Picture Sherlock Holmes. Armed with his overcoat, magnifying glass, pipe, and unmistakable detective hat, Holmes sets out to look for clues. And he always finds them. After all, he’s got all the right tools for a productive search.

How about your prospective clients? Do they have the right tools to find you?

Whether or not your brand or product already has a presence online, you are missing out if you are not using paid search as a marketing channel. Recent research has shown that 40% of all people on the internet querying a search engine will click on a paid search link first, and that number is increasing.

Paid search allows for unprecedented targeting and tracking, letting you, the Chief Paid Search Detective, control expenditures down to minute details. You can run a paid search campaign with $20 or $200,000, and the $20 campaign is not necessarily at a disadvantage. It can earn the same ROI.

Ready to jump in? Just look before you  leap.

Here are ten of the most common paid search mistakes that you want to avoid when starting your campaign.

#1 Ego Bidding – This mistake usually results from emotional attachment to a certain keyword or campaign on the part of the bidder. For example, the bidder decides that his/her phrase must rank number one on a particular engine. In most cases, the bidder simply wants the satisfaction of running a search and seeing his/her keyword in a top position. Sometimes, they want to rank a phrase using  internal language, which is irrelevant to most searchers. This mistake can easily result in inefficient spending of the budget, and can often deplete your daily budget before dinner…or even lunch.

#2 Too many keywords per ad – This mistake is common to people fairly new to paid search; it’s easy to fall into but easy to get out of as well. Adding too many keywords to one ad group often leaves you with irrelevant keywords generating impressions for the ad.  First, these non-targeted impressions will decrease your quality score because your click-through rate will likely decrease. Second, these irrelevant keywords will cost you extra money.

#3 Focusing on budget instead of ROI – Paid search campaigns are not like other marketing mediums, so viewing them as another line item in your budget is a mistake.  The trackability and accountability that paid search offers allow it to run more efficiently than other types of marketing. Focusing on what you are spending instead of what you are getting in return leads to inefficient bidding and a campaign that does not maximize the benefits that paid search offers. Instead, manage paid search on a day-to-day basis, adjusting your bids and keywords in order to capitalize on the return on your investment.

#4 Not learning from your competitors’ strategy – Some paid search programs and software offer the ability to track what your competitors are doing online; what keywords, where they bid, when they bid, etc. Especially if you are going up against larger, more established brands with larger paid search budgets, you must learn from their strategies so that you are not two steps behind. With this approach, you should be able to circumvent a lot of the guesswork and gain on your competitors with efficient bidding, even on a small budget.

#5 Forgetting to think negatively – A common mistake in the campaign planning process is not thoroughly researching negative keywords. Positive keywords will drive traffic to your site, but negative keywords will filter out the traffic that you don’t want. For example, if you are selling Nike sneakers, and you are bidding on the general phrase “sneakers,” you would want to negative keyword “Reebok” or any other brands competing with Nike. This negative keyword will ensure that anyone searching “Reebok sneakers” is not directed to your ad simply because they typed in sneakers.

Elementary, my dear Watson.