executives. Bidding on your keywords would probably just spend all of your budget to reach the few CEOs that would finally see your ad. Before starting a campaign, make sure your product is something that is searchable.
6) Long sales cycles – This one is tricky. If you are a B2B company that has a long sales cycle, multiple touch points with clients, requiring sales reps meeting with clients in the field in order to complete the sale, PPC campaigns may not be the best place to convert sales. Although, with this business model, search engines can be great lead generators for your reps. Just stick a contact form on the page, and have the lead act as your conversion
