While it’s easy to make money with a PPC campaign, it’s even easier to lose it. That’s why so many eCommerce entrepreneurs choose to work with an eCommerce PPC management company to increase ROAS and hedge the risks that they will make a bad decision.
With that said, even with the help of professionals, there’s no magic touch to prevent issues from arising, and one of the most common, with respect to pay-per-click marketing, has to deal with a campaign that has ad sets that are getting impressions and plenty of them, but no clicks.
This short post will expose the issue as well as some potential causes.
Bad Keyword Targeting
The issue of a campaign getting plenty of impressions but no clicks should be obvious enough. Without clicks that yield conversions, the campaign is not going to generate any revenue.
There is a chance that your eCommerce PPC management company is intentionally targeting, then bidding on, keywords that are not competitive but which have high volume, just so they can make it look like they are doing something impressive.
Granted, you won’t be paying for those impressions, regardless of whether the bid is high or low (till you get a click, at least), but you will still be on the hook for the marketing agency’s PPC advertising management fee.
That alone should make you balk, as if it were not unreasonable enough to be running a PPC campaign that was getting impressions but no clicks.
But the deeper issue is that until you get a click from a qualified lead from your target audience, who then converts, there will be no money flowing in, either to sustain the campaign, or your relationship with your eCommerce PPC management company.
The problem may also not be that you are bidding on the wrong keywords; it could be that your ad messaging is not enticing leads. There is a lower chance of this than the former quandary, but it is still a potential issue.
In all likelihood, the problem is that you’re bidding on keywords that have low competition but which are not closely qualified to what you sell, or what you promise in your ad copy.
That is the first thing you should talk to your eCommerce PPC management company about. Have a conversation about keyword research and targeting, which ads are getting impressions but not clicks, and what you can do to get clicks on your ads without sacrificing on ad quality so that you can generate revenue from what clicks you do manage to gather.
But It’s Not Just About Clicks
See, here’s the thing. While it’s an apparent issue if your ads get a lot of impressions and no clicks, it shouldn’t solely be clicks that you’re after.
For instance, you could probably get a whole lot of clicks with disingenuous ad messaging. For instance, offer 50% off through the PPC ad, and your clicks will likely double or triple, if not more.
But – this is a big but – if you have no intention of offering that discount, once users click and discover that reality on the landing page, they will bounce. That will cost you big bucks on the campaign.
So it’s important to remember that the advertising strategy is not and cannot be just about clicks or even click-through rate; it’s about your conversion rate.
Working with a Qualified eCommerce PPC Management Company
If it sounds like any of the issues here are plaguing your PPC strategy the way it stands, then go back to the drawing board, and if you currently have an eCommerce PPC management company, talk to them about this. You don’t want to be running ad campaigns that aren’t earning revenue – that’s not sustainable.
