Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most powerful marketing tools businesses could have, because it gives your brand the exposure needed for interested customers.

However, like all things, PPC works if, and only if used properly. Here are some limitations of the PPC.

PPC requires time

PPC requires you to invest a lot of time. You’ll need a sizable amount of data if your goal is to make informed campaign decisions.

You must invest hours adjusting your resources, which include your bids, budget, and keywords—just to name a few. Therefore, multiple businesses aren’t witnessing successful ROIs to speak of.

Some businesses resort to tools to better manage their PPC marketing campaigns, but they only end up wasting more time. The Local Search Association made a report which found that “60% of publishers used Google’s AdWords Express as a PPC platform tool.”

AdWords Express has a decent amount of useful functions, but, more often than not, you’ll end up getting frustrated because of the time and energy you spend on it.

Using the right tools for PPC marketing automation is a must. I suggest relying on machine-learning-based tools to decrease your involvement and increase your profitability.

Vertiginous learning path

PPC management is hard. There are various platforms to opt for: Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Promoted Pins, LinkedIn Ads, and more.

It’s true that the more options you have, the more choices you get. While some folks like having more options, others find it frustrating. Media platforms have their own Advert platforms, targeting options, placement options, and workflow.

Each of these Ad platforms has its own learning path that demands in-depth research, long hours, massive ad spend and ongoing testing.

Some companies can’t afford the resources to go down that path.

Costs can accumulate fast

With PPC campaigns, costs can accumulate fast. There’s a lot of competition over target keywords—some people even call it bidding war!

Businesses can drive bids to a level unacceptable for their competitors. Certain phrases like business services could escalate to $60.

Paid search is one of the many ways you could resort to when designing your online marketing strategy. Even if Pay-Per-Click is rewarding, you could explore alternatives that drive leads and sales.

SEO and content marketing are two effective marketing strategies that could drive sales at a lower cost.

What’s the catch, you say?

Well, with PPC advertising you could drive traffic to your site extremely fast, giving you an opportunity to increase your conversion rates.

But on the flip side, using SEO or content marketing could take months in the making to rank. It all depends on where your priorities lie—quicker exposure or lower costs.

AdBlock softwares block your ROI potential

As traditional ad agencies once struggled with the exorbitant decrease in printed ad revenue, so do PPC marketers with AdBlock softwares.

More and more users are using AdBlock to prevent advertisements from showing on their searches and social media feed.

Ad blocking can have a detrimental impact on your conversion rates, because your PPC ad campaign isn’t performing—no matter how many adjustments you make. It’s also important that you steadily nurture your SEO growth.

Potential for a bidding war

The number of advertisers who spend on SEO is witnessing a stable increase. The higher inflow of marketers has resulted in a price inflation of CPCs and ad biddings.

What does this mean for you?

The more marketers launch ad campaigns, the more they’ll want their product to appear first. This contributes to a competition outbreak, which can only grow fiercer as the margin for profits shrinks.

You should be wary of overspending on your bids. To maintain a healthy PPC marketing flow, you’ve got to consider these 2 core elements:

• Keep tabs on your metrics
• Don’t declare war on your competitors

For example, by bidding on your competitor’s name, you’re pushing them to retaliate. This could be costly for you both.

Click fraud

With so many brands using PPC advertising, a lot of fraudsters are getting into the industry.

Oxford defines Click Fraud as “the practice of repeatedly clicking on an ad hosted on a website intending to generate revenue for the host website or draining revenue from the advertiser.”

Fraudsters usually apply Click Fraud to clicks on SERP results. Because it’s so simple to achieve and most online businesses use PPC advertising, there is no escape.

But how do they work?

Basically, there are two ways your business can be a victim to Click Fraud:

• Human interaction
• Automated interaction

Whether it’s a person or an automated program, the most common ways of fraudulent actions are:

• Repetitive clicks which, like the name suggests, occur when an entity clicks on your paid Ad every time they see it.
• Organized Click Campaigns occur when an entity pays for sustained traffic to a link. This form can cause a lot of damage to your ad campaigns.
• Bot traffic. In recent years, a lot of high-profile cases of organized crime have been operating Ad fraud networks.

Although they’re not 100% guaranteed to work, there are options to beat Click Fraud:

• You could install an Anti-Click Fraud Software to spot any patterns of fraudulent activity.
• Manually adjust the settings in your Google Ads dashboard to limit your exposure.

PPC firms are not all the same

A lot of online businesses hire the services of a PPC firm to manage their PPC advertising. This is a wise option, provided you bring in the right agency.

However, there are also shady agencies that promise to deliver the best results ever, only to end up failing—costing your company money, time, and edge.

To shield yourself from these firms, you ought to be skeptical and examine everything they say.

Have realistic expectations of what the PPC firm is going to deliver. The best PPC agencies can set up and run your advertising campaigns, but to assume getting rich overnight is a myth.

Wrapping up

Although PPC marketing has many limitations, it can offer a lot of benefits which no other marketing strategy can. As an advertiser, knowing the pros and cons of PPC marketing will not only help you limit failure but also enable you to make promises you can deliver.