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Important Tips when using Pay per click search engines

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Pay per click basics:

A basic introduction to using PPC search engines for marketing

The basic goal of any webmaster is to have his or her website found by as many searchers as possible.

Any venture into online marketing involves two major tactics – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and PPC (pay per click advertising). SEO is the art of getting your website noticed and ranked by the major search engines so it can be found by organic (natural) search enquiries. This is discussed in more detail in other sections of this website.

PPC is the favored method used by many Web marketers because it usually guarantees immediate results. The aim of Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine marketing is to drive targeted traffic to your website and that’s exactly what it does if used correctly.

What is Pay Per Click Search Marketing?

A simple definition of Pay Per Click (PPC) is the placement of an ad on a search engine results page or web page that appears for specified keywords or key phrases. The advertiser pays a pre-determined price (or bid amount) whenever a visitor who lands on that page clicks on the ad you have placed there. That’s why they are termed “pay per click” because you only pay when the visitor clicks on your ad.

A PPC ad usually consists of a heading, a short summary and the URL which is the landing page you have selected.

Some PPC search engines strictly control and monitor the title and description you can use in your ad while others are more open to the type of ad you can place.

In some cases, once you have devised your PPC ad, decided on the amount you are willing to bid and lodged your application with the PPC search engine, your ad will appear within minutes, other PPC search engines may take a couple of days for your ad to appear. So unlike organic SEO, PPC marketing can generally give you immediate results.

How to Set Up A PPC Campaign

Your most important considerations in putting together a PPC campaign are how much you intend spending and what keywords you plan on targeting.

Obviously, the larger PPC search engines like Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and MSN have the widest coverage, so the cost for bidding on their keywords is going to be more expensive than if you try the smaller, niche PPC search engines.

Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) provides a free search tool that not only provides you with a wide range of keywords, but also a tool which indicates the current bidding price for those keywords. However, you'll find a better free tool here: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/. This tool will help you determine how many and which keywords you should plan on using in your campaign.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This free tool gives you a good ROUGH guide. It does not give you sophisticated, accurate research. For example, it combines singular and plural and also combines word order. It shows the same number of searches for "cheap books" and "books cheap", which is nonsense. You need to know which phrases people are REALLY using. For in-depth reviews of keyword research tools, see KeywordWorkshop.com.]

If you are new to the industry, it’s advisable to take it slowly to begin with. Set yourself a small budget and choose keywords that are well searched for and as cheap as possible.

The first step is to choose the PPC search engine you are going to use. You can choose from the “Big 3” - Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing or MSN, or one of the smaller PPC search engines.

When choosing your keywords, choose wisely (the more focused and targeted the better) and keep bids within your budget. Just because a keyword has the most searches does not necessarily mean it will be the most profitable.

For example: the keyword “batteries” might have a large number of searches, but it is too general. How do you know if the visitor wants the batteries your site is going to sell? More targeted keywords and phrases, even with fewer searches can be profitable. Example: the keyword “buy rechargeable AA batteries” is much more focused and more likely to result in a sale.

Tip: Do not target only keywords with the highest number of searches, especially if you are just starting out. These will be the most sought after keywords and phrases for PPC and they will cost you more to bid on them. Don't be afraid to use keywords from the middle, and even lower end on the list. Fewer click-throughs that convert to sales are much better than paying for a lot of click-throughs and fewer sales. Remember, you want quality targeted traffic.

The next step is to design and implement your ad. This will depend on the PPC search engine you have chosen. Incorporate your keyword or key phrase into the Title and if possible, either the main keyword or a secondary keyphrase into the description.
Create a number of versions of your ad so you can split-test them to see which one works most effectively. PPC Marketing requires a good deal of tweaking – especially when you are starting out – so tweak, test and monitor until you find the right word combinations that not only draw you visitors but make the sale.


Running a Profitable PPC Campaign

Your main consideration in running a successful PPC campaign is your return on investment (ROI). The ROI is calculated by working out how much you are making on the click-throughs (and purchases) from your PPC visitors minus the amount you are spending on advertising. If your ROI is low or worse still, negative, you have to tweak your ads to increase traffic or opt for less expensive keywords.

If you have chosen particularly competitive keywords and paid a premium for those words, you may have to consider keywords that are less competitive.

Your position in the search engine listings is determined by the bid price you have paid. Obviously, the more you are willing to pay “per click” the higher up in the search engine rankings you’ll be. The trade-off is that you need to have a high ROI to make the cost of your keyword bids worth it.
Most PPC search engines automate the bidding process so you only pay the maximum amount required to get you to the top of the search engine listings. However, it is imperative that you follow your own PPC campaigns to ensure you aren’t being out-bid or that the PPC search engine has declined your ad. (This can happen if your original maximum bid price becomes uncompetitive).

Once you have mastered the basics of running a PPC campaign and have discovered the various tools and software available to help you run a profitable campaign, you will be in a position to fine tune your campaigns.

Although PPC marketing is an effective and instantaneous way of generating targeted traffic to your site, it doesn’t work for everyone. Factors like the competition in your market, the cost per bid, the number of actual click-throughs you are getting and your return on investment (ROI) must all be factored into your results.

But when you consider that the only alternative is to wait for your site to be organcially listed and ranked by the major search engines, which could take anywhere from one day to three months or more, running a PPC campaign is certainly a more viable option.

IMPORTANT TIPS (PLEASE READ) THIS WILL HELP YOU ENORMOUSLY!!!

1. We simply tested our campaigns in other countries and found lots of
keywords were 30 to 80 cents cheaper when you tested them outside the
U.S. market in countries like Australia, Canada and Europe because
there is much less competition of advertisers. That being said, you
should seriously consider targeting your adwords campaign away from
USA.
Before testing a campaign, you obviously need to research if the
product or service you want to promote has an online demand. We would
consider 50-100 searches per day acceptable; we won’t need much
clicks to test the conversion of a product.
For that we use a Keyword suggestion tool:
Google suggestion tool (measures search volume and competition):
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2. Make sure the product you want to promote is
available for other countries (some companies don’t ship
internationally) so you won’t be wasting money on the campaign.
When you’re prompted to write the ad text, write the specific product
name or brand you are promoting. This is very important because the
internet has changed much and people are now looking for specific
products and prices online.
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Example: if you are promoting a Sony Playstation 3, you may want to
write an ad like this
Buy Playstation 3
20GB PS3: $499.99
60GB PS3: $599.99
www.ps3.com
*ad is an example only, not a real ad we conduct due to high volume
of competition
Notice we are using the word “Buy”, which means people will most
likely click the ad if they are interested in buying the Playstation
3. Also we include the price in the ad. That way if the customer has
seen a better price somewhere else, he won’t click on the ad because
he already knows your price and you won’t pay for that click. Showing
the price on the ad will help you save money on clicks generated by
shoppers looking for the best deal.
Also, we are displaying two prices because it is available in various
models, the 20gb and the 60gb so the user will see all the info
before hand.
Example 2: You can promote the most expensive model to get more
commission
Buy 60GB Playstation 3
Only $599.99
Free Shipping on Playstation 3
www.ps3.com
*ad is an example only, not a real ad we conduct due to high volume
of competition

3.
Find your keywords using the keyword suggestion tool. We recommend
you use exact match keywords as much as possible because they are
exactly what people search. To use exact match just add [ ] to your
keyword like this: [keyword]
Set your Max CPC (cost per click) and daily budget. Remember, we are
testing our ad first so try not to exceed your daily budget (we
recommend you start with $20) and a max cpc of $0.20 Which will bring
you approx. 100 clicks if the advertiser competition of your niche is
low to moderate. Remember that the standard conversion rate (convert
a visitor into a buyer) is 1% or less. We have found that advertising
specific products with specific prices increased the conversion rate
to 3% to 4% which is amazing! For every 100 clicks you should expect
to make at least a sale; so the product you are promoting should pay
you a higher commission than your daily budget in adwords. So if the
$599.99 Playstation 3 affiliate program pays you 6% you should expect
a commission of $36. That means you are up by $16.00 Not a great
deal but if you do this 10 times a day with 4 or 5 different
products, you can make a decent daily amount of money from home.

4. Actual Campaign We are running to this day:
We have a found a Multimedia software called Ahead Nero 7 Ultra
Edition Enhanced that gets about 60 searches per day in Canada and
converts very well. We are talking 5% to 7% conversion and cpc (cost
per click) is at approx. $0.14 to this date. The affiliate program
pays 10% through Commission Junction.
Our Actual Ad running in Canada :
Buy Nero 7 Ultra Edition
Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced
New 2007 edition $79.99
www.nero.com
Keywords we use for this campaign. We use Exact, phrase and broad
matches:
[buy nero 7]
[ahead nero 7]
[nero 7 ultra]
[nero 7 ultra edition]
[nero 7 ultra edition enhanced]
[buy nero software]
buy nero software
nero 7
nero burning software
“ahead nero”
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Negative keywords (prevents ads from showing to people looking for
free stuff or other info)
-download
-emperor
-free
-patch
-serial
-serial number
-trial
-crack
It is very important to use negative keywords (add a minus sign in
front of the keyword). Many people are looking for a trial download
which is to just try the products; hackers trying to unlock illegal
copies of the software with cracks, serial numbers and patches. We
want to “filter” all that traffic out from seeing our ads.

5. How to convert your Pay Per Click traffic into sales

Okay. So you've set up your PPC campaign, written what you think are provocative and powerful ads and your click through rate is steadily increasing, but your sales figures are zip, nada, zero. What's going wrong? Aren't PPC ads the way to draw lots of eager buyers to your website?

Perhaps its the website that's the problem, or more importantly, the landing page on the website.

If you have a fabulous website that is not drawing traffic, you don't have a business. Conversely, if you have loads of traffic and a lousy website, you also don't have a business - you have a money pit.

Important Note: A PPC campaign which brings you truckloads of traffic is only valuable if you can convert that traffic into sales.

How many times have you searched for a product, let's say "cheap cell phones" and you find a PPC ad that looks promising. You click on the link, only to be taken to the home page, which talks about all sorts of gobbledygook, is sprinkled with flashy affiliate links and Google AdSense ads, but makes no mention of cheap cell phones? You immediately click off the web page and the bloke who put the PPC ad up just lost himself another $0.55c (or whatever he or she paid for the click) and a potential paying customer.

When you create a pay per click campaign, you can send your customer exactly where you want them to go, and that's exactly what you should be doing.

In this case, your landing page should be focused on "cheap cell phones" and ONLY on "cheap cell phones".

If your ultimate aim is to direct your customer to a top-of-the-range cell phone, create a separate ad campaign with appropriate keywords and a specific landing page for that campaign. Sure, sprinkle in a few "teasers" about your top-of-the range-model and its incredible functionality on your cheap cell phones page, but don't dupe the customer!

If your PPC ad is about "cheap cell phones", your landing page should also be about "cheap cell phones". If your customer can find what they're looking for on your landing page, they'll stick around.

Next Important Point: Don't make your customer jump through hoops to find the information or product they are looking for.

The page your visitor lands on must be a logical and sensible continuation of what you are offering in your PPC ad.

If you have a product to sell, a free report to give away or a video tutorial you're offering, it should be front and center on your landing page. If it's an opt-in list you want, sure, ask for a name and email address, but don't make it any more difficult than that. Deliver the product immediately you've got what you want - it's a win/win situation for both of you. Your visitor gets his or her product, video or report and you get their email address.

You then have the opportunity to gradually coax them into purchasing your product or service with a series of friendly, supportive, sales-oriented emails that draw them gradually towards your ultimate goal - the sale.

Final Important Point: Pay per click ad campaigns can bring you lots of valuable, targeted traffic, but it's only valuable if you can convert that traffic to sales or leads.

And the key to converting leads to sales is all in the page you send your visitor to. Make it worth their while to have your visitor hang around.

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