It’s a proud moment to see your pay-per-click (PPC) ads featured on Google. It’s a clear signal that your digital marketing is working, and hard proof that your investment will likely pay off.
We understand the temptation to “check on” your ads by searching them. Your hard-earned money is going into that campaign! Where’s that ad positioned? Does it look right? What does the ad copy say?
Curiosity quickly turns to panic if your ad doesn’t show up, but that’s no reason to fret either. The fact is, no one should search for – and especially not click – their PPC ads.
Here, we’ll go beyond explaining the rationale behind this statement: We’ll provide a solution that will calm your nerves and keep you up-to-date with PPC performance.
Clicking Your PPC Ads Wastes Your Budget
Let’s start with the biggest no-no: Clicking your PPC ads. Long story short, this costs you money and wastes your budget. In any PPC campaign, your budget is set at a certain amount to last Google’s 30 day billing-cycle. If you click your ads, you’re literally paying for it.
Clicking your ads is disastrous for more than just your budget – it puts you at risk of Google blocking your IP. If repeated clicks from one source are detected for an ad, it may register as a malicious attack and trigger an automatic block. That means your ads will complete stop showing on your IP address. Don’t put that blight on your track-record!
Searching Your PPC Ads Skews The Data
Even the act of searching your PPC ads has a negative impact on your campaign. “What’s the big deal if I’m not clicking it?” You may ask. The answer lies in your analytics.
Every time your ad shows up in a search, it contributes to your total “impressions”. Your ads’ quality score will plummet if it shows up too many times without a click. Google can’t tell you’re not a customer, so it assumes the ad is simply weak. That might not be the case!
This tip also applies to clicking your ad – if you click your ad then close the window, Google registers it as a bounce. As a keyword’s bounce-rate rises, its quality score is further decreased. Although it has good intentions, your innocent searching is akin to shooting yourself in the foot.
Here’s How You Monitor PPC Ads!
Now that we’ve covered why searching and clicking your ads is a bad idea, we can move onto something more constructive. Instead of endlessly Googling your keywords and messing up your click-through-rate, there is a better solution out there.
Google has got it covered with their Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool. This is the easiest way to check the position of a single ad, by far. It confirms the ad is running, as well as giving you a handy breakdown of each ad’s individual status. The best part? You don’t accumulate impressions using this tool.
If you’re really lost as to why you haven’t seen your ad at all, Google has a page dedicated to answering that very question. If after trying their diagnosis tool you’re still having trouble, you can always answer the prompt from Google at the bottom of the page for customised advice to the precise issue you’re experiencing, along with concrete steps to solve the problem.
We hope this blog has given you a little peace of mind. While searching our own ads is considered a “rookie mistake”, it won’t land you in Google’s “penalty box”! There are a host of dodgy SEO tactics that can, however – so if you don’t already know, do yourself a favour. Check out our blog on 4 Google Penalties You Need To Watch Out For to keep your rankings high!
