What is the difference between a successful PPC campaign that earns a great ROI on your marketing investment and one that produces little, if any increase in sales? Here are five pay per click tips to ensure your campaign is effective.
1. Enough Keywords
While you may not have enough funds in your marketing budget to launch a full-scale pay per click campaign, don’t make the mistake of selecting only one or two PPC keywords to bid on. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to narrow down your selection to a couple phrases and expect to achieve maximum click-throughs.
Consider, as well, that if you select only the most popular keywords, the competition is going to be fierce and it is unlikely your site will reap any benefits. Try to find a good mix of popular and long-tail keywords and bid on as many as you can afford with your PPC budget.
2. Keyword Relevancy
Are you bidding on keywords because you think they are most representative of your content, yet none of your site’s pages contain those keywords? This is an issue of relevancy that will also effect your PPC quality score.
In this case, you may be getting click-throughs only to find that your bounce rate is increasing exponentially. That usually occurs because you’ve teased a visitor into coming to your site but not giving them the information they were expecting. The best practice is to ensure the landing page includes the same keywords you are bidding on as well as great sales copy to entice the visitor further.
3. Landing Page
Speaking of landing pages, have you considered whether or not you are directing click-throughs to the best page? Forget about taking the easy way out and simply using the URL of your website’s home page – it does not have the right keywords or the right type of customised copy.
Develop a unique landing page, or an entire micro site that is highly suitable to the keywords you are optimising. The largest majority of lost sales in a PPC campaign are due to the landing page not being relevant to the keywords or not including an easy-to-navigate call to action.
4. Geo-Targeting
It’s not a good idea to waste your pay per click ad campaign funds on internet users out of your reach. Some internet businesses are truly global, such as those that offer an ebook or other type of information product. But other companies, such as those selling a tangible product, usually limit sales to specific locations and in specific currencies.
If that is the case, there is no point paying for clicks originating in locations your company does not serve. Specify the details in your Google Adwords campaign to include only certain cities or countries in order to more effectively target your market.
5. Test And Test Again
Another common area where pay per click advertisers fail is by starting a campaign based on certain keywords with one or two ads and a landing page and then sticking with it until the end. Is this really the way to get the most ROI? Probably not.
It is better to develop several ads and landing pages and then test to determine the one that is most effective at driving sales. That’s another important point: don’t just examine the click-through rate, look at your landing page conversion rate as well.
These five pay per click tips are some of the most important to take into account when starting your pay per click campaign. Use them and achieve the greatest ROI for your marketing efforts.
About Sean Rasmussen
These are great tips Sean!
Having the right keywords and the appropriate landing page makes the difference between a profitable PPC Campaign and one that just empties your pockets.
And testing – it can sometimes take a while (and them some) trying to find those great keywords, killer ad and landing page. Continue testing and changing and sooner or later you will hit the right combination.
Testing, measuring and learning is the only way to go with PPC. Like you say Cemil, it does take time but can be very rewarding when you find something that works.
Sean – again such good advice.
When doing PPC I got the point where I was making between $3,000 and $4,000 USD per month. However it was costing me more than that through Yahoo, so I had to abandon it or face bankruptcy.
I spent an awful lot of time and effort trying to balance things out, but I found that I was not capable even with my five profitable sites of fixing things so that more money came in than went out.
So, I had to abandon it.
Your advice is sound and I am sure there is a way to do well in PPC, but I have left it for good. I spent an untold amount of time writing beautiful content and optimizing regularly and doing everything I could think of, but in the end it beat me.
However, I am not disputing your good advice. I just wonder if it is possible to ever become truly successful in this area without spending untold hours (which I did) keeping it all happening.
Thanks for this comment on PPC, Dobbs, I have found it very informative. It is great to hear independent and personal strories of these internet marketing processes. What the internet marketing world that I have seen so far lacks is a graphical summary of the different types of marketing and their risks and ROI’s and return-on-time’s. Given the huge number of choices we have by which we may market a product, which ones give us the most dollars per hour? And I know there are lots of variables which is invariably the excuse that the experts give for not doing this sort of thing.
PPC can be really expensive and worthless if you don’t know what you’re doing. Basic things like, reaching locations you don’t serve is such a waste of money. Thanks for the tips which might sound basic, but without them, can cost a lot.
I guess that’s what makes some people so good as PPC marketers. They get to learn exactly which specific aspects of the market to target. As with all things marketing, we need to find the best value for money, the best ROI.
Thanks Sean
Will bear this in mind if/when I get into PPC ads.I’m too worried about it at this stage.
I can understand the worry, Gee. Nearly all I have read about PPC includes some cautionary sentences. Obviously a lot of experts had their fingers burned before they became experts.
Hi Sean,
Some great tips there. I guess I would have fallen into the first trap and limited myself to just a few keywords to start with to save on costs. But it sounds like that would be saving at the wrong end. I will remember that when I start with Pay Per click again.
Renee I, too, would have focused on just a few key words until I read this PPC post.
Hi Sean,
These are all excellent tips. I am keen to give PPC a go and I will make sure I follow your advice. I’m looking forward to seeing how I do or if I lose my shirt.
It’s okay; I will specify a certain amount of time to run the campaign and I won’t spend more than I can afford to lose.
Jazz, I think it is a good idea to have a pre-planned written set of rules when operating a PPC process. Stick to the plan, don’t go silly when you have a win and the blood rushes to the head, don’t put in any more than you can afford to lose, budget, etc. I wouldn’t want to see you lose your shirt!
Hi Wal,
Thank-you for the advice. I think a written set of rules is a great idea. I’m used to making to-do lists, writing plans and writing down my goals, so this will really be just an extension of that. Thanks for reminding me not to let it go to my head when I make some money. I didn’t even think about that and it’s a possibility. So, I will definitely write a plan and stick to it.
Wow, Sean, this is the best one-page summary of Pay Per Click do’s and dont’s I have seen. Definitely a post to bookmark.
I don’t at this stage know which specific aspects of the market to target, nor do I have the sort of money You appear to need to start, so this is not something I will be doing again any time soon
Hi Sean
It sounds to me that the more one can learn about PPC the better. I would not venture into such a campaign until I knew what I was doing and could lessen the risk of losing money.
PPC has many similarities to stock market trading, as in you need to have a plan and stick to it, have a budget and stick to it and have a low risk strategy. Then you would need to test it out. I think I would like try some basic stuff first to attract traffic and SEO and get some experience with that.
Another great post thank you.