“How hard can it be? I’ll just set up a Smart Campaign.”
We hear this every week. A business owner in Orem or a marketing manager in Salt Lake wants to save the management fee from an agency, so they take PPC (Pay-Per-Click) in-house. Initially, it looks cheaper. The clicks are coming in. The dashboard shows “green” arrows.
But six months later, the CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) has doubled, lead quality has tanked, and they can’t explain why.
The truth is, DIY campaigns often carry a hidden tax—a compound interest of wasted spend and lost opportunity. At Infogenix, we have audited hundreds of Utah ad accounts since 1998. Here are the 5 silent killers of DIY budgets we see most often.
1. The “Dirty Data” Feedback Loop
Google’s modern algorithms (Smart Bidding) are essentially highly trained dogs. They do exactly what you tell them to do. If you tell them to “fetch leads,” they will fetch anything that triggers a conversion tag.
The DIY Mistake: Most DIY accounts have “loose” conversion tracking. They count “Page Views,” “Time on Site,” or duplicate form fills as conversions.
The Cost: If you feed the algorithm bad data, it optimizes for bad results. You aren’t just wasting money on one click; you are training Google’s AI to go find more low-quality traffic.
- The Fix: We implement “Offline Conversion Tracking” (OCT). We don’t just track the lead; we tell Google which leads actually turned into revenue. This forces the algorithm to hunt for money, not just clicks.
2. Match Type “Drift”
Google has aggressively pushed “Broad Match” keywords. In a perfect world, Broad Match uses AI to find relevant searches you hadn’t thought of. In the real world, without strict guardrails, it burns cash.
The DIY Mistake: You bid on “Plumber Utah.” Google’s Broad Match decides that “How to fix a sink yourself” is close enough. You just paid $15 for a click from a person who has zero intention of hiring you.
The Cost: We often see 30-40% of a DIY budget wasted on “adjacent” terms that never convert.
- The Fix: We use a “Negative Keyword Firewall.” We review Search Term Reports weekly (not monthly) to block irrelevant traffic before it drains your budget.
3. The “Landing Page” Disconnect
You can have the best ad in the world, but if it clicks through to a slow, confusing homepage, you lose.
The DIY Mistake: Sending “Emergency Furnace Repair” traffic to a generic “About Us” page. The user has to click three times to find a phone number. They bounce.
The Cost: Google charges you more for this. It’s called “Quality Score.” If your landing page experience is poor, Google penalizes your CPC (Cost Per Click). You pay a tax for having a bad website.
- The Fix: We are an integrated shop. Our PPC Management team sits next to our Web Design team. We build dedicated, lightning-fast landing pages for your campaigns that match the ad copy perfectly.
4. Local Services Ads (LSA) Verification Gaps
For Utah service businesses (HVAC, Legal, Real Estate), Local Services Ads (the “Google Guaranteed” badge) are gold. But they are operationally heavy.
The DIY Mistake: Letting insurance documents expire or missing a background check renewal. Google instantly suspends your LSA ads.
The Cost: You disappear from the very top of the search results during your busy season. Getting reinstated can take weeks of back-and-forth with Google support.
- The Fix: We manage the paperwork. We monitor your verification status to ensure you never lose your “Guaranteed” badge during a snowstorm or heatwave.
5. Ignoring the “Wasatch Swing” (Seasonality)
Utah search behavior is not flat. It swings wildly based on weather, school schedules, and tourism seasons.
The DIY Mistake: “Set it and forget it” budgeting. Running the same daily budget in May (shoulder season) as you do in July (peak season).
The Cost: You run out of budget at 10:00 AM on your busiest days, leaving the rest of the leads for your competitors.
- The Fix: We practice Seasonal SEO & PPC pacing. We forecast demand based on historical Utah data and front-load your budget to capture demand when purchase intent is highest.
The “Infogenix Blueprint” for PPC
If you are going to keep PPC in-house, you need a professional-grade workflow. Here is the checklist we use before spending a single dollar:
- Deduplicate Conversions: Ensure a form fill isn’t counted twice if the user reloads the page.
- Brand Segmentation: Split “Brand” terms (people searching your name) from “Non-Brand” terms. Otherwise, your data is a lie.
- LSA Alignment: Ensure your Google Business Profile matches your LSA paperwork exactly.
- Negative Keyword Audit: review your search terms for the last 90 days and block the waste.
Or, Let Us Handle the Complexity.
We don’t just “run ads.” We build revenue engines. By combining 25 years of Web Development experience with modern paid search strategy, we ensure your funnel is airtight from the first click to the final invoice.