13 Potential Reasons for a Poor CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) in a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Campaign

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A PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign can return a poor CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) due to various factors.

Here are 13 potential reasons for a poor CPA in a PPC campaign:

1. Ineffective Targeting and Campaign Settings

If the PPC campaign is targeting the wrong audience or if the audience targeting parameters are too broad, it can result in irrelevant clicks and wasted budget.

2. Poorly Targeted Keywords

Using irrelevant or low-quality keywords can lead to clicks from users who are not interested in the product or service being offered, thereby increasing the CPA.

3. Poor Ad Copy

Ad copy that fails to clearly communicate the value proposition or doesn’t resonate with the target audience can result in low click-through rates (CTRs) and ultimately higher CPAs.

4. Weak Landing Pages

If the landing page doesn’t provide a seamless and persuasive user experience or fails to convert visitors effectively, it can negatively impact the campaign’s CPA.

5. High Bidding Costs

Bidding too aggressively on keywords without proper optimisation can quickly deplete the budget, resulting in a high CPA.

6. Ad Fatigue

Showing the same ad repeatedly to the same audience can lead to ad fatigue, causing a decline in CTRs and an increase in CPAs over time.

7. Lack of Optimisation

Failure to continuously monitor and optimise the campaign for better performance can result in wasted ad spend and higher CPAs.

8. Competitive Landscape

In highly competitive industries, the cost per click (CPC) can be inflated, making it challenging to achieve a low CPA without strong optimisation strategies.

9. Seasonal Trends

Fluctuations in demand or seasonal trends can affect the performance of PPC campaigns, leading to higher CPAs during certain periods.

10. Ad Extensions Misuse

Improper use or lack of utilisation of ad extensions can limit the visibility and effectiveness of the ads, impacting the campaign’s overall performance and CPA.

11. Poor Ad Placement

Displaying ads on irrelevant or low-quality websites within the ad network can result in clicks from users who are unlikely to convert, driving up the CPA.

12. Technical Issues

Issues such as broken tracking links, website downtime, or slow loading times can hinder the campaign’s performance and increase the CPA.

13. Conversion Tracking Issues

If there are discrepancies or inaccuracies in tracking conversions, it can lead to misinterpretation of campaign performance and result in higher CPAs.

Addressing these factors through strategic optimisation, continuous monitoring, and data-driven decision-making can help improve the performance of a PPC campaign and reduce the CPA.

Should I Respond to Customer Reviews

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Here is an article by the BBC about TripAdvisor Reviews. At the end of the article, TripAdvisor state:

Research shows that customers do read what a business has to say in response to its reviews, and the tone of their replies can often have a bigger impact than the review itself. In other words, a business can often turn a negative review into a positive, just by the way it replies to that reviewer.

In summary, always leave a polite response to a negative review. Remember that your audience is your next potential customer.

Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines

Introducing the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines.

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The Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines give a really good insight into what Google wants from websites, webmasters and SEOs. The 160-page document defines exactly how Google Search Quality Raters should dissect and rate websites under review. Google uses this information to validate and improve its search engine algorithms (or recipes). Google Search Quality Raters are a worldwide team of over 10,000 staff who physically review search engine results pages and rate websites in accordance with the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Search Quality Raters are not able to change the search engine results. They simply test the quality of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and report their findings. An interesting point is that the document advocates the use of Google’s advanced search features to look for copied content and to ascertain the reputation of a particular website or business. See section 7.4.7 for example.

Enjoy!

Our SEO Page Spider shows important SEO information

SEO Page Spider – Free Download

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Today I would like to tell you about a free SEO tool that we’ve developed called the SEO Page Spider. You can get a copy of it from the Google Play Store. It’s quite a simple tool. It shows you the Page Title, Meta Description, First H1 Tag, First P Tag, Domain Name, Local Path and Word Count for a particular page. We developed it to save time when reverse engineering HTML pages. Click on the following link to download a free copy.

SEO Page Spider - Free Download
Apprenticeship Standard for Digital Marketers

Apprenticeship Standard for Digital Marketers

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If you are thinking of starting a career in digital marketing and you need some guidance, then check this out. A friend recently asked me to send him a few bullet points on what his son would need to learn to become a digital marketer. As a coincidence, at the same time I was working on a small project for a company that sourced apprentices and I came across this excellent government Apprenticeship Standard for Digital Marketers and I though it would be nice to share. Happy job hunting!