Archive for the ‘Pay Per Click Campaign’ Category

Pay-per-click search engine advertising has generated ample interest in the online advertising community, primarily because of its measurability and specificity. However, running a profitable PPC Campaign is not as easy as it might seem.More people lose money through PPC advertising than those who are able to generate profits.

I have tried to capture some essential learnings that my team derived managing PPC Campaigns for advertisers in retail, professional services, travel, telecom and financial services industries.

The suggestions:

1. The entire PPC Campaign process can be broadly divided into three stages:

a. the keyword stage
b. the bid management stage
c. the performance measurement stage

Our experience has been a well managed campaign requires sufficient focus on all the three stages.

2. Keyword stage:

2a. Industry research: Competiton websites – PPC benchmarks – rough spends – offers by comeptition – industry trends (avg.CPC,comeptition intensity ,etc,)

2b. Analyzing your website: You need to chart out your focus areas – what is that you want from the PPC Campaign and which sections of your site(s) address the “NEEDS OF THE TRAFFIC/VISITOR” who come to your site from PPC ads. After this you should clearly draw up a list of strengths – the areas you would like to focus – and finally have some sort of an idea as to which are the keywords you would want to focus on for PPC campaign

2c. Keyword Research and Generation: Now that you have some idea “what you want to do” you can use tools like PrioritySubmit(arguably the best tool available currently),WordTracker,Overture Suggestion tool and Google SandBox. There are some tools like keyword tumbler that give you the combinations and misspelling tools like SearchSpell.

The idea is to generate a comprehensive list of keywords from which you can select the optimal list .

2d. Keyword Selection – Now you have a bunch of keywords…you need to select the most optimal set…can be tricky

The ideal way is to “quantify your objectives” and “assign a weight” to each objective….whoa! To make it look simple, suppose you have a campaign budget of $100, and have three objectives: achieve a CPA of $x, get y clicks, get a CTR(Click Through Rate) z. Now you need to decide how much money would you allocate to each of these objectives.Keywords can be divided into three objective oriented sets.Seems simple…not really, because there will be “overlapping kw’s” that address multiple objectives.

After you have decided the above you have:

1. A clear “boundary condition” or a constraint : Budget – number of clicks – CPA

2. Using the tools mentioned(Overture is easiest) get the list of kw’s that address each objective and select the “list that seems to fit most optimally”.

3. Now you would have: Say,three sets of kw’s each with a defined objective and bounadry condition. And in each set you would have say n number of kw’s.

IF THE ABOVE PROCESS IS CARRIED OUT WELL – 50% OF YOUR CONCERNS ON PPC CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT ARE TAKEN CARE OF!!!

2e. Now comes a part that’s difficult for most and easy for some

Writing ad copy:

This is one time consuming job and calls for expertise. You may have selected the best set of kw’s,but if the copy is not effective, what’s the use?? No one would click your ad…and a strict SE like Google would give you a poor score on relevancy (CTR) and push your site down in the listing

The other week my copy writing team went berserk writing ad copy for a client who had 10,000 keywords and wanted 3000 unique ad copies.

2f. You have written the ads – cheers!

Now you need to specify the “effective destination page URL’s”. Its of no use leading a visitor to a page that doesnot contain the stuff she wants. We have observed that 80% of the sites DONOT specify the appropriate landing URL and thereby lose out. Who has the patience to search your site for info? Its not for nothing that Amazon started and to great effect the “one click” concept.

3. The Keyword BidManagement Phase

3a. You have defined keyword sets/groups and for each group you have specified the objectives – CPA, clicks et al. Now you need to monitor your bids closely for all the keywords so that the objectives specified are attained. In a competitive category like travel the bids can change thereby affecting your site’s position on the SERP, maybe even 300 times in a day!!! Your site might have been in top position at 10am CST but at 10.30am for the same CPC it might not be there in the top 10!!!! Gosh Keep a round the clock vigil especially for the competitive sectors.

3b. The menace of click frauds – I mentioned in a post in the same forum yesterday that 15% of the budget on an average goes down the drain because of fraudulent clicks. You must have sufficient capability to capture instances of fraud and bring them to SE’s notice. Also, you must keep a very close watch over the logs and take immediate action.

Carrying out bid management in a rigorous manner is painful- in competitive industries you have to maintain a 24 hours vigil – no breaks – no off days(the visitor does not recognize off – days ).However, if this stage is carried out meticulously it can result in substantial savings and qualified clicks.

I read this somewhere: about 75-80% of marketers DONOT make a profit using PPC.

Take control over your campaign…its your business!

4. Performance monitoring – Do you know how effective your campaign is? Are u making money? How many additional conversions have you received? How many visitors are visiting your site? What pages on the site are they visiting? How much time they are spending per page? Which links are they clicking ? Whats the conversion ratio – click to sales? what’s the cost per lead? Whats the CPA? Are you “in the range” compared to competition?

If you don’t, either you are not serious about your marketing… or probably you just don’t care…

Get one of the numerous analytics tools available in the market TODAY.

However, this is just the basics – the same process has to be repeated everyday – the campaign optimized based on performance data – set objectives – its trickier in Adwords with the importance given to CTR(relevance).I was discussing this with a Senior Personnel in Google Adwords the other day: one of my advertiser’s sites suddenly got a flurry of impressions but no clicks – as a result the CTR went down and as Google listing depends on CTR*CPC , the site went down in listing!!! This was a case of impression fraud

PPC is arguably the most powerful advertising mode available to a marketer today (the average cost per lead is just 45 cents compared to 55cents for emails and $1.2 for yellow pages), however, with increasing competiton and entry of bigger players in the fray , it has become extremely important for the campaigns to be managed well.

Chief Executive at BidOptima (http://www.BidOptima.com), Texas based Search Engine Marketing Technology firm. BidOptima has been consistently able to deliver a minimum 20% higher ROI than any comparable service or software in existence today.

A patent pending process, proprietary technology and 24*7 performance optimization operations ensure the superior performance. BidOptima has been working towards making Paid Search a predictable and profitable online advertising option for the advertisers. Prior to founding BidOptima, Udayan was a Director and Business Unit Head at iGlobalMedia, arguably world’s largest e-gaming firm.

Submitting your website to the Search Engines today may seem like a futile task or at very least, a complete waste of time. When you consider that there are millions of websites that could be listed just for the word FREE, it hardly seems worth the effort.

Most websites today compete heavily for a top ten listing on the major search engines for words or phrases that are relevant to their websites. This equates to targeted traffic or visitors with a desire to see their webpages.

Whether people are surfing for entertainment or shopping from the safety of their homes, it’s usually the top ten listings that get clicked on when search results are given.

Optimizing a website for a top ten listing is best left to the professionals. While such exposure can equate to heavy traffic, does the benefit out way the cost?

Most website owners may not have the budget to attain and maintain a top ten listing on the major search engines.

An alternative to the major search engines is the pay per click option. Usually people bid an amount from 1 cent on up per click for a key word. Whoever makes the top bid for that key word gets the #1 position on down. It can be an ideal way to bring targeted traffic to your website and maintain a budget within your reach.

How do you know if a pay per click option is right for you?

1. Would it be cost-effective? If you pay 1 cent per visitor and make 2 sales with 100 visitors, did the 2 dollars you spent on advertising make it worthwhile?

2. What words are relevant to your site? If you want people who have an interest in Work At Home Opportunities to find your site when doing a search you might bid on this phrase or similar phrases. Computer Jobs might bring people to your website however you see its probably not relevant enough.

3. Who visits your site? Know your target market. If you are selling something or seeking to hook up with other opportunity seekers be sure its spelled out in the title and description of your site. You want people who will make an action at your site. You are looking for them and are they looking for you.

4. Where on Your Website? List the page on your website that calls for an action on the part of the visitor whether it be the point of sale page or just obtaining the email address of the visitor.

As you can see, Pay Per Click Search Engines can be an alternative for your advertising campaign especially when you may be on a limited budget or just don’t have the resources or time to bring your website up to a top listing on the major search engines.

Getting your website in front of the right people is mainly your task with search engine listings.

NOTE: You’re welcome to “reprint” this article as long as it remains complete and unaltered(including the resource box at the end). Thanks!

About The Author

Robert Williams is the co-owner of SearchImport.com, a PPC Search Engine dedicated to the delivery of relevant results to its users. Join our affiliate program. http://www.searchimport.com/affiliate-program.html

robert_p_w@yahoo.com

Have you heard the saying, “planning is everything?” Perhaps there is some truth in that saying so let’s discover how to successfully plan your pay-per-click campaign.

Let’s keep this simple and create a list of required tasks to successfully plan your pay-per-click campaign. These are:

1. Determine your product’s Unique Selling Proposition.
2. Define your pay-per-click campaign’s goals and objectives.
3. Decide the starting and ending dates for the pay-per-click campaign.
4. Establish the click-through rate target for your pay-per-click ads.
5. Set the conversion rate target for your pay-per-click ads.
6. Define your budget for the pay-per-click campaign.
7. Establish your ROI or Return on Investment goal for the pay-per-click campaign.
8. Determine the value of each keyword phrase.
9. Plan how to measure your pay-per-click campaign results.

Task number one is determining your product or service’s Unique Selling Proposition, or USP. What is a USP? The USP clearly answers the question, “Why should I do business with you instead of your competitors?” Your organization needs to stand out from the crowd! This could relate to the services or products provided, guarantees offered, delivery mechanisms used, complementary services provided, pricing or any attribute associated with your business.

Identify your organization’s uniqueness since it is pointless promoting cheap prices if everyone else is promoting the same. If everyone were offering cheap prices you would be better off promoting higher prices for providing better quality and service as long as you are delivering better quality and service.

An articulate USP assists in defining the focus and selecting the keyword phrases for your pay-per-click campaign. For example, if your USP is focused on quality and service perhaps you would avoid a keyword phrase containing the word “cheap” but rather include words denoting quality.

Task number two is defining the campaign’s goals and objectives. Typical examples might be: increase web site traffic X percent, acquire X number of new business leads, obtain X number of new customers or orders per day, achieve X sales revenue dollars per time period, etc. Whatever you set as your goals or objectives you must be certain they are quantifiable and measurable in order to determine the success of your pay-per click campaign.

Task number three is deciding the starting and ending date of the pay-per-click campaign. This is a major benefit to pay-per-click campaigns since you have the ability to turn a campaign on and off at your discretion. As an example, you could create a campaign promoting National Nurse’s Week or something similar with discounted sale prices supported by advertising coop funds provided by the product’s manufacturer.

Task number four is establishing the click-through rate target or goal for your pay-per-click ads. The click-through rate is the number of times the ad is clicked versus the total number of impressions. One impression is a one display of the ad. In general, click-through rates range from 1% to 5% of the number of impressions. The formula is:

Click-Through Rate % = Total Number of Ad Clicks / Total Number of Ad Impressions * 100

Task number five is setting the conversion rate target or goal for your pay-per-click ads. A conversion is a measure of searchers clicking on the ad and taking the next step or call to action such as a purchase, registration, subscription, etc. The conversion rate can be measured versus the total number of ad impressions or total ad click-throughs. It’s your choice; but, most organizations measure it versus the ad click-throughs. Conversion rates range to all extremes but a good target might be from 5% to 20% of the number of ad click-throughs. A quick view of the formula is:

Conversion Rate % = Total Number of Conversion Actions / Total Number of Ad Impressions * 100

Or

Conversion Rate % = Total Number of Conversion Actions / Total Number of Ad Click-Throughs * 100

Task number six is defining your budget for the pay-per-click campaign. How much do you desire to budget or spend per time period or for the total cost of the pay-per-click campaign? Many of the pay-per-click search engines offer automated budgeting mechanisms that can be initiated to control the cost of your campaign. If you do nothing else in the planning process, set a campaign budget and stick to it!

Task number seven is establishing your ROI or Return on Investment goal. The ROI is based on the tangible benefits, bottom-line revenue increase or expense decrease, versus the cost to obtain the tangible benefits. In general, each organization defines ROI objectives for company investments and these should be applied to the pay-per-click campaign.

Task number eight, and perhaps the most important, is determining the value of each keyword phrase and, in turn each visitor. The simple formula works like this. Divide the average number of new customers each month by the average number of monthly web site visitors to get the percentage of visitors who actually become customers. If you multiply this percentage times your average profit margin on sales to new customers, you obtain a good estimate of how much a visitor is worth on the first visit.

In other words, let’s assume you’re selling an item with a $25 profit margin. If 10% of the web site visitors buy your product, then each visitor is worth $2.50 to you ($25.00 X 10% = $2.50). If you can bid $2.50 or less for each click-through of the keyword phrase, then you are profiting on each conversion or sale.

Another way to look at this is in terms of your click-through and conversion rates. Let’s suppose we have a click-through rate of 5% and a conversion rate of 10% versus the ad click-throughs. We will use the same $25.00 profit margin.

1,000 impressions X 5% click-through = 50 potential customers
50 potential customers X 10% conversion = 5 actual customers
5 actual customers X $25.00 profit margin = $125.00 profit
$125.00 profit / 50 potential customers = $2.50 per click (maximum bid)

Have you noticed how important it is to know the value you of a keyword phrase or visitor? Without these guidelines, you are bidding in the dark and asking for trouble. It is imperative that you be able to estimate your maximum bid prices to be successful in your pay-per-click campaign!

Task number nine, the final task, is planning how you will measure your campaign results versus the goals, objectives and targets you established. You should review if you have the proper structure and tools on your web site to capture the information for the measurements.

For example, do you have access to your web logs? Do you have web analytic tools? What types of data do they capture and analyze? Do you have a web site page that will define a conversion? It might be the order confirmation page from your web site shopping cart or the e-mail subscription confirmation page.

Perhaps this seems like a substantial amount of work for planning your pay-per-click campaign. But, look at the results of good and poor projects in any personal or business environment. At the foundation of their success or failure was a well or poorly conceived plan. Take the extra steps. Make the additional effort. Your success will be rewarded with a cost effective, high ROI pay-per-click promotion campaign without breaking your bank account!

About the Author

Chet Childers is a successful Internet marketer utilizing the power and quick response of pay-per-click marketing to increase website visibility and profitability. Click http://www.ThePayPerClickMarketer.com and enroll in our e-course, “Discover Tips and Secrets for Pay-Per-Click Marketing Success,” or visit http://www.ChetChilders.com.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is one of the most cost effective (and just plain effective) ways to get laser-targeted traffic to your website. For just pennies per click you can have your offer placed in front of only those people who are truly interested in what you have to offer.

There is a problem with PPC however. Return On Investment (ROI) can be quite low if your ad campaigns aren’t designed properly. In a nutshell, you need to make sure that enough people who click on your ad make a purchase to allow you to end up with a healthy overall profit!

Here are a few tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your PPC ad campaigns:

1 ? Write clear and concise ad copy that tells the potential customers EXACTLY what they will find after the link is clicked. Since you have to pay cash for each and every click, you want to limit the clicks to those people who are truly interested in what you’re offering!

2 ? Be creative with the keywords but be precise in the ad copy. While you want the ad copy to be very precise in describing your offer, you want as many people as possible to see the ad in the first place.

Using several variations of the wording in your key phrases and synonyms for your keywords you can ensure that your ad will be displayed for a wide variety of search terms. Then your laser-targeted ad copy will “weed out” those who just aren’t interested in your particular offer.

3 ? Link the ad to the EXACT landing page of the offer described in the ad, NEVER to your home page. If your prospects have to search for a link to the offer, they simply won’t do it in most cases. The web is all about instant gratification, and the “back button” is used extensively when people click on a link only to find something that wasn’t described in the ad.

4 ? Test, test, and then test some more! The key to maximizing the ROI of any ad campaign is testing, and PPC is no different. Set up test campaigns using various keywords/phrases and different ad copy. Analyze the results after a few days, and then drop the ads that perform poorly and expand the ones that do well.

5 ? Experiment with the bid prices for your keywords. For example, you might well find that a bid of $0.35 results in almost as many clicks (and customers) as a bid of $0.55! This means you save 20 cents on each and every click! Remember, your ad doesn’t have to be displayed in the top position for it to be effective.

About The Author

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources, one of the fastest growing Directories on the web. Visit http://www.rlrouse.com and submit your URL!