New Tips For Running Successful PPC Campaigns

September 9, 2009

by Dan Boyle

You’ve probably heard of some of the most common keyword tools: Overture, Wordtracker and AdWord Accelerator… all are of course reputable tools and good for sorting out your keywords, your competition, bid prices and narrowing down your best performing ads to help with PPC management.

There are tons of others available, many seem to be popping up every day which has tools and features which make then unique from those above and just as helpful to have.

Two include- AdWord Analyzer and Keywords Analyzer (www.AdwordAnalyzer.com and www.KeyWordAnalyzer.com).

Of course having one keyword tool is great, but to get the best results from your PPC campaigns, its really helpful to have a variety as each offers a different twist for your management.

Think about keyword tools as if they were kitchen knives… you can’t use a butter knife to dice an onion and you can’t use a steak knife to spread jelly on your toast, you need a door full of different knives to be efficient, same goes with PPC Management.

It’s true that when it comes down to putting together your keywords and trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t there is always more to learn. For example, no matter how long your first list of keywords is, it’s still not done.

As much as you would like it to stay stable, the searches that people do are always changing thanks to fads, trends and news. AltaVista once stated that 20% of people’s searches were unique to their history… keywords are ever changing.

Below youll find todays newest ideas for having your PPC Management be successful:

1. Synonyms and similar/related topics and ideas are a must have on your keyword list. Having synonyms on the list helps you to better reach the group of people that you are after.

2. Bid on brand names if allowed. You might have to work with copyright issues because Google is stretched thin with lawsuits and legal issues as a results of allowing Adword users bid on trademarked names. But it still remains a fact that company names, magazines, celebrities and other high profile people, famous places and other brand names may relate and help your product.

Here’s an example. If you product has to do with cooking maybe bidding on “Paula Dean” or “Cuisinart” might be helpful.

3. Misspellings. Most advertisers either don’t think to use misspelling for their keyword list or they just don’t bother with them. But internet users often misspell and they will normally have a higher click through rate because no one else is bidding.

4. Other helpful places and features: LexFN.com is a site that is great for PPC management. Its basically a huge thesaurus that uses the web to find you synonyms and related ideas.

I like just playing around on it because it’s interesting to see what it can come up with.

Google will assist you even once you have your campaign up and going. It’s “expanded phrase matching” works to go beyond what you’ve entered and find other variations of your generic keyword. For example, the term “workout”, google will also recognize “work out” for you, but it’s often cheaper to just go ahead and bid on all the versions so google isn’t working harder than it wants to.

About the Author:

The Newest Ideas For Successful PPC Management

September 7, 2009

by Dan Boyle

You are probably familiar with the popular keyword tools such as Overture and Wordtracker, you might have even heard of AdWord Accelerator. All are great for sorting out the keyword competition, bid prices and narrowing down the best ads you have performing to help with your PPC management.

There are tons of others available, many seem to be popping up every day which has tools and features which make then unique from those above and just as helpful to have.

Two examples now available are: Adword Analyzer and Keywords Analyzer (more info at www.AdwordAnalyzer.com and www.KeyWordAnalyzer.com).

Sure having one keyword tool is good, but to get great PPC campaigns up and management at it’s best it’s better to have a variety of tools.

Think about keyword tools as if they were kitchen knives… you can’t use a butter knife to dice an onion and you can’t use a steak knife to spread jelly on your toast, you need a door full of different knives to be efficient, same goes with PPC Management.

When it comes to analyzing and putting together your keywords, it seems as if you cant learn enough. And its true, there is always more to learn. For one part, the first list of words, no matter how long it is, is not done.

Its because you never know what people are going to search for as new trends, facts, and fads come around. AltaVista at one point reported that 20% of its searches were 100% unique in its history. So keywords are an ever changing list.

Below youll find todays newest ideas for having your PPC Management be successful:

1. Synonyms and similar/related topics and ideas are a must have on your keyword list. Having synonyms on the list helps you to better reach the group of people that you are after.

2. Brand names are a good idea to bid on… if allowed. Google is pretty pressed at the moment with legal matters because they had allowed Adword users bid on trademarked names easily, so now you mighthave to work with copyright issues. But it is still extremely helpful to use company names, popular magazines and books, profile names and celebrities that is related to your product.

Here’s an example. If you product has to do with cooking maybe bidding on “Paula Dean” or “Cuisinart” might be helpful.

3. Misspellings. Most advertisers either don’t think to use misspelling for their keyword list or they just don’t bother with them. But internet users often misspell and they will normally have a higher click through rate because no one else is bidding.

4. A few other helpful features to end on: LexFN.com is a great help with your PPC management. It’s simply a monstrous thesaurus that uses the web to find words that are synonyms and other related terms.

Its actually a pretty cool site just to play around in and see what comes up.

Google helps once youve put in your words. If you bid on an obvious generic version of a keyword like get a six pack and you dont deal with other variations like get a 6 pack or get a six-pack, Googles expanded phrase matching will help you. But its often cheaper just to go ahead a bid on the exact keywords because youre making Google not have to work as hard to help you out.

About the Author:

Improve ROI with Good Management

June 18, 2009

by Brian Basch

ROI stands for return on investment and this is one of the basic things that you will need to monitor when you run a PPC advertising campaign. A good campaign will bring you a high ratio of ROI for the amount of money you are spending on click through.

By utilizing good managerial skills, you can maximize your ROI. Remember, a neglected campaign will eventually stop performing. Trends change, and in order to make money from your campaign, you need to keep up with those trends.

There are 3 areas that need to be managed in a PPC advertising campaign; keywords, bidding and your actual advertisement. Keywords can be tracked by the PPC engine software. Google has particularly good tools for doing this. Bidding can also be checked with these tools. Your ad can be split tested to ensure maximum performance.

ROI is all about how well keywords are converting to sales and how much you are spending per click. This will be your profit and ROI. PPC advertising campaign management will make sure that you get the maximum ROI.

In order to find this out you must calculate the amount of clicks it takes, on average, for a keyword to produce a sale. This will often range from 1% to 5% depending on how effective your campaign is. This means that you will make between 1 to 5 sales per 100 clicks. Next you must see how much 100 clicks are costing you. For example $1 per click will be $100 but 5c a click will only cost $5 per 100 clicks.

Lastly you will add up the amount you will make when you make a sale. If you are selling digital products you will make close to 100% of the profit from the product. With hard goods you will need to take out the cost of the product plus drop shipping fees or shipping and handling. Once you have calculated the profit from the sale, you will then subtract the cost of the clicks needed to make the sale. This will be your ROI.

Although PPC advertising campaign management can be quite time consuming, it is necessary if you want to achieve an optimized ROI. Keywords will need to be analyzed to make sure they are in the correct position for their performance. A strong performer which is currently in a low position should probably be moved up in position to achieve more sales and profit. On the other hand, a weak keyword in a high position is wasting money. It will need to be dropped in position or put on hold all together.

By keeping track of your campaign you will be able to achieve a maximum ROI. All it takes is a bit of time and attention to succeed. If you do not work on your campaigns you will be losing potential for profit and essentially losing money. So if you want to really succeed with your PPC advertising campaign, you need to manage it.

About the Author:

Tracking Your PPC Campaign

June 17, 2009

by Brian Basch

A large part of PPC advertising campaign management consists of tracking different aspects of your campaign. When you do this you will be very sure what keywords are drawing the people and which ones are pulling in the targeted visitors and sales. There are several ways that you can track your PPC campaign.

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.

Landing pages that are attached to your campaigns are good for tracking traffic and can help you to see what sort of sales conversions you are getting. You can set up one for each campaign so that you can get a more accurate picture. This takes a little time but your increased profits will make it worth it.

In order to effectively track your PPC campaigns, you should be recording all of your results. The easiest way to do so would be in a spreadsheet. By keeping track of all your past results you will be able to judge the successfulness of any adjustments you make.

Keeping track of your campaign is crucial to maintaining a successful advertising campaign. Google Adwords, as well as other PPC engines, offer a variety of useful tools and tutorials to help you with various aspects of PPC advertising campaigns. When you start out in PPC it is recommended that you read this information carefully so that you will have a better knowledge of how the business works and how to make a successful campaign. The engines also offer a knowledgeable staff there to assist you should the need arise.

Sometimes you do not have the time or skills to track each and every area in your PPC advertising campaign. This is when you might consider a professional PPC management service. You can find these services in Google search. Remember to check them out carefully before signing on any contract. The money you invest on a good service will soon be realized in added profits, when you manage your PPC advertising campaign on your own you often leave money on the table.

About the Author:

Bidding on Keywords

June 17, 2009

by Brian Basch

PPC campaign management is a vital part of your advertising campaign. You will need to keep an eye on your PPC campaign if you wish to make serious money from it. An area that requires attention is the amount you are bidding on a keyword.

Proper bidding on keywords is absolutely vital to a campaign since it will determine the placement of your keywords. Since studies have shown that searchers very rarely see more than five pages of search results, you will want to get your ad on the first three to four pages. This being said, you should remember not to go overboard trying to get that #1 position. With six to ten ads on the first result page, you can get a lower position for cheaper and still have a great position on the first page.

Improper bidding can cause you to lose a great deal of money. If you find yourself in bidding war, you need to analyze just how much the top spot is really worth. If your product has a great profit margin and you can afford to spend a bit of extra money on a great position, then maybe you can partake in a bidding war. If not, avoid them at all costs. They will usually end up losing you money.

Another factor you need to consider when bidding is profit point. If you are paying more for clicks than you receive for the sales generated by those clicks, you are losing money. By analyzing you sales conversions and your profit per sale, you will be able to come to an appropriate bid which will maximize your profits.

Without good bidding, your campaign can never live up to its potential. Poor performers in too high a position will cost you too much money. At the same time, if a keyword is doing well in a lower position, it probably means that keyword is hot. When this happens you will want to increase your bid and get that keyword into a higher position so you can make more money.

Make sure you keep your PPC advertising campaign’s keywords in control. Things can pick up pace quickly and you will find yourself out a considerable amount of money. Because of this, PPC engines offer daily budgets which can help to limit losses. These help in the beginning of a campaign as you tweak and optimize the campaign. They will save you money and can be removed at anytime.

About the Author:

Learning Proper Management of Your Keywords

June 15, 2009

by Brian Basch

You may think that once you have a PPC advertising campaign put together there is nothing left to do but collect the money. This, unfortunately, is not the case. Even after establishing your campaign there is a lot of work to do. Maintaining a successful campaign will require a lot of management of various areas. One such area is your keywords.

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

The general keywords will be the ones which attract a lot of traffic but will generally lead to few sales as they may not actually be interested in your product. These keywords will be a much vaguer version of your desired field.

People using the niche keywords are more interested in your specific field. However, the niche keywords generally attract much less traffic. This decrease in traffic is usually offset by an increase in sales conversion.

This basic understanding of keywords will help you manage you PPC campaign. A lot of the time, a struggling campaign can be caused by poor keyword performance. You need to make sure that a keyword is not only bringing people, but also sales. Without the sales, you may as well be flushing your money down the toilet.

Use your PPC engine’s tools to track the amount of traffic being drawn in by you keywords. This can be done for each separate keyword for your campaign.

Next you will examine the conversion rate of the keyword, how many clicks convert to sales. As mentioned above, general keywords will have a lower ratio, with high traffic and niche keywords a higher ratio, but with less traffic, you need to assess the worth of each keyword. Remember every click costs you money.

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.

Keep in mind that just as with many other things in life, keyword trends frequently change. What was a hot keyword yesterday could end up not performing at all tomorrow. Because of this you will need to keep watch on your keywords and analyze their performance.

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.

About the Author:

PPC Ads Should Be Checked Frequently

June 12, 2009

by Brian Basch

Another area of concern in a PPC advertising campaign is how your ad is constructed and whether it is pulling a good crowd to your website. You will also need to attract visitors that are interested in your product and services.

The ads of your PPC campaign are essentially small classified ads. They are built the same way, with a headline, body and call to action. The first, and most important, part of your ad is the headline. You will want something that grabs the reader’s attention and draws them in further. Then, with the body, you will state one or two of the benefits of your product. You will then end the ad with a call to action, directing your potential customer to your sales page.

By utilizing split testing, you will be able to compare two ads and make improvements in order to create the most efficient ad possible. First you will create 2 ads, each linked to separate campaigns. Each ad will lead to a different landing page. This will allow you to view the statistics of each ad independently.

After some time you will see which ad is the strongest. You will then try and tweak the weaker ad to outperform the first ad. Once you reach this point, you can replace the weaker performer with a new ad and repeat the process. This will be continued until you feel you have the perfect ad. This process will take time, but the increased profits will more than make up for the time.

Your ad needs to be built around the main keyword of your campaign. This ad will then promote that which you are selling, or used for an affiliate program. However, the use of affiliate programs is not allowed by all PPC engines.

When you create your ad try to be very sure that it will bring targeted people to your website. If your traffic is not targeted you will find that you get a lot of traffic but no sales. When you take into consideration that every click costs you money you want to have the highest sales ratio to clicks as possible.

In order to keep potential customers coming to your site, you will need to keep making adjustments to your ads. In order to help you do this, Google Adwords offers a variety of tools and tutorial to aid in the management of your ads and your entire PPC advertising campaign.

The three most important aspects of any PPC ad campaign are keywords, bidding and ads. While most people will continue to tweak keywords and bidding, they will often neglect their ads. This creates a lot of wasted potential and will lose you money. A strong ad can mean the difference between success and failure.

About the Author:

Should You Hire a Team for PPC Management?

June 11, 2009

by Brian Basch

Managing PPC advertising campaigns can be hard to handle, even more so if you are in charge of multiple campaigns. If it gets to be too much to handle there are services which will help you manage your campaigns. By simply Googling “PPC advertising campaign management” you can find countless such services.

Some of the main things you should consider before hiring a PPC advertising campaign management team are your level of expertise, your budget and the amount of time required.

The time factor is important. Management of PPC advertising campaigns takes time, especially when you have multiple campaigns. Because of this factor you may want to think about hiring a PPC management team to help you. The money you spend will be offset by the time you will save. You can use this time to concentrate on new products and services and most importantly marketing your business.

Also, when you have little knowledge of PPC campaigns, the management process can take much longer than if you were an expert. By hiring a team to manage your campaign(s) you can forego much of the trial and error involved, and therefore save yourself time and money.

There are many aspects of a PPC advertising campaign that you can miss, even if you are knowledgeable about it. Professional companies are experts in their field and will find things that you will not have thought of. Cumulatively these things will add up to savings and profits for you.

Another aspect to consider when deciding whether you need a PPC advertising campaign management service is your budget. Hiring a service can cost a lot of money depending on what services they are providing for you and how many campaigns those services apply to. You may want to consider setting up a monthly payment plan instead of paying up front. This way you will be able to evaluate the quality of work month by month instead of paying for a whole job and ending up disappointed in the end.

When choosing a PPC advertising campaign management company it is important to know that they are reliable. There are a number of ways that you can do this. Check out their websites and the about us pages. This will tell you something about the company. It is god to go with companies that are well established.

Another approach to investigating a company is to search for client testimonials. These will show how past and current clients view the services provided by a PPC advertising campaign management company. Whenever possible, try and contact the client and ask your own questions.

When entering into a contract with a company, always read any fine print. Also make sure to get everything on paper in a formal contract. Verbal contracts can be misleading and you are more likely to get the proper service if the company is contractually bound.

By hiring a PPC advertising campaign management team, you can save valuable time and make your campaigns more lucrative. These teams aren’t for everyone though, so make sure to take the above points into consideration.

About the Author:

Managing Keywords in a PPC Campaign

June 9, 2009

by Brian Basch

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.

About the Author:

How to Track a PPC Ad Campaign

June 9, 2009

by Brian Basch

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.

About the Author:

Next Page »