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1--Be specific. There are 2
types of people that use pay per click: those that just want
traffic to their site, and those that sell a product. If you're the
former use any keyword that is somewhat relevant to your
site. If your site is like most, you need to see conversions. Since you are paying every time
someone clicks on your ad, your ad should invite the interested and
deter those who probably wouldn't buy. If possible, put the price
of your product somewhere in the ad. Also bid on specific keywords
(instead of bidding on “Viagra” try bidding on “Discount Viagra” or
“Buy Viagra”).
2--Put the keyword somewhere in
the title. This makes your ad much more relevant in the mind of the
search engine user. Although this will be more time consuming, you
should see a better conversion rate.
3--First place isn't always
best. Most companies offer a daily budget; when a client reaches
their daily budget/cap they are removed from search until the next
day. If the first place site is removed from search, the second
place site moves to the first place position. Bidding for first
place is necessary for lesser searched keywords, but if you are
bidding on high traffic keywords (like mortgage, Viagra, spyware,
work at home, etc) then you will receive plenty of traffic in
10th or even 20th place. But you need to keep in mind that many
advertisers give free contextual advertising to those in 1st place.
Because of the nature of contextual ads, they convert at a much
higher rate. Also keep in mind that some networks (namely Google)
won't even list you with certain keywords that don't perform as
well as your competition.
4-- Don't be afraid to try
smaller pay per click companies. Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search
Marketing are definitely going to get your name out, but they can
have high bid prices. The smaller pay per click companies usually
have lower clickthrough prices and can result in a higher ROI.
5-- When you are creating your
ad, make sure that you copy and paste your URL. A lot of
advertisers mess-up on the URL and waste money sending people to a
blank page. If you put your URL in incorrectly, don't expect the
pay per click company to be very sympathetic.
6-- Make the domain in your
listing professional. For example, if you are advertising an
affiliate link, don’t put your affiliate URL as the domain: instead
of hoplink.spywarekiller.com/affil=123321 use
www.SpywareKiller.com.
7-- When testing a pay per click
company that offers a daily/weekly/monthly budget, use it. Even if
you have an unlimited budget you'll see better results
when your trial dollars a spread over a week or so, because some days are
better for certain keywords. If you are selling poker chips and a
news station in Orlando does a story about gambling addicts that
are starting to have home poker games, you might get 200
clickthroughs from people who are wondering how much poker chips
cost, but have no intention/desire to buy.
8-- Many companies offer a sign-up bonus credit. In the scheme of things, $50 on advertising is nothing. To get a bonus credit for a $50 desposit that pays for traffic to your site, that's just too good.
KEEP THE FOLLOWING IN MIND:
1--More than 75% of
clickthroughs go to the first 3 listings on a search engine.
2--There are multiple PPC
companies that overlap on the same search engines and your click
charge is shared between the pay per click company and the search
engine where you receive the clickthough. If you are first place
with pay per click Company A that doesn’t mean that you’ll appear
in first place on Search Engine X. This is because PPC Company B,
C, and D are also distributing to Search Engine X. If the first
place bid with PPC Company A is $0.25 and the first place bid with PPC
Company B is $2.20, then Search Engine X will put PPC Company B’s
listings ahead of A’s because they will receive more money per
clickthrough from Company B’s client.
3--Very few of the pay per click
companies will share a
comprehensive list of their distribution partners. Doing so would
be like having Chili's or Applebee's pass out their recipes to
anyone that asks. The best way to see where your traffic is coming
from is to use a conversion tracking service like
Omniture.
4--Because pay per click
companies have been haunted by fraudulent clicks for so long, most
companies have spent a lot of money trying to prevent fraud. None
of these companies are going to give you details about what they’re
doing to prevent fraud; if they did people could find ways around
it
5--Although your conversion rate
is important, it commonly overshadows the ROI. For example: You use
PPC Company A and PPC Company B. With PPC Company A you are getting
a 4% conversion rate, your average sale profits $25.00, and you
spend an average $0.80 per clickthrough. One out of every 25 people
that clickthrough to your site from PPC Company A will result in a
purchase. PPC Company A will earn you $25.00 for every $20.00 that
you spend, that’s $5.00 profit and about a 125% ROI.
With PPC Company B you have a 0.5% conversion rate, your average
sale profits $25.00, and you spend an average $0.08 per
clickthrough. One out of every 200 visitors will purchase, costing
you $16.00. Your return on investment is 156%.
This is how smaller pay per click search engines can earn/save you
money.
6--When choosing a pay per click
company, don’t let people sway your opinion by using Alexa.com
ratings. If PPC Company A is number 50 on Alexa and PPC Company B
is ranked 1,043 that doesn’t mean that PPC Company A has more
traffic, it only means that their company website gets more
traffic. Most pay per click companies have a large network of
search engines, parked domains, contextual ads, and search bars;
that’s where their traffic comes from, not their homepage. For
example: on Alexa.com Kanoodle is ranked 948 and Enhance
Interactive is ranked 6,366. They both get about 66 million
searches a month on their network. |
