Pay Per Click Advertising Guide

VodaHost · #1 06-02-2009, 05:15 PM

How to use Pay Per Click (PPC) adverting to promote your website!

Since the Internet has grown to support online businesses, the world of advertising has grown right along with it. Pay per click advertising is one of the advertising methods that came from this growth spurt. It is a way for advertisers to reach their target demographic through relevant ads placed on the right websites. When interested people see the ads and click on them, they are brought to the advertiser’s website.

Pay per click is mostly used on search engines, content sites (like blogs) and advertising networks. When ads are placed on content websites, the site owner gets paid each time a person clicks on the ad. Sometimes the advertiser also pays for each click, and this can get a little frustrating for the advertiser. A lot of people will click on their own ads or ask other people to click on them so they can make some money. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid this, but there is another option that the advertiser can choose.

There are 2 ways that an advertiser can pay for clicks. The above mentioned way is where they pay a certain amount for each click, which is called Flat Rate PPC. You can also choose what is known as Bid Based PPC. This one is a little more complicated, but worth it in the long run. Advertisers can bid for a search engine spot (kind of like an auction) and only pay a certain, pre-approved amount for each click.
There is more room for dishonesty and abuse in the Flat Rate PPC model, so many advertiser choose the Bid Based PPC model. However, some companies have taken steps to ensure that click fraud does not happen.

Pay per click advertising can be a good advertising method, especially for companies who want to target specific people. For example, if someone has a blog about gardening, and they have a lot of readers, it would be a good idea for a company that sells gardening supplies to place a PPC ad on that blog. Chances are that there will not be too many bogus clicks on this ad because it really is relevant to the readers of the blog.

PPC Advertising Checklist!

1.Set Goals for Cost per Conversion: Your PPC campaign will be profitable only if the total cost per conversion is lower than your break even point. Your goal should be to get most conversions with lowest cost per conversion. Good conversion may still lose money if the cost per click is too high.

2. Build Initial Keyword List: Use the available tools from Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing etc. to build an initial keyword list which contains all the keywords that you think anyone interested in your product will type in the search engines.

3. Build Initial Keyword Bid List: Determine what your conversion rate will be on the clicks you get from the keywords in your initial keyword list. This is just needs to be an educated guess at this point. After launching your PPC campaign, you will get the real data to replace your estimates. Determine the maximum amount you can pay for a particular keyword bases on your cost per conversion goal. You can calculate this by multiplying your cost per conversion goal with your estimated conversion rate. For example if your cost per conversion goal is $20 and you estimate a 2% conversion rate, you can afford to bid up to $0.40 ($20 x 2%) per click. Then use your PPC vendors tool to check that if you can buy the keyword for that amount or less, if yes, add it to your initial Keyword Bid List, and note the maximum bid amount. If not put it on a backup list.

4. Determine Landing page for each keyword: The landing page should be relevant to the keyword or phrase. Don’t give your home page as landing page for a specific keyword. If you are bidding on keyword phrases that do not correspond directly to any pages on your web site, create specific landing pages that speak directly to your ad copy, and direct users from that landing page to where you want them to go.

5. Write Ad Copy: Write ad copy for each keyword. In Google, you can write several ads for each. Try to include the exact keyword in the ad copy, which will generate higher click through rate.

6. Launch Ad Campaign and Analyze Results: After completing the above 5 steps launch your campaign: Generate reports every day. The report should include the keywords that are getting a lot of click but no/low conversions, keywords that are getting very high conversions, keywords that are getting no click and which ads are doing better if you are running multiple ads for some keywords.

7. Make Adjustments in your Campaign: Based on your analysis, adjust your campaign for better results. Change the copy of your ads, lower the bid amount or stop bidding for the keywords generating traffic but not results. Increase the bid amount for the keywords performing better than expected for higher placement which will drive more traffic.

8. Refine Keyword List: Remove unprofitable keywords and add new potential keywords which produces more profit.

9. Use date gathered from your PPC campaign in your SEO Campaign: After knowing exactly which keywords are driving traffic and converting into sales, your search engine optimization team can target that appropriate keywords in their campaign.

10. Continue Monitoring and Adjusting: Monitor your results, look for changes and adjust your campaign accordingly. New competitors may enter the market, bid prices many change, or users may start to search for more specific terms. If you are not monitoring, your campaign performance may come down. Run at least high-level reports weekly and detailed reports monthly.

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