Search Engine Marketing Mistakes on Overture and Google
Five paid search mistakes costing small advertisers money on Overture and Google AdWords in 2002, and the fixes that work.
Paid search is still young enough in 2002 that most of the mistakes advertisers make aren’t exotic, they’re basic misunderstandings of how the auctions work. Here are the ones costing businesses the most money right now.
Mistake: Bidding on broad, generic terms
Small advertisers often start by bidding on the biggest, most obvious term for their category, like “shoes” or “insurance,” without realizing they’re now competing directly against national brands with far larger budgets. Bid on narrower, more specific phrases that match exactly what you sell instead. They cost less per click and tend to convert better because they match a more specific intent.
Mistake: Sending every click to the homepage
A generic homepage forces a visitor who searched for something specific to go hunting for it themselves, and most won’t bother. Send each ad’s traffic to the page that most closely matches the term someone searched, whether that’s a specific product page or a category page.
Mistake: Ignoring how Overture and Google rank ads differently
Overture ranks purely by bid amount: highest bidder gets the top spot. Google’s newer cost-per-click option factors in how often an ad gets clicked, not just the bid, when deciding where it appears. Advertisers who run the same strategy on both platforms without understanding this difference often overpay on one and underperform on the other. Learn each platform’s ranking logic before assuming a tactic that works on one will work identically on the other.
Mistake: Not tracking which clicks turn into sales
Many advertisers can tell you how many clicks a campaign got, but not how many of those clicks became a sale. Without that link, there’s no way to know if a term is profitable or just expensive. Set up even a basic tracking method, a unique order code, a dedicated phone number or a simple tracking pixel, so every click can eventually be traced to a result.
Mistake: Chasing the top position for its own sake
Being ranked first costs more per click than being ranked third or fourth, and the top position doesn’t always convert at a rate that justifies the premium. Test a few different ranking positions and compare cost per order rather than assuming the top spot is automatically worth what it costs.
Most of what separates a profitable search engine marketing campaign from an unprofitable one in 2002 isn’t a secret tactic. It’s simply tracking results honestly and adjusting based on what the numbers say rather than what feels intuitively right.
More from 2002: browse the SEO archive or see everything published this year.
