The Funny PPC Mistake that’s so Easy to Avoid

If you’re buying PPC advertising, you know that the process really revolves around your ability to research and bid upon the right keywords. PPC is keyword driven and having the right search terms can spell the difference between a great ROI and a complete waste of cash.

Often, PPC buyers will maintain a list of keywords in a spreadsheet. That makes perfect sense. It’s a great way to organize them and to manipulate them, as necessary. When the time comes to insert those keywords into the pay per click interface, it’s easy to quickly copy and paste them.

It might be too easy. There’s a fairly funny and fairly common PPC bidding error that results from that simple Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V on a keyword spreadsheet. PPC campaign managers have a nasty tendency of grabbing all of the content in the keyword column. Including the column header. That header usually consists of a single word: Keyword.

Look at the picture accompanying this post. That picture is taken from a screenshot resulting from a simple Google search for “keyword”. It appears as if someone handling the health insurance company’s pay per click campaign is bidding on the term “keyword”.

I doubt anyone at Assurant really believes that folks searching for “keyword” are prime insurance prospects, do you?

Others have noticed this blunder before. Bill Hartzer refers to it as “the funniest pay per click mistake”. He argues that it’s indicative of a lack of attention to detail and states that “a lack of attention to detail causes companies thousands of dollars every month.” The blunder won the #2 slot on Apple Pie & Custard’s “3 Silly Mistakes You Might be Making When Optimising Your PPC Campaign”.

The moral to the story? If you don’t want someone dredging up your bidding error and/or having a chuckle at your expense, check your keyword list from top to bottom.