Luke Brown Marketing Blog

Archive for the ‘Pay Per Click’ Category

Most people who have used Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising found it to be very expensive, time consuming and a poor investment.  So they searched for a PPC management firm to handle the advertising campaigns for them.

While this is an excellent idea, it has plenty of drawbacks. If you’re interviewing a PPC management firm and they don’t mention every single one of the following potential problems, you should not hire them, regardless of price.

1. The traffic to your website will stop the moment you stop paying for the ads. Pay Per Click only works when the ads are running. If you’ve hired people or made other investments based on the traffic you bought, what would you do if the traffic suddenly stopped? If you can’t make the long-term investment, PPC probably isn’t a good option for you.

2. PPC campaigns need to be managed on a daily basis. Slight changes – even as small as one character in the ad – can commonly result in 25-50% differences in click through rates (CTR). If the change is negative, can you afford to let it go for several days or longer?

3. PPC campaigns can not be scaled. Increasing overall spending or even increasing bids can sometimes result in decreased traffic. To scale traffic to a website, SEO (search engine optimization) and CRO (conversion rate optimization) are far more effective and produce a better ROI.

4. PPC is not a guarantee of leads. It merely generates traffic. Determining the value of traffic from PPC ads can be very difficult. Among other things, the position of the ad can influence the number of ‘lookie-loos’ who click on your ad. While  pay per click may quickly bring you large increases in traffic, they may not be the website visitors you need.

5. PPC is a poor choice if your target market is highly educated. One study showed that people with doctoral degrees only click on PPC ads 1% of the time. Compare that to those with a high school education or less, who clicked on PPC ads 50% of the time. If your target market is well educated, PPC advertising is a poor choice.

6. Keywords: It’s not about number of searches. It’s about the number of clicks. There are six or seven excellent keyword research programs, all of which provide comparable information regarding the average number of monthly searches. Only one program, however, reveals the number of clicks. A PPC management firm not using this tool is operating in the Stone Age.

Pay Per Click advertising has many benefits if – and this is a very big if – it’s run systematically and daily by experienced professionals. One speaker at an internet marketing trade show in Las Vegas this past January mentioned how he lost $16,000 on pay per clicks ads – overnight!

That’s an extreme example but it shows the potential fiscal harm a poorly managed PPC campaign can incur. Using this information, you’ll be prepared to make money, not lose money, with pay per click advertising.

Pay Per Click advertising can be a huge benefit to a company – or it can drain your checking account faster than the widow of a Nigerian prince. If you have been managing your PPC account on your own, it’s highly likely you’re struggling. Chances are, you’re too busy running your business to learn anything but the basics.

When is it time to outsource your Pay Per Click advertising?  It’s time to outsource if:

• You spent more than $100 and didn’t get a sale or lead.
• You’ve never been able to manage more than 3 campaigns at once.
• You only have a total of about 25 keywords in your account.
• Your daily budget was spent before you even got into the office.
• You look for your ad using your best keyword and still can’t find it.
• You don’t know the difference between the content network  and search.
• Your ROI is lower than every other method of advertising.
• You still don’t have analytics set up .
• Your best CTR (Click Trough Rate) is less than 1%.

Tired of the aggravation, you make the decision to outsource your campaigns. How do you start? Where do you go?  How do you hire a PPC management firm? And how do you know they’re competent?

It is possible to make more than you’d spend on a firm’s services – if you outsource correctly. When interviewing potential firms, keep these questions and answers in mind:

1. How can you manage and improve my Google Quality Score?

The Google Quality Score is based on several factors, including CTR and landing page relevance. By creating highly targeted campaigns with fewer and equally focused ad groups, you’ll have fewer keywords. But they will be exceptionally relevant so your ad text is focused as well. This increases click-through rates, improving Quality Scores and lowering costs.  Incorporating the keywords in the landing pages also increase relevancy – and conversions.

2. When you take over the account, what do you do first?

The first step is similar to most internet marketing: find out what’s broken and fix it. This could be anything from bad settings (like having ad groups named #1, #2, etc) to keywords with CTR of 0.05% (anything less than 1% CTR for search is generally a poor performing ad). It’s important to keep all previous account information to see the progression of performance.

3. Do you send reports and, if so, how often?

Complete reports should be sent on a monthly basis, at the very minimum. During the first month, weekly reports are highly recommended. Reports should provide details of the work completed and comparisons to all previously existing ads. A summary and analysis of the account statistics should finish all reports.

4.  How often will you communicate with me and how quickly do you respond?

Emails should be responded to within 24 hours. Phone calls should generally be returned within 4 hours. Open Workbench is a free online project software management tool similar to Microsoft Project or BaseCamp by 37 Signals, allowing both parties to maintain contact.

5. How do you choose keywords?

Any good PPC management firm should use at least three different keyword tools, some of which are free and some which have monthly subscriptions.  Keyword research should be ongoing as trends increase or decrease the value of a word. Research will also uncover new terms or variations which can generate leads and sales. They should use negative keywords to eliminate all but the most highly targeted traffic.

6. What’s the best search engine for advertising?

Google has approximately 65% of the search market so they are an obvious choice. Yahoo and Bing can be effective in some segments. Other search engines, like Ask and AOL, with about 3.5% of search traffic each, may offer good returns on occasion, but the focus should be on the big 3.

7.  Do you perform testing? If so, what kind and how often?

Any PPC management firm which says they don’t test is worthless. Discontinue negotiations immediately. Ads should be tested as soon as results are available, generally 100 clicks per ad. Some ads may need daily optimization, especially in the first week or two, while most established ads need adjusting on a weekly basis.

Testing should include dozens of elements including headlines, ad text, punctuation, capitalization, display URLs, calls-to-action and even landing pages to generate the highest CTR and lowest CPC (cost per click) possible.

8.  How do you determine bids and budgets?

The answer you’re looking for is that every account has its own needs. This is not the time for one-size-fits-all. Constant testing and analysis will show which times, days, geographic locations and other factors influence an ad’s performance. Some ads work best when in the top three positions while other ads do best in positions 4-6.

Close attention should be paid to budgets, especially the very first week of new campaigns and anytime new ads and ad groups are added.  If the budget is spent halfway through the day, yet the ad generates proven returns, it should be increased. If returns aren’t generated, bidding should be reduced. The goal should be to reduce the  cost per lead and increase leads at the same time.

9.  How do you stay current on all the constant changes?

Any firm should be reading and subscribing to PPC, SEO and internet marketing related blogs, newsletters and magazines to keep abreast of changes in a volatile industry. They should have access to Google, Yahoo and Bing representatives who can inform them of new beta tests and other significant changes.

Will some PPC firms have different answers? Of course. They should, however, be very similar. It’s important that they share plenty of information. If they’re showing you what they do for you every day, they probably have nothing to hide. Sign only month to month contracts, nothing long term, at least at the beginning. These tips should help you get the most from your PPC advertising.