Starting Small with Pay-Per-Click will Pay Off

[thejenn]

Authored by: Jennifer Laycock

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/005931.html

A Snippet:

"Smart business owners take the time to learn more about how pay-per-click advertising works before getting started, but even thorough research into pay-per-click techniques can leave a company without the knowledge they need to make good decisions."

[vicci3450]

Hi, all. Yes, I found this article rather interesting, since I've been trying to consume as much info as I can on PPC. I did find that when I restricted my campaign to just the "search" and not the "content", I was able to reduce my costs considerable. But, I'm still trying to tweak my ad campaigns -- to get a return.

And I thought I would just stick with one PPC engine until I started to see a return on my product, then expand outward. Your thoughts.

[thejenn]

Everything you just said.

Good plan.



Seriously. Starting off with one engine and restricting it to search is a great way to test the waters and learn how to fine tune things. Then, once you start to see some positive returns, you can start expanding your campaign out to different phrases, to the content realm and to other engines.

[BBB]

I've been running various adwords campaigns for months. I have not been able to break through on the conversion side. I create ads that are concise, and precise. They are quite direct. I just simply have not started to make the "big bucks." I am regularly optimizing - reworking the ads, adding and deleting key words. Bottom line...I can create traffic - that's not a problem - I can get on the first page, yet my conversion rate is lousy.

Any advice?

[Logan]

Welcome to the forum BBB

When I encounter your situation, I find it is a good time to step back and evaluate my offer against the competition. Go thru every site on the first page of results you are competing against. Both natural rankings and adwords listings. Also do the same in Yahoo, MSN & AOL. With a very critical and objective eye, go thru each site and make a list of what they offer and how they compete. It can be helpful to lay it out in a chart and rate each site based on presentation, features, benefits, pricing, quality, features. For example, how many offer free shipping? Do you? What are their prices? VS yours? Do they provide added services? Return policies? guarantees? etc.

Make a chart that lists out all of the competitive factors and then rate each site based on these. Then rate your own. You may want to involve others also to provide alternative perspectives and some objectivity.

With that info in hand your mission is to make your web site offer far superior to all others.... then continue to monitor it as nothing stays the same. If sales go down in the future, has the competition changed? How about their pricing or offer? Usually that will tell the story based on my experiences.

[karnetics]

off_subject:
What are some good ppc programs??

[gilmorejay]

Hey all,


On the idea of pay-per-click, there are some good reasons to do it and some hints to make it successful from Marketing Guru and Change Agent, Seth Godin in his eBook Knock Knock (direct link to the file) or check out his original post at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_b...book_1_no.html.

It sold me on PPC and more importantly altered the way I design pages on a "website" to provide the information being sought as specifically as possible to encourage conversions.

All the best,

Jay
PS: this eBook changed my whole business model for web development.

[StupidScript]

(Caution: Excessively long post alert ... )

As in all marketing strategies, the more you know your customer the more your efforts pay off. It also critical that you have a clear view of what exactly you are bringing to the table.

In addition to using some of the excellent tips above to evaluate your site and its competition, PPC campaign development can provide some important insight into your customer's goals and preferences and can help, in turn, improve your understanding of how and why your website is delivering as it is.

It is an excellent idea to begin with a low daily budget limit and a few ads resitricted to search-only results. Monitor the ads' performance closely, and give a little time for changes to be accurately reflected. For example, if you change a headline in a Google AdWords ad, it is important to give it a week or so without further changes in order to allow its position and cost-per-click (CPC) to stabilize. If the position and CPC are in flux, it is more difficult to analyse the ads' performance accurately.

Over time, you will learn to "read" your customers' responses to the ads; what kinds of phrases they respond to as a result of which kinds of search strings.

To transfer this knowledge over to making your website more effective, first look (as suggested above) at the landing pages that the visitor first sees after clicking on your ad. Is the message a continuation and expansion of the ad's promise? Is the transition from the search environment to your site's energy flow relatively seamless, or is it an abrupt change in tone and/or message?

The idea is to create a smooth flow that builds the trust relationship you are establishing with your customer ... from ad click through product delivery and support. If there's a kink at any point in the developing relationship's delicate thread it can have an immediate impact on that sales channel's performance.

Once you are satisfied that your learning about your customer in the search-only environment is moving along well, try adding a separate campaign using similar ads and terms (but not the same terms) and open it up to content-only. Take some time to learn about the different sort of customers you will find in that channel. Then, as you become more confident in how your changes to campaigns will affact your customer relationships, perhaps select some of the search-only ads for display on content networks, and vice versa, as you feel they would benefit from your new understanding of your market.

It's tricky to learn about one market while simultaneously attempting to learn about a distinctly different market. That is why I suggest separating your learning experience in this way. Learn what you can do to satisfy the different market needs while doing your best to provide a product that is true to your strengths.

It's a great feeling to know that you are understanding your customers, and to have ideas you can implement on your site that really do make a positive difference as a result.

Jay: Great book reference. It's fascinating.

[floridalimey]

During the West Nile Virus scare three or four years ago, we tried to go after the SE traffic for insect repellents which was being generated by the fuss. One week and five thousand dollars in PPC later, we realized that additional sales had produced under ten percent of that cost. The PPC traffic produced was almost entirely for the information content we offered, including some middle and high school classes whose teachers had used our click-throughs as the starting point for student homework assignments. People loved the information, but sales were disappointing.

Over the last couple years, our Content advertising generated less than half as many conversions as equivalent Search click-throughs. After discontinuing the Google Content advertising around two months ago, we have noticed only a minor drop in sales while saving around 50% in PPC costs on Google. As winter is our slow season anyway, that makes a big difference while we await next spring and the busy season. Smaller sales/cost PPC margins acceptable during the busy season usually deteriorate and may become losses during the slow periods. So especially if your market is seasonal, constant review and refinement of your PPC campaigns is a must!

So while now I feel fairly comfortable with my Google and Overture/Yahoo PPC, anyone have suggestions for success on Froogle, Miva, or other "shopping" engines? I am ready to start SMALL with these now as suggested in the article, to refine and optimize ready for next spring.

This is my first post, so please be gentle . . . .

[Robert]

Originally Posted by floridalimey

This is my first post, so please be gentle . . . .

Friendly and gentle is our specialty.

Be sure and set up a signature file so your site name and address is included with your posts. You can find info on that here:

http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/fo...hread.php?t=56

Oh, and welcome to the forum!