Keyword Search in PPC

Have you ever gone to Google and searched for the word keyword? Literally, I mean, do a search like this. It's amazing to me how many people are bidding on the word 'keyword' just because they copied a whole entire list of keywords and the first word in their list was the word 'keyword'.

Most of the time you'll find the funny ones in the second or third page of results. It's obvious to me that people didn't mean to bid on the word 'keyword' because their ad has absolutely nothing to do with the word 'keyword'. For example, I found an ad about shoes and an ad about records management. C'mon guys, let's pay a little bit more attention to the keywords that you're bidding on!

Not only that, these advertisers need to realize that if you're bidding on keywords like the word 'keyword' and it has nothing to do with what you're selling, then your overall CTR won't be very good. And the quality of your landing pages won't be good, either.

...and the entire campaign suffers form the lower numbers...

Success is in the details.

Success is in the details.

No, the "devil is in the details". LOL

success = devil.

OK, so let's say you're an enterpising individual and you manage PPC accounts for people. Certainly pointing out this mistake to companies, saving them money, and telling them that you could do a better job of managing their account might land you the account.

Alas, I rather doubt it unless the person you reaches is far more analytical than the norm. Have you ever tried to explain even the basics of PPC much less the finer points?

This past week was enough for me to about throw in the towel on working with clients. When a Yahoo stores graph clearly shows first double and then triple revenue growth spikes driven by PPC work and even THAT isn't enough for someone to be thrilled it may be time to focus on personal projects instead.

If I tripled your daily sales in less than four months what would YOUR reaction be? What is obvious to you and me is anything but obvious to almost everyone else.