How Searching For Yourself Could Be Hurting Your Business.
If you are running pay per click online ads (PPC for short) it’s important that you don’t search for your own promotions. While it may test your self-control, don’t do it! This is adding unnecessary expenses to your budget (if you are clicking on them) or hurting your quality score (if you’re not clicking on them).
While it’s pretty clear that clicking on your pay per click ad will cost you money, let’s talk a bit more about the detriment to your ad’s quality score if you don’t click the ad. First off, what is a quality score? The simplest explanation is that quality score is a formula that search engines, like Google, use to determine which paid advertisements are shown above organic search results. A quality score depends on your landing page, specific ad text and the strength of the click-through rate (how many times the displayed ad is clicked vs. ignored). With too many instances of searches without ad clicks, Google will determine that the ads are irrelevant to that particular search and may opt to show a lower-scoring ad instead of yours.
Searching for your specific brand isn’t the only way to damage your quality score. Related keyword searches, like “CoolSculpting New Jersey,” matter too! Those phrases are often chosen by your digital marketing team to target in your designed PPC ads, which can mean a lowered click-through rate and a weakened ad campaign. Because Google is always trying to make online searches convenient and highly relevant to the user, it will stop displaying ads that you have seen but have not shown an interest in. If a particular paid ad doesn’t show for you, it doesn’t mean that the paid ad isn’t running – it just means Google is trying to optimize your experience.
As an alternative to searching for your own ads, work with your digital marketing team to confirm that your desired promotions are launched and request that they provide screenshots of the ads running via tools provided by Google. These tools can show an exact preview of how the ads are appearing. This will not impact the efficiency or spend of your ads and you can be confident that prospective clients are being reached.
