Three Helpful PPC Bid Management Techniques
June 11, 2008
When it comes to PPC (pay per click) advertising, it seems like the marketplace is getting continually more saturated and competitive, making it harder than ever to run a cost-effective campaign. This is true to some extent, but there are still ways to run a campaign that gets great ROI. Here are a few PPC bid management techniques you can utilize to do just that.
First of all, don’t get caught up in the moment and spend more than your budget allocates. This is probably the quickest and easiest way to erase any potential profit you might have brought in. PPC is a game of patience, and you must exercise it if you want to stick around long enough to reap the rewards. Remember that new players will always enter the game, and may get a bit carried away with their bids out of ignorance or lack of discipline. Don’t join in unless it is a very calculated decision. There are always fluctuations in the pay per click game, so you need to pick you spots.
The next bid management technique you should take into consideration is never bidding for the top spot. All too often, people want to feel the thrill of seeing their ad up there on the top spot of SERPs. But this is not financially realistic for most campaigns, and is a quick way to chisel away a good chunk of your margins. You need to let your ad sell your product or service, not the placement of your ad. Plus, consider that many people click on the top spot much more readily than the eighth spot. This means that you will be getting clicks from people who have no intent to purchase your product or service. Now you are playing a high price for low-quality leads, a double whammy. If you pay money for a click, you want that prospective customer to genuinely be interested in what you have to offer.
Another bid management technique that you can make work for you is bid jamming. Certain PPC services have a bid system that is public, allowing you to see the bids of all your competitors. If you have a very direct competitor, you can consider jamming their bid. Basically, PPC services operate similar to an online auction site. If you bid .25 per click, and the next closest competitor bids .13 per click, you will pay .14 per click not .25. So, if your competitor is bidding .25, you may want to bid .24 so that they pay full price for the bid. If you do, they may not be able to keep the top spot for as long.
These are some basic bid management techniques that can help you maximize ROI with your PPC advertising campaign. Remember that patience can go a long way to maximizing the efficiency of your PPC campaign. Don’t be afraid to wait for your moment, and then seize it when it comes.
PPC Management UK - What to Expect
June 10, 2008
Running your own PPC campaign is a really good strategy for maximizing sales with a little bit of focused online advertising. But if you just don’t have enough hours in the day to manage your campaign, you can utilize one of many PPC management services in the UK that will manage every aspect of your PPC campaign. The following is an overview of what to expect.
There are three basic features that PPC management companies offer. First, most will tout their ability to carefully research and choose effective keyword phrases that will form the backbone of your campaign. The results from varying companies should be similar, as they are viewing the same data. Most PPC management companies UK will try to get a nice and diverse mix of high traffic keywords and very specific phrases, creating diversity within your campaign and maximizing its success rate.
Secondly, the majority of PPC management companies will provide you the option of writing your own ads, or writing them for you. If you choose to have the company do it, they will likely charge by the keyword groups that your keywords are formulated into, as each will require a slightly different ad. This improves the relevance of your ads, and the chances that prospects will click on your ads. Perhaps more importantly, specific ads will increase your backend conversion rate once prospects are at your site.
Lastly, PPC management companies will offer to manage and track every aspect of your PPC advertising campaign and report these results back to you. This is probably the most valuable service to most companies, because it saves them so much time. Continually monitoring a PPC campaign and making the appropriate adjustments can be an extremely arduous and time-consuming task.
After taking these factors into consideration, you should determine if a PPC management service is a good fit for your needs. If you are conducting a smaller campaign, it will probably not be cost-effective to hire out a professional service. With a larger campaign, it may be worth it to save yourself valuable time. And, on a larger scale, you have a greater chance of offsetting these costs with increased margins. It is important to remember that a PPC management UK company will charge you for setting up your campaign, and then take a percentage of your monthly budget. If you can’t afford this double billing, then it may be best to run your own PPC campaign - something that is very doable.
Pay Per Lead vs. Pay Per Click
June 7, 2008
If you are like a lot of companies dependent on client leads to keep afloat, you may be noticing a trend from some of the lead generation companies out there. Not only are the leads expensive, but they aren’t as strong as they used to be. We are hearing this again and again from our clients who are shifting their budgets to crank up the stronger quality pay per click search leads.
A lot of lead generation companies are using pay per click search to gather their leads. They will then mark up the cost it took to acquire them, or they will send them to multiple vendors and the quality to you is often poor. If this is your problem, maybe it’s time you skip the middle man and go straight to the source.
Jumping into Pay Per Click isn’t just a matter of setting up a website and contact information. You can certainly get results doing that — we see it all the time. But to truly compete and drive your cost per lead down, you need some sophistication.
When you launch a paid search campaign, you need to realize that everything in your pipeline, from what keywords to appear on, what ads to run, where to send them, how to get them to take action, etc. — all of that can be managed and optimized. Let’s examine two of these areas.
Let’s start with your PPC ad copy. You can certainly just place an ad and let it ride, but with the PPC algorithms placing more and more importance on Quality Scores, you need to pay close attention to your ads. If you can’t conduct daily split testing on your ads because of the time and effort, then try outsourcing to a PPC management company. A good firm should be able to double or triple your click through rates.
Maybe that doesn’t sound important, but it is. Doubling and tripling your quality traffic can do the same for your number of leads. And, it can lower your costs per click in the process.
But don’t stop there, look at your landing pages (the pages where you send your pay per click traffic). Are the contact forms too busy or too buried? Is your phone number buried? There are ton of things you can do to convert leads at a higher rate.
Fine tuning your landing pages will lower your cost per lead. We’ve seen small changes double conversions and drop your costs per lead in half. So, tinkering is well worth the effort.
Making the jump to PPC search may not be in your company’s core competency. If not, then outsource to a PPC management company. Their experts can mine massive keyword lists, pull keywords from your competitors, conduct the necessary and vital daily split tests, and give you insight into better landing pages.
Ditching those weak, watered-down leads and going right to the source can help your business boost its results dramatically.
Keyword Research Is Important In a Google Adwords Campaign
June 5, 2008
So where do you begin to find information on the Internet? will the website you need just pop up just like that? How can you really find the website URL address?
The answer to all these questions is to do what everyone else does. Go straight to the search engines. You type in a word or phrase relating to whatever you want to know about and viola a number of websites come up, courtesy of the search engine.
These sentences and words you put into the search engine are better known as key phrases and key words. These are what will draw leads to your Adwords campaign when used correctly. The trick is to try to make sure these keywords are targeted to your special market. This will stop any useless traffic.
Choosing the right keywords is essential to the success of your campaign. so pay special attention to this part of your campaign. If you neglect this important facet of your campaign you will lose a lot of money. Pay per click means just that, you will be paying for every click through on your ad, regardless of whether they make a sale or not. A bad choice of keywords will merely bring wasted leads and drain your budget. When you run out of money you will be forced to terminate your Adwords campaign.
There are a variety of strategies you can use to find the correct keywords for your Adwords campaign. Try to understand what market will be interested in your product, and find out the needs and wants of your particular niche. In your ad explain benefits and remember to point your ad to the right audience.
Amass a number of keywords to attract potential customers. there are some good tools and tutorials to help you with your Google Adwords campaign at www.adwords.google.com
With the above tips you can create a lucrative Adwords campaign. Choosing the right keywords is the key to your success. When you spend a little time on your keyword research you will be able to make winning campaigns.







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