4 Paid Search Myths You Need to Know

Paid search is widely used by businesses of all kinds nowadays. It is a very competitive channel in most industries, and this means that you your campaigns to be well thought out in order to reach sustainable, scalable results. Here are 4 Paid Search Myths that can ruin the performance of your campaigns and can make paid search a terrible, painful experience.

Myth 1: Paid Search doesn’t work for businesses with long or emotional decision-making

There’s a common narrative about paid ads not being able to perform with certain products or services, such as high-ticket services or businesses with an emotional decision-making.

The reality is that paid ads can obviously perform great with special products or services that require a more careful decision. It all comes down to how you advertise your business, and what you’re asking from your prospects. With businesses like these, paid campaigns should focus on informing and educating about the topic. You can introduce the business and tell your prospects that you are a reputable option in the market. You can promote a newsletter, offer a free eBook or course, a cheat sheet. Something that adds value but doesn’t really require a strong commitment from your prospects.

Myth 2: You should use Paid Search primarily to improve SEO rankings

This is a very common misconception. As a side effect, running paid campaigns will probably improve your SERP rankings, since you’re getting clicks and traffic from these ads. However, this a very simplistic viewpoint, and it is the wrong approach to take.

Paid and organic are ‘best friends’ and should work together for the best results. You must run both channels simultaneously, learn the best practices and optimise your content whenever required, if you wish to see the best results.

Myth 3: Pause low performing campaigns, ad groups or keywords

Paid search requires patience, specially if you are unfamiliar with the industry or service you are trying to advertise. New campaigns need to build data, they must run for a fair amount of time before you can make any substantial changes.

An important rule to keep in mind is that TOP (top of the funnel) campaigns always perform differently than BOF (bottom of the funnel) campaigns. What does this mean? At the top of your marketing funnel you’ll be targeting a larger audience, which in most cases will result in more clicks and more traffic. If however you’re further down in your marketing funnel, you will necessarily get less clicks or impressions. But you will also get better click-through and conversion rates.

Remember to configure your tracking correctly, so that you can rely on your data to make data-driven decisions.

Myth 4: Working with a marketing consultant or agency is too expensive

I always use the example of a marketing budget. You may be spending a huge amount of money in your paid campaigns; if there’s a return on your investment, should you be concerned with the high spend?

It all comes down to ROI. Having a marketing consultant to manage and run your campaigns will certainly be more expensive than managing them yourself. However, you are very likely to see quicker results and a more sustainable growth, with ROI.

Remember that digital marketing is becoming increasingly competitive, as more and more businesses rely on digital to acquire prospects and make sales. If you have any questions or simply wish to discuss this topic, do not hesitate to get in touch. Thanks for reading!