Managing Keywords in a PPC Campaign

Once you have a PPC advertising campaign established, the work doesn’t end. In order to keep a campaign running smoothly, and make sure you are making the most profit possible, you will need to constantly make adjustments in a number of areas. A common area of focus will be keywords.

You will be using two different types of keywords. These are general, broad ranged keywords and the more targeted keywords.

General keywords are those that attract a large crowd of searchers for a certain topic but not necessarily a niche within that topic. For example a broad based keyword could be “home business.” This will attract a lot of searchers. However they may not be interested in your particular niche and you will get few sales or leads.

The targeted keywords however will draw much less traffic, but the traffic it does draw will have more interest in your specific product or service. This will lead to a higher sales conversion.

Now that you understand the basic types of keywords you will know how to manage this important area of your PPC advertising campaign. One of the main reasons a campaign is not doing well is often due to keywords. Bear in mind if a keyword is not performing well and just getting clicks with no sales or leads you are throwing a lot of money down the drain.

Make sure to keep a close watch on your keywords. By using software provided by the PPC engine, such as Google Adwords, you can track how much traffic each of you keywords is bringing to your site.

Another factor you need to look at is the conversion rate, or the number of clicks required to generate a sale. This ratio will be much lower for the broad keywords and much higher for the niche. Since you pay for each click you will need to evaluate the value of your keywords.

Next you will want to compare the price of your clicks against the number of sales generated per click. This will give you a good idea of your profits. If you feel a keyword is not performing well enough, you will want to make some adjustments to maximize your potential.

Keyword trends change. Searchers may look for one set of keywords at one point in time than change to another set later. This factor must be considered and you will need to monitor your keywords and check if they are pulling as well as they used to.

Any keyword that is not pulling a profit needs to be analyzed carefully. Poor performing keywords need to be evaluated, using the criteria mentioned above. If necessary you will need to adjust the keywords. Do not delete them as search trends may vary and make the keywords useful again. Instead try to pause them and if necessary replace the keywords for better ROI.

How to Track a PPC Ad Campaign

The tracking of various aspects of your PPC advertising campaign is a crucial part of your campaign management. It will help you assess the strengths of your campaign including which keywords are guiding people to your site and which draw the most sales. Here we will discuss some ways of tracking your PPC campaign statistics.

Using the PPC engine tracking system is a good way to track your PPC advertising campaign keywords. It will show you how much traffic each keyword is bringing in. This is important because you can judge the value of each keyword in this way.

Some software at the PPC engine will allow you to track sales conversions. This shows you how many clicks will produce a sale. You will be able to assess how much it costs to make a sale. In this way you will be able to know how well each keyword is performing. You can adjust bidding prices and keywords according to the results you are getting.

Website stats are a good way to see how much traffic is coming to your website. You can also see which page visitors are coming to more frequently and how long they are staying. This helps you to monitor your campaign in greater depth. It will also show any sales that have been made and when the visitor came to your sales page.

Your campaign’s landing pages are a perfect example of a page of which you would want to track the stats. From these statistics you will get an indication of traffic coming in and the amount of sales. If you have a separate landing page for each campaign, you will have a clear idea of which campaigns are more effective.

A vital part of tracking your PPC advertising campaign is recording your results. By simply creating a spreadsheet you will be able to record dates and times of traffic and sales conversion. By keeping a history like this, you will be able to see how any tweaking of your campaign has affected your bottom line.

Tracking your PPC advertising campaign is very important and you need to know what is available to you. Google Adwords has great tools and tutorials on this subject and more. Before you start your PPC advertising campaign, it is wise to read through all the tutorials carefully. Other PPC engines also have information. They also have staff to offer you help setting up and managing your PPC advertising campaigns.

You may eventually come to realize that you have time to invest in tracking the results of your PPC advertising campaign. Or perhaps you are still lost as to what to do. In this case, you may want to look into a PPC management service. These professionals will help you manage and optimize your campaign, for a price of course. Before signing up with a service make sure to research them extensively and compare to other companies. A quality company can help take your profits to a new level.

The Benefits of Split Testing

In order to create the most successful PPC campaign possible, you will need to experiment with your ads, keywords, landing pages and sales pages. A valuable tool in testing the performance of your campaign is split testing.

Different sets of keywords can be tested by using two identical PPC advertising campaigns. The only thing that will be different is the keywords. You can monitor both campaigns to see which one will perform best.

What are the methods involved in split testing? First you will create two ads which both promote the same product. As you monitor the efficiency of each ad you will continually make adjustments to the weaker performer until it is more effective than the first ad. You will then use other ads and repeat this process until you have an ad which you feel is the strongest performer. This will be the ad which you want to use for your campaign.

By examining not only your ads and keywords, but also your landing and sales pages, split testing can help you make your PPC campaigns much more successful.

Using a similar process as that used to split test ads, you can also split test the landing pages and sales pages of your PPC campaigns. Start by creating two separate pages. Then direct half of your traffic to each page. After analyzing your sales conversions you will be able to clearly see which page is more effective. Then by making changes to the weaker page, eventually you will have a page which outperforms the first page. As you continue this process you will create the best page possible for your final campaign.

So what are the benefits of utilizing split testing in your PPC campaign management? It will help you optimize your campaign’s ad which will also optimize your profits. The same is true for your landing page and sales page, which can destroy your PPC advertising campaign if not done properly.

If you want your split testing to be as effective as possible, you will need to have high quality ads to begin with. To create well constructed ads, you will want to have a catchy headline, a body that lists two benefits and a call to action which compels the reader to click the link that will direct them to your sales page.

There is software available which can make split testing your PPC advertising campaign simpler for you. This can be a valuable tool if you are managing multiple PPC campaigns and don’t have the time to go through this process for each of them yourself. However, if you have only one or two campaigns to manage, it is recommended you follow the steps mentioned manually.

While split testing a PPC advertising campaign will take a lot of your time, it is a crucial part of your campaign management. By finding the weaknesses of your campaign you will create a bountiful reward in the form of larger profits. Often times changing just a few words can mean the difference between a successful campaign and a less profitable one. The first main focus of your testing should be your headline. Since this is the first impression to a potential buyer, your headline should be as strong as possible.

Knowing The Competition

When managing your PPC advertising campaigns it is very important to know what your competition is doing. This will give you an indication as to what keywords are being used and how your competition is bidding. You can also build on your competitors’ successes and learn from their mistakes.

You can learn from competitors in a number of ways. Firstly you can check on the keywords they are using. There are software programs that can tell you this. If you run a number of campaigns, or are selling a popular item, you may want to invest in this software. Once you are aware of the keywords competitors are using you can try them out and add variants.

Secondly you can also see what sort of bids they are doing on important keywords. Once you know this you can have an idea of what to bid on these keywords yourself in order to get a good position for your ad. It is important to bid competitively but not to indulge in price wars. You should always bid within your budget. If you are getting out bid on certain keywords use variants that are not so expensive but will still bring in sales.

Examining your competitors’ ads can be quite an eye opener. Google ads allow you to do this with their preview tool. You can also take a look at the little Google ads on the search pages that your main keywords bring up. Areas to look for are; headlines, benefits and of course the call for action. You should never copy and paste your competitors’ ads, just use them to get ideas and a feel of how to create a pulling ad. When you look through a number of them through the eyes of a buyer you will soon see which ones would make you buy the product.

The final thing I recommend looking at is the competition’s landing pages. By following the links in their ads, you can get a good sense of quality layouts and presentation as well as the benefits and bonuses being offered.

Looking at what your competitors are doing with their campaigns should help to inspire you with ideas for your own. With these new ideas combined with your own original ideas in your arsenal, your PPC advertising campaign can be reborn as a much stronger incarnation of itself. A successful manager knows the importance of keeping up with their competitors and making improvements accordingly. No matter how great your campaign is, there is always room for improvement.

For those of you who may be feeling a bit skeptical about this, thinking it is a bit underhanded, I give you this. If you think your competition isn’t out there doing the same things we discussed here, you are wrong. Anyone who runs a successful PPC advertising campaign knows the importance of keeping tabs on the competition. There is no better way to learn a campaigns strengths and weaknesses.

PPC Ads Require Adjusting and Optimizing

When you manage a PPC advertising campaign, you will need to constantly tweak it in order to maximize your profit. The following will explain in depth the three major areas which you will need to tweak in order to keep your campaign running smoothly.

The first aspect of your PPC advertising campaign which will need tweaking are the keywords. Since keywords are crucial to the success of your campaign they will need to be adjusted quite often to keep them optimized. The trends of searchers change frequently so you will need to weed out poor performers and add new words to replace them and broaden your horizons.

Your bidding will also play a crucial role in your PPC advertising campaign and hence should be analyzed and adjusted as needed. A high bid on a strongly performing keyword is vital to maximize your profits as it will get a better position for your ad. If you see a keyword which is bringing in decent sales from a low position you should almost definitely bid stronger on that keyword. Another good idea would be to add similar keywords to your list.

Along these same lines, a poor performing keyword in a high position can be devastating to your campaign. This is basically wasted money. You will want to lower the bid to save some money or possibly even put a truly poor keyword on pause and use another keyword.

Your ads in your PPC advertising campaign are also important. Many people set up the ads and leave them, not realizing they are giving up profits by doing this. They concentrate on keywords and bids without paying attention to the ad. A simple way to adjust an ad to make it produce optimum profits is to split test it. You can then use the best performing ad and make more sales. Split testing can be done over and over again until you get an ad that is giving you the best profits.

Landing pages can also be adjusted. You can do this by split testing, using more than one landing page for a campaign. The success of your campaign is also determined by landing pages and sales pages. It is no good having a great campaign if it is not pointing to a pulling sales page. Similarly you can split test any sales pages that your campaign is pointing to.

Recording all adjustments and results is a critical part of tweaking and optimizing your PPC advertising campaign. You can do this on a program like Excel and put all the details on a spread sheet. This is how you will determine what adjustments are working and which ones should be replaced. When you keep a record of these details you will save your time and get better results.

Using Split Testing to Check the Usefulness of Your Ads

Split testing is a useful technique for checking the performance of your ads and campaigns. You can use this technique for testing ads and different sets of keywords. You can also use it for testing sales pages and landing pages.

To test different sets of keywords, you can create two PPC advertising campaigns in which the only difference is the keywords used. By monitoring the performance of each campaign you will be able to judge which keywords are more effective.

What are the methods involved in split testing? First you will create two ads which both promote the same product. As you monitor the efficiency of each ad you will continually make adjustments to the weaker performer until it is more effective than the first ad. You will then use other ads and repeat this process until you have an ad which you feel is the strongest performer. This will be the ad which you want to use for your campaign.

Remember that you can use split testing for more than just the ads and keywords of your PPC advertising campaign. It can also be helpful testing your sales and landing pages also.

Landing pages and sales pages can be split tested just like ads. You make two landing pages or sales pages linked with a PPC advertising campaign. Half the traffic will go to one landing page and the other half to the second landing page. You can check which landing page converts more traffic to sales. The second landing page will be adjusted so that it will outperform the first one. You can then use the highest converting landing page for your final campaign.

Why should it be part of your PPC campaign management? Split testing allows you to perfect your campaign ad so that you can get the most profits from your PPC ad campaign. A landing page or sales page should also have optimum performance or your PPC advertising campaign will be wasted.

Ads should be well constructed to do this. Usually the PPC ads will be designed like classified ads. There will be an eye catching headline, a body made up of two benefits and a strong call for action with a link to your sales page.

There is software available which can make split testing your PPC advertising campaign simpler for you. This can be a valuable tool if you are managing multiple PPC campaigns and don’t have the time to go through this process for each of them yourself. However, if you have only one or two campaigns to manage, it is recommended you follow the steps mentioned manually.

Split testing your PPC advertising campaign will take a lot of time, but the rewards are definitely worth it in the end. By changing just a few words in your ads you can possibly turn your whole campaign around. If nothing else, headlines should definitely be tested as they are one of the most important factors in pulling in potential customers.

Saving a Failing Ad Campaign

Things don’t always go as we plan them in life, and the same is true for ad campaigns. If you have a campaign which is falling short of your performance goals you will need to look at the specific areas of the campaign and make changes quickly to minimize your losses.

The 3 most likely problem areas are: keywords, bidding, and ads.

The first thing you will want to look at will be your keywords. By using the PPC engine’s tracking systems, you can track which keywords are successful and which are coming up short. Once you have identified the poor performers, something will obviously need to be done about them.

There may be a few reasons why a keyword would not be performing well. First, the keyword might not be specific enough. What this means is that while it may be bringing traffic, it is generating few leads or sales. If people are drawn to your site but not interested in your product, you may need change the keyword to something a bit more targeted.

The next reason for a poor performer could be a change in trends. What this means is that searchers have changed the keywords they use to search for a product or service. If this is the case, you will have to replace the poor performer with a keyword that is currently used more frequently.

Next we will look at bidding. Bidding is important as it will determine both the position and cost of your ad. You won’t want to waste money by bidding too highly on a poor performer. At the same time you want good positioning on stronger keywords. By increasing a bid on a strong performer in a lower position, you can improve your sales conversion performances.

By examining your sales conversions you can analyze just how effective a keyword is and establish a suitable amount for your maximum bid. By looking at the number of clicks required to make a sale and subtracting the cost of the total clicks from the value of the sale, you can determine your profit. This is very important because you want a campaign that is profitable rather than losing you money.

Finally we come to ads. If your ads can’t pull people to your site, no matter how great your keywords are your campaign will fail. You should be sure to utilize split testing with your ads in order to ensure they achieve their maximum potential.

A failing PPC advertising campaign can be fixed but you will need to go through each of the above areas to do it. Attention to detail is the key to success and you will need to go through your campaign methodically. You will need to record all adjustments and replacement keywords. This does take time but is well worth it.

Although these steps can help you turn your campaign around there is also an easier option available if you are unsure of what to do or you don’t have the necessary time to perform these evaluations. There are services which will manage your PPC advertising campaign and help return it to optimal working order. These services can save you a lot of time and the increase in profits will easily offset the price.

Maintaining Your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign

You’ve finally gotten your campaign off the ground. Keywords have been researched and bid on, synonyms and relevant words taken advantage of, and you’re set up for the next six months. Now, how do keep things working properly? Pay per click campaign management is an important skill that many people forget about.

While it would be nice to set up your campaign and just let it run by itself, that won’t work. You’ll have to track each of your ads and its activity to see how efficient and productive it is. There are plenty of ways to do this.

AdWords offers tools that’ll help you calculate what percentage of traffic an ad brings in. You can use tools provided by your web host to find out which ads brought in traffic that actually led to sales. Remember – no web spider ever bought a product.

So why go through this extra hassle? This is because, if your ad is not performing well, it is costing you money, and will not bring in profits. In other words you are paying for useless traffic. Even if no sales are made you will still be paying for each click.

Do not give up hope there are ways to fix ads that are not doing well. Check its position. It should appear within the first 5-10 pages of the search results. If this is alright then your next step is to check your keywords.

People’s first choice is a popular keyword. They feel they will get lots of traffic by using these types of keywords. The problem is that most of these popular keywords are not targeted to your specific market. They are the ones that searchers use initially but will not always be the ones they should be using.

That means that people using these keywords are often not sure what they’re looking for. They’ll look at a lot of sites before they buy. Good keywords are general enough to be searched for by someone who’s not sure what they’re looking for, but specific enough to reach the audience that will buy your product or service.

Consider searching for your own keywords to see what pops up. You might be surprised by the other sites that have chosen the same keywords you have. Take a look at the top competitors for a word and analyze their sites to see if they’re in line with what you want to be associated with. If you seem out of place in a set of search results, it might be time to change your strategy a little. Remember, a bad keyword is only costing you money!

Detailed monitoring will let you know which keywords are performing well and which ones are failing. You will know which ones should be replaced and the ones that should stay. With good selections of keywords you can end up with ads that are very profitable. When you monitor your pay per click campaigns you will set yourself up for success.

The Most Common PPC Advertising Mistakes

Because it allows you to target prospects specifically by interest and location, pay per click advertising, or PPC, is one of the best options available. You can measure results precisely, and control ad spending, too. It’s also more affordable for small business owners than many other options, including billboards, television and radio.

Of course, like any other form of advertising, PPC has its pitfalls. Launching your first ad campaign without a good plan could result in hundreds or thousands of dollars in wasted ads while you learn what to do and what not do to. There are whole books on the details of a good pay per click campaign out there.

Starting up is easy enough, anyone can get involved without having to sit down with a manual for a few days. There are a few basic tips, though, for anyone thinking about experimenting with pay per click it’s a good idea to examine them close. The majority of mistakes are really easy to fix so that PPC campaigns can get back on track fast. This is a small list of the most common mistakes people make, and how to fix them.

1. The most common error is using your home page as the landing page. It doesn’t matter what search engine you’re using as a base for your campaign. While it seems logical to send prospective sales to your website’s homepage, it can detract from your sales. Here’s how.

People who click on your ad are looking for something very specific. It was their keyword search that brought them to your ad, so lead them straight to the sale when they click. Landing pages work, they allow you to present your customers with exactly what they’re looking for. Focus your landing pages on keywords you’re using in your advertisements.

2. Improper customization of landing pages. Ideally, your PPC campaign should work by presenting a potential customer with an ad closely targeted to their keyword. The landing page they arrive at should be closely geared towards that keyword, to present no confusion as to what the page is about. Your customer should never have trouble finding what he or she is looking for! Put each product or service on its own landing page, to avoid confusion.

Mistake 3. Using ineffective ad copy that just doesn’t suit. You don’t have a lot of space to work in PPC ads. Try to look for impact from your ad copy and avoid old clichs that you see on store windows like “qualified technicians” or “quality guaranteed”. Even if these statements are true about your business, they just don’t work in pay per click advertising. Put some thought into an attention-grabbing headline and follow it up with a strong promise you can give your customers. Line three is a good spot to include special features of the product or service, or an offer you want to make.

4. Low bid placement. All search engines use their own methods for determining where to put your ad. Yahoo and Google use a combination of the relevancy of your ad, and your bid price. One big mistake that many people make is not tightly targeting keywords enough to get top placement. As much as eighty-five percent of all PPC clicks happen on ads in one of the top three positions. If you can’t focus your ads tightly enough to get that top spot, you’re missing out on a lot of traffic.

Making PPC Advertising Effective

Advertising your products and services using a PPC (pay per click) campaign can be one of the most effective methods of spreading the word about your business. However, it’s vital to do this with a good plan, since doing it wrong could actually end up costing you money. Paying attention to all the details will result in a more effective PPC campaign, and will allow you to avoid all the pitfalls. Here are some great PPC tips to help you get all the benefits of this advertising method, without the downsides.

Step one is picking the right keywords. Most people think it’s best to choose an extremely common keyword. This couldn’t be further from the truth – a common keyword may get you a lot of clicks, but it’s hard to get, requiring a higher bid. On top of that, people clicking on a more general keyword are less likely to buy, since they’re probably just starting their search. The best way to get a wide, appropriate audience for the lowest cost is to use a targeted keyword phrase, also referred to as a long tail keyword.

Search Google or another search engine that will give you a few ideas to try with your own PPC campaign. Specific phrases or keywords allow your campaign more latitude and using some of the available tools for AdWords is a great assistance when trying to find out what works. You can test your keywords this way or just try seeing where you score on a Google search.

Even the best key words will not save a poor advertising, though. You have to a have a catchy or enticing headline to interest a potential customer and that will also encourage him or her to click and find out more about your site. Avoid clicks that don’t lead to sales by making sure your advertising has an accurate description of your product or services. When you are certain you already have the best keyword list you can start to design your advertising.

Your advertising copy should have a sense of urgency as well as the benefits of the products and services you offer. Letting your customer know that by responding to the ad and making a purchase will get them a special deal always acts as a sweetener. Limited time offers are an excellent choice also.

Many people click advertising sites that are first on a search page. It could result in more sales or even a visitor just accidentally clicking on the search engine. Focusing on a great advertising campaign that targets your potential customers is a good idea. Being the highest ranking ad on a search page is good too, but you have to make sure that your advertising has all the information and facts otherwise you might not get the sale.

Benchmark your campaigns by having a look at what your competition is doing. If something is working for them then keep up with them. Direct copying of someone else’s work is a mistake, so adapt their campaign and look to improve on it again. After all, you don’t want to spend your life following in line. There are also benefits in looking at people’s bad advertising. This will help ensure you don’t do what they did.

When it comes to PPC advertising there are no guarantees. Reaching the right customer for your campaign is the key to your success. With your insights, knowledge and suitable changes, your marketing campaign will be right on track. And, you will find you are reaching out to the right customer and making more sales.

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