Latest Pay Per Click Articles

Pay Per Click Advertising Tips - The Benefits You Need to Know

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:30:43 -0700

Pay per click advertising is a way to market if you are trying to market a product or service, and it is also a great way to make money if you own a website.

If you have a website or a popular blog, pay per click advertising could really benefit you well monetarily. If you have a lot of website traffic on your web page, pay per click is a good way to generate revenue. Advertisers can place their ads on your page, and whenever someone clicks on the ad, you get compensated for the click. Some pay per click advertisers even give you a percentage of the money if someone clicks on the ad and buys a product.

This isn't the best option for someone who has a website with little traffic because the point is to have as many clicks on the ads as possible. However, if you have a busy website or blog with a lot of consistent visitors daily, pay per click is a feature that can be added for no fee and which can provide a good chance to earn more money.

This is a great option for advertisers as well because if an advertiser markets their product through pay per click, the advertiser can search and find the busy websites which do generate a lot of traffic. When a website generates a lot of traffic and the marketer's advertisements are on that website, there is a better chance of their advertisement to be seen and clicked on.

For an advertiser, pay per click can be added on several websites at a time which generate a lot of page views, and in that case it would double or triple the amount of people who see the advertisements and therefore your product or service that is offered.

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How to Choose a Pay-Per-Click Firm That Turns Clicks into Clients

Mon, 11 May 2009 10:04:57 -0700

There are two paths that you can take when it comes to managing your pay-per-click advertising campaign online. You can learn it yourself and make Google's stock rise higher while you figure out the learning curve, then spend a lot of time keeping it running smoothly. Or, you can hire a professional pay-per-click firm to handle it for you.

I did both.

See, I know the position you're in right now. I've been there. I've hired and fired 2 pay-per-click management companies. I was forced to learn on my own and spend tens of thousands of dollars.

My Experiences with Outsourcing My Pay-Per-Click Needs

The first pay-per-click management company that I hired kept raising my budget and jacking up my costs-per-click. Yet, I wasn't getting any conversions!

So I decided to fire that PPC firm and manage my own pay-per-click campaigns. I studied under the top gurus like Perry Marshall. I bought all the ebooks and coaching programs. And, I spent more than $10,000.00 figuring everything out on my own until I grew a no name business into $50k per month in sales all from pay-per-click advertising.

But, I worked day and night on my pay-per-click campaigns. I spent a ton of time, money and effort on it. I couldn't handle it anymore so I hired another pay-per-click firm to take over the accounts again. They did a nice job and are still around today, but I saw some holes in their approach.

Now, I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. I want to help you choose a pay-per-click management company that's actually going to help you turn clicks into clients.

Here are 7 Questions You Need to Ask Before You Hire a Pay-Per-Click Management Company:

1. This is going to piss people off: How many accounts does an account manager handle? Just because you have a "dedicated" account manager doesn't mean he/she isn't dedicated to 50 other accounts. This is not uncommon in some of the larger pay-per-click firms out there. If they work 40 hours per week that's less than 1 hour/week they are spending on your account, provided they do nothing but work on accounts every minute of the day.

2. Can I peek in and have access to my Google & Yahoo accounts? There's a new breed of PPC management that keeps everything secret. They are basically buying a click for $1.00 then charging you an undisclosed markup on the click. That's why their setup & management fees are low. They're making money on marking up your clicks.

3. What constitutes an improvement? You need to put in your order with the pay-per-click firm just like you would order a steak medium rare with a side of truffle fries to a waiter. Don't be afraid to ask for help and don't be afraid to speak up. For example: I want to increase sales while keeping my cost-per-sale under $50.

4. Do you track phone calls? If you are doing any part of the business offline then your pay-per-click management company should offer a way to track where your calls are coming from. Tracking calls back to specific keywords helps eliminate waste and will reveal high response terms you'll want to dominate.

5. What are your prices? Now, don't be cheap. There is no such thing as a Mercedes Benz for Honda prices. I'll admit some people don't need the Mercedes, but if you are spending $2,000/month or more, chances are you at least need a certified, pre-owned BMW.

6. What is your experience? I'm all for giving the new guy a try. I was the new guy at one point. Nothing, I repeat nothing can replace experience. Experience comes from long hours of hard work. There are no magic formulas. Good solid basics and some creativity will always win in the end.

7. Will you involve me in the project? No one knows your business as well as you. Get specific on how often you'll meet to review the results and plan next steps. A good pay-per-click firm will welcome your input. It is invaluable.

Now, it's up to you. But, if you fail to ask the above questions, then you're risking hiring and firing new pay-per-click management companies when things go south or spending tens of thousands of dollars learning how to do it yourself like I did. Learn from my pay-per-click outsourcing experiences.

How To Profit From Your Pay-Per-Click Advertising Campaigns

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:06:10 -0800

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier--and more effective--the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position--which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost-effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 25,000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and AdWords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.

The End of Google Best Practice Funding: How will this affect your business?

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:53:38 -0800

At the start of 2009, Google ended their Best Practice Funding scheme. BPF was established in 2006 to aid the growing focus on search marketing amongst agencies, and also to promote skills training and the usage of new technology in the sector. So now that BPF is coming to an end, how will this affect the digital marketing campaigns of businesses in the new year?

Best Practice Funding succeeded in terms of the growth of Google in Europe, the advancement of agencies, and search marketing as a whole. But BPF was exploited by some clients changing between marketing agencies to benefit from the scheme, as well as agencies themselves using the funding to win contracts by offering lower management fees and covering up poor and lacklustre performance.

Subsequently, companies and agencies whose business models have previously relied on Best Practice Funding will no longer be able to acquire clients unless they choose to focus on the advancement, innovation and overall progression of their search marketing offering. Each will be working harder to negotiate new deals with clients whose contracts are ending with the BPF dependants.

In turn, this will re-establish a sense of equality amongst those who have used the scheme as intended. From January, business will be obtained by the quality and reputation of each agency, and a healthy increase in competition will be witnessed as services become more uniquely geared towards each specific business and campaign. Agencies will now have to consider search marketing in a more lateral, all-encompassing, and diverse sense.

Stewart Roode, PPC Account Manager at Guava commented:
“Choosing an agency in a level playing field and basing that decision upon performance and reputation can only be a good thing. Those agencies who really have concentrated on ROI and client returns will be well placed in 2009”.

Make Money Online With Social Networking!

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:07:44 -0800

Social Networks are great tools for business and also fun ways to meet and interact with people whose path you would not likely cross going about your usual day. You can also communicate directly with people whom you would likely find it very difficult, if not impossible, to reach using conventional means.

One important point to know is that these networks were not created as a place just for promoting your zen-cart online store. If your posts only focus on your store - if you engage in direct, endless promotions, for more details visit to www.82-money-pocket.com you will not be an interesting person to follow, and if no-one is following you, you won't have an audience for anything you want to say or share. You should give (tips, resources, responses to questions, etc.) more than you get (opportunities for talking about your online store and products).

However, it is possible to promote your zen-cart store if you sprinkle that in between your other posts. If you don't abuse the self-promotions, you can attract visitors to your store. One great benefit to participating on these sites is others can get to know you. Word-of-mouth recommendations are popular on these sites. As you know, people like to do business with people they know so when you participate, for more details visit to www.be-an-air-courier.com you are opening your sphere of opportunities. Below I have given a short overview of four social networking sites. These are my favorites; in fact, you're welcome to come follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Facebook

Join groups to meet people in your target market. Business interest groups abound as do networks organized by city, region, school and workplace. You'll find zen-cart groups and other business-related groups of interest. You can also connect with friends and keep up with them when they post updates, which will appear on your home page.

Twitter
One of the most interesting of the social networking site in that people communicate using only 140 spaces and characters. This means you must be concise with your message. You can follow anyone you like and/or they can follow you. When you post a message, it appears on the personal home page of everyone who is following you. Use it to keep up with issues, trends, influencers and other information that would be too time-consuming to gather using other means.

This site is especially nice in that you can customize the background and many have done so using their logo and website colors.

YouTube.com

Post videos on using products from your online store or "how to" instructions for installing or assembling, etc. and watch as you attract new users. Also great for viral marketing videos, the kind that pull at your heart strings, or make you laugh out loud. Include your store's website address along with a call to action on the last screen and if it's good enough, people will pass it around, increasing the exposure - and visits - to your online store.

Ryze
Designed for entrepreneurs and business professionals, this site has groups that you can easily join or you can start one of your own. Groups communicate using a forum-like setting. You can see the postings of members and respond to any of them. Great for meeting like-minded people for the purpose of sharing or exploring mostly business related topics.

While these groups generally do not allow blatant advertising, you can usually use your signature to include a link to your online store along with a tagline. Getting started with any of these sites is as simple as registering for a free account. Visit each one to learn more as they all have many additional features than I have mentioned, and you will find even more uses than are covered here. These sites are great for meeting new friends, keeping up with your interest areas, stumbling across breaking news and posting your own updates about your specialty area, as well as posts about your store (new products, sales, coupons, etc.). Social networking: It's a great way to meet new friends and potential customers and clients, and for people to get to know - and recommend - you and your online store.

Using PPC to drive profitable retail sales

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:05:23 -0800

Get the Keywords right
â€¢ Start with an exhaustive list of keywords. Be ready to prune quickly
â€¢ Concentrate on precise, relevant keywords.
â€¢ If you sell Retro/Novelty t-shirts you should bid on 'paris hilton t-shirt' and avoid 'paris hilton clothes'
â€¢ Organise your campaign into highly relevant ad groups that include only the keywords that convert into sales within your CPA target. Eg. 'paris hilton keywords', 'star wars keywords', 'dirty dancing keywords' etc.

Get the Ads right
â€¢ Test 3-4 ads for each of your ad groups.
â€¢ Write relevant, benefit focused ad copy. Look for the ones that get the highest click through rates and conversion rates.
â€¢ For Retail, our experience shows that the following is the best ad format:
- Title: Paris Hilton T-shirts - consumer benefit: 'They have exactly the item I am looking for'
- Description 1: All your favourite Retro & Novelty Tees - consumer benefit: 'They also have other items I might like'
- Description 2: Order today, Get it tomorrow! - consumer benefit: 'I can get my items quickly and easily'
- Display URL: www.BrandURL.com/BuyNow - branding and call to action

Get the Landing Page right
â€¢ Land consumers onto the most relevant page on your site.
â€¢ Ideally you would have a page that only includes your breadth of Paris Hilton t-shirts.
â€¢ Links to the rest of the range should be obvious and easy to navigate.
â€¢ Other consumer benefits such as free postage & packaging, and sales should be obvious. Cross-sell similar items.
â€¢ Ensure that the sales process is quick and easy

Analyse and Optimise for Profit
â€¢ Track and record the value of each sale at the keyword level
â€¢ When optimising, include your margins and the cost of media in your reports, to determine which are your profitable keywords
â€¢ Depending if you are looking for volume or only profitable individual sales, prune your keyword list accordingly.

Let PPC influence the Product Range
â€¢ Some items are not easy to describe and are not searched for. Concentrate on the keywords for items in your range that are searched for regularly, and then cross-sell your other items on the landing page.
â€¢ If you see a high number of ad impressions and clicks for an ad group, with a low number of sales it could be that a product range is popular but you don't have the breadth of choice being searched for. Let the PPC data influence your range.
â€¢ Ranges that are popular should be broadened and stocked regularly to support the PPC campaign.

PPC working with your other Marketing Communications
â€¢ If you have a recognized brand, include this prominently in your PPC ad copy. 'Official Site' is a strong consumer benefit.
â€¢ Support good PR with 'As seen IN' and 'As seen ON' ad copy. This traditionally drives higher sales for several days after the release.
â€¢ Brand awareness banner campaigns can greatly increase your PPC brand sales, which are traditionally the cheapest.
â€¢ Support your PPC campaign with a robust SEO strategy for your broader keywords that drive traffic but have a higher conversion cost through PPC
â€¢ Ultimately PPC should be driving your regular sales, filling in the troughs, made by the peaks from your other bursts of online and offline communications.

How rival profited from travel firm's woes

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:31:00 -0800

Nick Beck, director of search engine marketing at agency Tug, remembers vividly where he was when he heard niche tour operator Travel City Direct had hit the skids. He was out for dinner with his client Ocean Florida, Travel City's direct rival.

"My client was buzzing with excitement," says Beck. "We immediately created PPC ads to drive to a friendly, fair landing page that we worked with them to develop, offering people advice on what to do if they had booked with Travel City."

The campaign employed a heady combination of remorseless commercial tactics and concern for the plight of consumers. On the one hand, the search strategy deployed terms such as 'travel city gone bust'. On the other, the site that Ocean Florida had set up was tasteful, helpful and struck the right tone.

"It is nasty," Beck concedes, "but I think this example shows it is a win-win. They did a month's revenue on the first day and they got a lot of new customers and emails saying, 'You are the best, thanks so much.'"

As the campaign went on, the inevitable laws of search bidding kicked in, Beck recalls. "On day one, we were paying something like 50p a click, and by day three or four, people were putting maximum bids of Â£5."

The PPC push yielded a click-through rate of more than 20 and the landing page saw a conversion rate of more than 50 per cent during the 72 hours after the XL bankruptcy hit the press.

"While it is aggressive, while it is capitalist, if you couch it in a helpful fashion and that drives through to a satisfying consumer journey, everybody benefits," says Beck.

Pay Per Click Website Promotion and Managing Cost

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Pay per click promotions aren't as simple as selecting a few keywords and sitting back and letting things happen. Often keywords and phrases require chronic adjustment, especially when using some of the more popular phrases. You have to be able to watch and study the trends and the performance any individual keyword or phrase gives you and find more competitive keywords and phrases along the way. You also need to go long, creating as many different keyword combinations as possible while using as many different search engines as possible. Not all user only use Google. Google is very popular, but Ask, Dogpile, and MSN are filled with users that are looking for a good match. There are tools available to help you manage your bids. There are tools available online as a downloadable version as well as software that you can purchase in most computer stores. These tools can help you collect the appropriate information which can help you determine what keywords on which search engines are being most effective, which ones are directly linked to your sales and successes, and the ratio between the cost of the clicks and your profit margin. Using a monthly subscription plan and downloadable software gives you instant access but software saves you money in the long right if you can find it at a good price. Using such tools allows you to find and interpret data that you simply don't have the time for off hand. However, you have to use them effectively in order to get accurate results and save you valuable time and money that guesstimating can cost you. When you list hundreds of keyword phrases on multiple search engines, you need help managing your information. The software and subscription services also allows you to track how high some of your competitors are going with the same or similar keywords when they are placing their bids. Part of effectively managing your pay per click accounts is also managing your time and money well. It is more effective to use the software to print out a report that can show you in black and white what is working for you and what need improvement. With such information readily at hand, you can easily make daily adjustments and bring your sales and participation level up. Way up. Pay per click advertising is one of the most effective forms of website promotion out there today. If you want to get ahead, you need pay per click. However, without tracking your keywords, their impact on your profits, and their effectiveness you really aren't getting much more than a guided tour through the web. In the mean time, Good Luck on your journey to success.

Top 5 Reasons You Should Not Use Google AdWords

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Google AdWords is a pay-per-click advertising solution that many people hate. The reason that they hate it is because in most cases they have either tried it and failed miserably or have read horror stories that other people have posted on the various internet marketing message boards. Here are the top 5 reasons that that you should not be using AdWords: 1.) You don't want high conversion traffic. Studies have shown that traffic generated by AdWords enjoys a conversion rate of 5 to 10 times better than natural or organic traffic. 2.) You do not like to do things the quick and easy way. SEO and affiliate marketing require time and effort in order to generate high quality traffic. AdWords on the other hand can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Some PPC systems require that a live person approve everything from your account creation to the actual copy in your ads. This can take as much as a week or more. On top of that they require that you make an up-front deposit to cover your clicks. AdWords is the only PPC that does not require a deposit and will bill you in arrears. 3.) You like manually tracking your campaigns and hate automation. Google Analytics and AdWords Conversion Tracking are tools that are offered free of charge. These free tools help maximize your return on investment in the shortest time. These tools are better than any third party software on the market and will save you a great deal of money, time, and frustration. 4.) You like to have others determine your cost and spending limits. AdWords allows the advertiser (you) to determine exactly how much money you will spend. You determine your own maximum bid price for keywords and have the ability to set daily spending limits on each campaign in your AdWords account. If you want to invest no more than $50 per day in your ad campaign, simply set the limit to that amount and the system will stop displaying your ad when the limit has been met. 5.) You hate things that actually WORK! AdWords is one of the most effective ways to build your click through rate which is one factor considered when determining ad placement. When your click through rate builds more traffic is flowing to your site. More traffic means more profit. This system is excellent for building your list as well. We have already said that AdWords advertising enjoys a higher conversion rate and with that conversion rate comes new customers. So there you have it. If you are someone who hates high conversion rates, likes to do things the hard way, enjoys wasting time, couldn't care less about how much you are spending, and hates things that work, AdWords is something that you should avoid at all costs. On the other hand, if you want to enjoy success and the benefits that come with it, you should take the time to learn - I mean really learn - about AdWords and how to use the system to your advantage.

Nothing To Fear, AdWords Is Here

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

There are many internet marketers that would have you believe that AdWords and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are something to be avoided at all costs. Just visit the Warrior Forum or some of the other internet marketing message boards and you will find this kind of pay-per-click logic. Why would this kind of logic be so rampant? A great man once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself," and though the quote was not about AdWords or even internet marketing, it holds true. Mankind in general has always been known to fear the things they do not understand and I believe that this is why there is so much anti-PPC sentiment. Many very intelligent people in the internet marketing business are in the anti-PPC crowd. This boggles my mind. If you are doing well with article marketing, joint ventures, and other free techniques then why would you want to limit yourself by avoiding AdWords? Using PPC can do nothing more than open up a bigger market and if used properly can generate a great amount of income. Free traffic generation is a great way to bring traffic to your site and should be part of any marketing strategy just as AdWords or PPC should. Use every tool at your disposal to grow your business. Most of us start our online marketing career with little or no real cash and the thought of paying for advertising can be a scary thing in that situation. Honestly, though, if you take the time to learn how AdWords works you will find that there are many options available to control ad cost. Learn how the Google AdWords ranking system works. Unlike other PPC systems, AdWords takes more into account when determining ad placement than simply the maximum bid price. The other things that are used in determining ad placement and cost are relevancy, click through rate, and the quality score. With a thorough understanding of the AdWords system it is quite possible that your ad will attain a higher ranking than a competitor's ad, even though they have a higher maximum bid price. When conducting your PPC campaign with AdWords, use your keywords effectively. Test your ads using broad match, phrase match, and exact match keywords. This will allow you to laser-target traffic. Using keywords correctly is one of the big keys in controlling ad costs. Use keyword macros to build your click through rate quickly and easily. Keyword macros will set your ads apart from the competition. When a user conducts a search the macro will use the search string as the headline for your ad, capitalize the first letter of each word, and place the headline in bold type. Keyword macros get much more attention than static ads and we know that more attention means more clicks. If you take the time to learn as much as possible about the Google AdWords system you will have a huge advantage over the competition, understand how to control your ad costs, and enjoy a larger market as well.