Guide to PPC Advertising & SEM
Google’s Adword Google’s Adwords is part of the renowned Google and along with Yahoo ! Search Engine (Overture) occupies prominent position among PPC Search Engines. Although, it entered the fray a little later than Overture but it lost no time in becoming a major player. In recent times, it has given Overture a stiff competition and a run for its money.
The Brand Saloon Review for Adwords Google is the largest and the most popular search engines online and its Pay Per Click service is known as Adwords. Adwords along with Yahoo search marketing (formerly known as Overture) are the first rung and the most prominent PPC search engines. Adwords PPC ads appear along side or above the results on Google.com search results pages and it claims that its network reaches more than 80 percent of internet users. Adwords provide easy to use interface to create ads and it has inbuilt keyword tool to search relevant keywords for your website’s campaign. It gives you real time reports on number of clicks, average cost per click, total cost, conversion rate, conversion cost. The minimum deposit required for Google’s Adwords is $ 5 and the minimum bid amount is 0.1 cents. Adwords charges you only a cent more than the second-highest bidder and unlike Yahoo! Search Marketing, it does not have a compulsory minimum spend. The position on Adwords depends on the number of clicks received and on the Quality Score. It is the latest change made by Adwords to improve keywords performance and position. Now ad position on Adwords depends on the maximum bid amount and quality score. According to its website, “the higher the Quality Score, the lower the CPC required to trigger ads, and vice versa.” The other change made is regarding making keywords active or inactive depending on its performance, rather than changing it from normal to trial, on hold and disabled status. It provides the option of regional and customized targeting that helps advertisers who want to reach customers in specific geographic areas. Site-targeted campaign option is the latest offering of Google’s AdWords. It allows advertisers to choose individual sites in the Google’s content network where they would like their ads to appear. Site targeted campaigns give advertisers the flexibility of choosing their target customers, big or small. It provides its listing to the major websites, America online, Netscape, Earthlink, Compuserve, shopping.com, AT&T Worldnet, thus driving quality traffic to the website. PPC Tools Pay Per Click advertising is the fastest growing medium of online advertising. There are various tools available online for better bid management and for searching optimal keywords, tracking traffic and conversions. Every Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine provide their own tools for easier and better management of PPC. PPC Search Engine’s tools are free, quick, and easy to use. Google’s Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Miva, Searchfeed, Askjeeves, and most of the other PPC search engines provide keyword tools. Keyword tools help in researching relevant keywords, which will generate quality traffic, and provides an estimate of the number of clicks that will be received. PPC Search Engines have inbuilt tool available for bid management, the user can decrease or increase, as per his/her assessment. The inbuilt tools also lets you know, the total number of click received, position of the particular keyword’s ad, average cost per click, and total cost. Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) offers a ROI calculator, a CPM calculator. Certain PPC search engines like Overture,
Adwords and Miva have conversion tracking tool, that lets
advertisers track the number of conversions, through a
particular campaign, cost per conversion and other related
details. There are websites, which exclusively provide
keyword tools, like keyword anaylyzer and worktracker.
There are certain websites that offer bid management services,
Atlasonepoint, Maximizer and others. A persistent online bidding process determines the position of your website’s ad on PPC Search Engines. Managing and handling a PPC search engine’s campaign is different from other promotional medium, before starting to manage a PPC campaign one should be aware about the techniques and the elements of PPC advertising.
The position of the ad often depends on the bid amount, however, google’s adwords uses a slightly different yardstick to give position to your ads. Adwords uses both cost per click and click through rates to determine your ad’s position. Google: Your click through rates and Cost per Click (CPC) determines your ad’s position on sponsored listings. If the ad does not get the required number of clicks, you might lose your top positions for that keyword. In the same way, if your ads are getting good percentage of click throughs, your ads will be better positioned at no extra cost to you. Google AdWords charges a one-time $5.00 setup fee and after that, you pay only for delivered traffic. Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture):
Yahoo! Search Marketing considers only your bid amount
to determine your ad’s position on its listings. The more
you pay, the higher you’ll be ranked on its search pages.
Overture requires a minimum charge of $25/month deposited
regardless of whether or not your click through has accumulated
to that total. Its minimum bid amount is 0.10 cents, the
highest compared to other PPC search engines. Determine your target: After you have identified your PPC’s objective, you need to determine your target customer. Not every one who clicks on your ad is your prospective customer. You should determine your target customer depending upon the product or service your website is offering. It not only helps in finding out the right keywords and search terms for the campaign but also helps in developing ad’s copy that generates high quality clicks. Set your budget: Do not over indulge or be constraining in your PPC spending, set your budget depending upon your company’s resources and PPC’s objective. It is a different medium of advertising, so you need to use slightly different yardstick while deciding on your budget. At the time of deciding on a budget, you should keep in mind that cost per click varies depending on the bid amount on key phrases and the number of clicks you are receiving. Building keyword pool: Build your keywords’ pool by doing comprehensive research for the optimal keywords/search terms. The research can start from your own website and move on to competitors’ website and customers, and other sources. After a proper analysis of your products or services, your target customers search habits, competitors’ keywords; you will have a list of important keywords that hold the key to your PPC campaign’s success. However, it is imperative that the keyword/search term should be relevant to your website’s content and offers. You also need to consider that it is unlikely to apply to any other product or services. In a highly competitive market, you may often find that the top bid for a search term is far higher than your own margins allow. Often you can attain far better value by choosing keywords that are more specific. You can consider using search terms that are more likely to be used by people searching for your kind of products or services. On a regular basis, you need to monitor the performance of each keywords/search terms by tracking the number of click through rates and conversions. It might happen that some keywords/search terms will generate more visitors but will be low on conversion and certain keywords will give you high percentage of conversions. The variation may happen because certain prospective customers may be only researching a potential purchase, while those who are ready to buy will use slightly different keyword/search terms. Developing your title and description: Title is generally the five-word sentence shown as the main link in your ad’s display. It works like the headline of your advertisement. Be precise and to the point while creating your PPC ad’s title. Do not be vague or use unrelated words; otherwise, you may end up paying a lot for unnecessary click throughs without any returns. You should use the advantage of creating ad’s titles sensibly and keeping in mind the product or service offers of your website. Description: Description is a little longer sentence than the title, however still with character limit imposed. The description should be one or two punch line sentences that should highlight on how clicking will solve a prospects search query. Be precise like the title and stress on the website’s USP.
Bidding process: It is imperative determine your expected ROI and PPC’s objective, before deciding the absolute maximum bid per click for each keyword without diminishing profit per sale. You should keep a close watch on your competitors’ bids and yours to manage bids skillfully. If you sleep on your bids, you are most likely to lose your premium positions, so it is better to make necessary changes to bid amounts on regular basis to maintain your position. However, never be drawn into overbidding that would diminish your profit margins and you spend more than your budget. Dealing with competition: If you are in the business, you will always be having competitors for company. Sooner or later, you have to consider your competitors’ websites and their bids on keywords to chalk out your PPC campaign strategy. You may find that certain keywords are highly competitive and costing a fortune for top position. This is where your keyword research and bid management skills come into play. You need to research keywords that not only drive quality traffic to your website but also give your ads good position on PPC search engines’ listings. It is important that you regularly review your bids, your competitors’ bids, and your ads position. As competitors will never tell you when they are going to outbid you, so, it is important that you review your campaigns regularly and make required changes to maintain positions. Tracking: By tracking each click on your PPC ads, you can tweak the PPC campaign to get the most out of it. Monitor your campaign every day and at regular intervals. Tracking will help you in finding keywords that are generating results and that are of no value. Regular monitoring of campaigns also let you know when the competitor ceases to compete for a certain keyword; this may enable you to drop the amount of your own bids considerably without loss of position. Remember you only need to be 1 cent higher than the next highest bid. Anything more means that you are throwing away profit. Evaluation: Evaluate how the campaign is doing in comparison to expected ROI and PPC’s objectives propose by you. Assess keyword/search terms that satisfies your PPC objective and giving the preferred return on investment. You did not spend your hard-earned dollars on a PPC campaign just to attract visitors but your ultimate goal is to gain profit from every click. After evaluation, drop those keywords/search terms that did not serve your purpose, add new keywords which may serve you better or only concentrate on those that are sure shots. TIPS for creating an advantageous campaign
Bidding for Positions The greatest advantage of PPC advertising is getting the preferred position on search engines, depending upon your bid amount. If you have the back up of a good PPC advertising budget, you can spend highly and bid for premium positions. Premium positions are the first page top positions on PPC search engines. It generates maximum click throughs from potential customers. However, it may also result in lots of window-shopping click throughs, this may increase your costs, and it might happen that Return on Investment (ROI) will decrease drastically. Premium positions suits those advertisers who have good budget and are often getting good conversions, and a few unnecessary clicks are acceptable in the long run. It will also suit you if you have good profit margins per sale, your objective is brand awareness rather than ROI, and your website is getting good number of return customers. If your bid amount is little less than the premium positions bid, you might end up in the middle position. Though you are on the first page, the click throughs may not be as good compared to premium positions. However, there will be fewer windows shopping click throughs and you will be getting quality traffic. For highly competitive search terms, the bid amount will vary considerably for premium and middle positions. Middle position can be to your advantage, if you do not want lots of clicks that might increase your expenditure, your website offer does not require high conversions, you do not have exorbitant budget to attain top positions, or you have just started managing a PPC account. The second page positions are low rung positions. The click through is very low compared to high-level positions. However, you will not be getting too many windows shopping click throughs. Most of the people who view or clicks on low position ads are researching the keywords, comparing products and service offers, or looking for your kind of products or services. Low position are best for those advertisers who are low on advertising budget but still want to make their presence felt, have low conversion rate or have low profit margins per sales. The position of your ads depends on the
keywords and the bid amount placed on them. If your PPC
advertising is supported by a good budget you can bid
for top slots, however second and third position ads receive
almost the same number of clicks. How to choose the right keyword? Know your website: Your keyword should be relevant to the website’s service or products that you intend to promote. As an advertiser, you should have thorough knowledge about your website, its features, and offers. If you are well aware of your website, you can then develop a pool of keywords that is relevant to your website. Think like the searcher: If you are thinking like a promoter, you might often end up missing the important keywords. Put on the searchers’ cap and think from their viewpoint to develop your keywords’ list. Often you need to think like a searcher and identify the search terms or keywords they likely to use. Develop a combination of search terms/keywords that they may try out and the keywords that they might omit to find your website. If you think like your prospects, you might end up hitting the bull’s eye and generate quality traffic to your website. Include specific keyword- keyword phrases: Some common keywords might be falling under highly competent category, resulting in exorbitant bid amount for top positions. It is better to find specific keywords, for example- if your website is selling shoes, it will give good result if you go in for specific terms like: ladies shoes, black shoes. The price tag for premium positions might be less for these keywords. Using of specific phrases and keyword often targets specific customers, thus you end up getting higher quality traffic and good ROI. If you are targeting a particular geographic location, use keywords pertaining to that specific location. It always pays rich dividend, if you are specific rather than general. Try using different combinations for general words related to your website. Have a look at your competitor: Go through the keywords and find which competitor is available for that particular keyword. Have a look at their site and then think on the keywords they might have used, only if the service or product offered by them is similar. Try using synonyms, plurals and misspelling: Try using synonyms of the important keywords and include plurals in your keyword pool. Often we end up typing the wrong spelling, think like your searcher and try out possible spelling mistakes that they often make while searching for your kind of website. Also, you can use different terminology used by different community. Ask from your near ones:
Ask your neighbors, relatives, family members, friends
about the search terms or words that they will use while
looking for your kind of service. Note down their feedback,
it will give you a valuable insight into the kind of keywords
you need to include in your keywords’ pool. There are hundreds of PPC search engines online, however, Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture) and Google’s Adwords are the first rung search engines and most of the advertisers set up their accounts with them to get quality traffic. However, there are noticeable differences in the techniques of Overture and Adwords functioning. Position: Often, your ad’s position in the PPC search engine is determined by the bid amount on a particular keyword. Higher the bid, higher is your position. However, there is a slight difference in obtaining of position with Overture and Google’s Adwords. While Overture policy is higher the bid amount, higher is your ads’s position, Google considers the click through rate (CTR) along with bid amount to determine the ad’s position. While Overture deactivates advertisements with low click through rates, with adwords your position might slip if you are not getting the requisite clicks. Description and Title field: In contrast to Google’s Adwords, Overture provides more characters to use in the ad’s copy. Overture title field allows 40 characters and description characters can be up to 190. Google title field allows 25 characters for title and for description 35+35 in two lines that is 70 characters in total to describe your offers. Budget: Google’s Adwords
allows you to set your campaign’s budget on a daily basis,
while Overture follows monthly budgeting technique. Adwords
provide the option to keep the ads’ active or pause them
all day long, so that you do not exceed the set daily
budget. In overture, if your budget gets over before the
scheduled date, your ads will stop showing for the left
number of days. PPC Ads are entry gates, your website page is the real field where you win over your visitors and give them enough reasons to make that all important decision (it may be purchase, subscription or sign-up). The attention span of an online visitor is very short and they are all an impatient lot, if your landing page is irrelevant to their search, they will exit without taking any effort to find what is there on your website, and instantly look out for your competitors’ website. Why let the competitor reap the profits, provide the visitor with what he or she needs and your ad is claiming to offer. If you are thinking of converting your visitors to valuable customer, make sure that your website is rich in information; users like to know about products and services before they buy and your website should provide them with lots of relevant information. Driving all your traffic to your home page is not a good idea; you should land them on ad-specific landing pages. Your websites links should be working, navigation should be easy, design should be good and attractive, and your website’s content should act like a good salesperson, not letting the visitor go without taking action. If your offer has been able to entice the site visitor to take action, guide him or her through simple steps to your order, subscription, and submitted information page. If your PPC ads are relevant to the search
terms, you surely will get good number of clicks and every
click increases your ads expenditure; however, it all
depends upon your landing page to see that it is offering
enough benefits for the visitors to stay and generate
ROI. Writing an attention grabbing ‘Title’ PPC titles are short, clear-cut, catchy sentences in bold, generating curiosity and grabbing the attention of your potential customer. They act like the headline, screaming for attention, creating interest and if the potential customer finds it relevant, it is clicked. Website’s relevant title contributes greatly to the kind of traffic that visits your site. If the title is apt to the kind of service you are promoting, it will result in genuinely interested customers to your website and thus resulting in good rate of conversions. Your ad title should be concise, persuasive, grabbing the attention of the searcher in a spilt of a second and that results ad clicks. Your title should be keywords centric, so try using your search terms to develop your title. If the title is not directly related to the search term and ambiguous, you are highly likely to waste money on irrelevant clicks. Create different titles and check the effectiveness of each one, before deciding on the best title for a particular ad. Words like free, bonus, instant are attention getters and you might good number of clicks, however, it is better not to misguide the searchers and try using words that are relevant to your website or business. Writing a comprehensive description Description often expands the title and informs the customer about the website service or product offers. Your ad’s description should be comprehensive and benefit-laden within the space allowed. Be precise while writing the description, use simple and error free language and avoid using jargons and gimmicks. If you are not using your search term in your ad title, try using it in your description copy, it makes the searcher see the relevance between your ad and his or her quest. Your description should not be vague and should be highly targeted; this will considerably reduce unnecessary clicks. Every search engine has their own specific
criterion on title and description submission, before
creating your ads go through the guidelines. If your title
submission does not follow the guidelines of a particular
search engine, they might be rejected for falling short
of the submission rules. While creating the ads remember
that it is not the high click through that matters but
good conversion rate, your ads should be the door through
which only potential customers enter. For example: ABC is promoting its legal documents site, its ROI is average, but cost per conversion is increasing with every click. It is high time that it reviews its campaign, weed out those ads that are generating clicks but no conversion and think on fresh ideas to increase ROI and decrease cost per conversion. Rather than scraping the whole campaign and nullifying its efforts hitherto, it needs to track ads and keywords that work and replace non-performing ads with fresh ones or discard the old ones. Tracking should start from the time your visitor clicks on the ad and lands on your page. Every move of theirs should be tracked, the time spent on the site, the time not spent, pages viewed, action taken, (depending upon your website the action may be sales, order, sign up etc). Though Google, Overture, and Findwhat provide tracking codes to track clicks and conversions, it is better to subscribe to a third party website metrics. It not only verifies the information provided by PPC Search Engines but also offers other valuable information. A good web analytics helps in gauging the performance of your PPC campaigns accurately and provides valuable information to better the campaigns’ results. |
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