Monday, November 15, 2010

PPC marketing users offered tips on adCenter transition

Paid search marketers have been offered some tips on steps to take before the final round of transitions from Yahoo! to adCenter starts next week.
From October 11th, ad serving will switch to the Microsoft platform and the transfer of pay per click marketing accounts is expected to be completed by the final week of this month.
Yahoo! said advertisers should therefore ensure they have an adWords account – complete with campaigns and budgets – set up no later than October 25th, otherwise their ads will no longer appear on the Yahoo! Search network.
It added that as ad serving moves, marketers will notice clicks and impressions increasing on their adWords platform but declining on Yahoo!. Nevertheless, they should continue to manage their existing campaigns until the transfer process is complete.
Furthermore, the company advised advertisers to review their search engine marketing budgets as, based on comScore's August figures, Yahoo! and Microsoft's combined share of core searches in the US will be around 33.8 per cent.
This compares to a share of 60.5 per cent for Google.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services

18 Tips For Writing Better Pay-Per-Click Ads

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When it comes to pay-per-click advertising, there are two ways to decrease your spending. You can lower your cost per click (which will lower your position and your CTR) or you can improve your ads (which will increase your CTR and your position). Great ads will attract more clicks for a given amount of impressions, which will be rewarded by Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing with lower bid prices or higher rankings.
The real secret to writing “the best ad on the page” is to ruthlessly test and track multiple ads over multiple test iterations. By doing this, you will improve your ad over time, and will eventually have a great performing ad with a very high click through rate.
But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few tips you could use to give your initial ads a boost, or to help you beat your personal best performing ad time and time again. So without further ado, here are 18 tips for writing better PPC ads:

Write ads for small groups of keywords. By grouping your keywords very tightly, and writing your ads specifically for those keywords, you will give yourself a large advantage over your competition. Many people are too lazy to take the time required to do this properly, yet it is something that will increase your CTR every single time.
Work your keywords into the ads as much as possible. If you took the advice from the previous tip, you will have an easier time with this one. You should try to get your keywords to appear multiple times in your ad so that you can take full advantage of keyword bolding. I sometimes include the keyword in all four lines of the PPC ad for maximum bolding.
Give the ads some visual appeal. This takes some additional creativity and planning, but can really help your ad to stand out. You can make each line progressively longer (or shorter) for a cascading effect, you can alternate lengths to create a visual “arrow” or “reverse arrow” shape within your ad, or you can make your ad intentionally extra short. All of these will help you ad differentiate itself from the competition and will hopefully attract some eyeballs.
Write ads with your audience in mind. When you are writing an ad, think to yourself “what is my audience looking for when they search for this keyword?” If you can “read their minds” and guess their internal dialog, you will be able to answer their exact questions and get their attention. This is another tip that is immensely easier if you group your keywords very tightly.
Create an attention-grabbing headline. Nothing in your ad is more important that your headline. The problem with PPC ads is that you don’t get much space for it (25 characters with AdWords). Craft your headline wisely, but don’t stress over it too much, you will probably be split testing many, many different variations before you find the great ones.
Ask the audience a question. This is definitely a good strategy for certain markets. If you can work a question into your headline or description, test it out and see how it impacts the CTR. If someone is searching for something, and then you confirm what they are searching for, they are likely to click on your ad. Additionally, the tone of the question, along with the question mark, helps differentiate your ad from the others.
Use specific numbers. This is a common copywriting trick that has been used for decades. Numbers create interest and specific numbers create curiosity. They won’t always perform better, but try to test the impact of including numbers in your ad. If you can, include a very specific number such as “314″ instead of “300+” or “76.83%” instead of “75%”. You don’t have to be 100% accurate with the numbers either, as long as you aren’t blatantly lying.
Capitalize strategically. It is better to capitalize the first letter of every word? The first letter of important words? Just the first letter of words in the headline? Should you capitalize words in your display URL? You can never be sure until you have tested it, but it is something that you must test. I usually start out capitalizing everything, then try out any combinations I can think of.
Borrow ideas from others. Another copywriting principle that has been in practice for decades is borrowing ideas from other ads. Although you should technically only take “ideas” (such as rewriting an ad about “pens” to work with your “cheese” keywords), you won’t get into any trouble copying direct competitors. Take some of the top (or your favorite) ads that are being shown for your keywords and mix them up to create something new. It they are at the top of the listings, they probably have a pretty good ad (or are paying out the nose).
Emphasize the benefits of your offer. Yet another age-old copywriting principle. Your audience doesn’t care how many features your are offering or how great they are, they want to know “What’s in it for me?” If you can tell them, in your ad, what benefit they will get from giving you their click, you will likely have a successful ad.
Use words that evoke emotion. If you can effectively get people to feel emotions when reading your ad, they will probably feel compelled to click it. The list of emotion words goes on and on, so here is a nice guide to emotion words.
Test multiple versions of your display URL. This was touched on in tip number 8, but needs to be expanded. While you should experiment with capitalization (i.e. “DomainName.com” vs “domainname.com”), you should also experiment with “www”, sub domains, and pages. It usually, but not always, increases the CTR when you include the keywords in your URL. You can essentially do this one of two ways: “Key-Words.DomainName.com” or “DomainName.com/Key-Words.” Although some uptight editors might disable these ads if the pages don’t actually exist, you can resubmit them and a nicer editor will realize that there is no harm done.
Be cautious with prices. Although prices do have their place as negative qualifiers, they will usually be detrimental to your CTR. Unless your price is the lowest, it is probably best to leave it out of your ad. You can, instead, state the savings as a benefit to the user.
Include a call-to-action. Sometimes, the most effective way to get someone to do something is to simply ask them to do it. That’s the principle behind the call to action. Because you have such limited space in a PPC ad, the call-to-action might not be beneficial, but is is at least worth a test. Just including something like “Click here to receive this benefit” is sufficient.
Double check spelling and grammar. This might seem obvious, but is can very easy to make a stupid mistake. Having a grammatical or spelling error in your ad hurts the credibility of your ad and will most likely get it disable by an editor, costing you valuable testing time.
Don’t waste space with useless words. Like I said before, the space available to you in a pay-per-click ad is extremely limited. Although your ads should be grammatically correct, they do not need to be sophisticated sentences. Keep them simply and concise so that it is easier for the reader to quickly understand what you are offering.
Use negative keywords. This isn’t directly related to actually writing your ads, but it is definitely important. It goes along with tip number 1. If you don’t use negative keywords, your ad is going to be triggered by keywords that you didn’t intend for. When this happens, your ad will not match what the consumer was searching for, they will not click your ad, and your CTR will suffer.
Make the ad relevant to the landing page. I saved this suggestion for last because it will not effect the CTR of your ad in the least bit (it can, however, effect your landing page quality score). With that being said, it is still very important that you make your ad relevant to the landing page. If a visitor reads a particular offer or benefit in your ad, they are expecting to find it when they click through. Give them what you promised in your ad and you will experience higher conversions. Give them something that doesn’t match the ad and you will have a lot of confused visitors who reach for the back button.

There you have it, eighteen tips I have learned through my experience with PPC marketing. Keep in mind that these are merely suggestions, they can’t possibly be used all at once, and they won’t always make for a better ad. You need to test every change you make to your ads to determine if it has a positive or negative overall effect.

PPC Advertising – Tips For Newbies

February 28, 2010 | In: Social Media Tips

If you want to make a living (or supplement your living) with your computer, you need to learn how to market to people. Pay Per Click campaigns are one such way to do that. A large number of people are utilizing PPC campaigns though so it’s highly competitive and can be quite expensive. How does it work? You pay a fee each time someone clicks on your ad. When they click on your ad, they’re taken to your website where you will try to sell them something. It might cost you $0.25 cents to get them to your site but then you could earn money in profit when they buy something from your online store, download your ebook, sign up for your membership site, or click on a link that takes them to an affiliate program where they then buy something that earns you a commission. There are a lot of different ways to use pay per click to your advantage.
Is it simple to make money through Google Adwords?
Unfortunately it’s not simple. A lot of factors will dictate how much you spend on your Adwords campaign and how much you actually earn from your efforts. A lot of people who start marketing and advertising this way spend hundreds of dollars before they earn any money at all. When you learn as you go, this is the price you pay. There are programs and tools that are both free and fee-based that can help you learn how to do it effectively such as:
- Keyword tools. These tools can help you figure out which words might be the best to bid on for high volume and low competition
- Ebooks. Ebooks can explain processes and tell you the secret strategies that internet marketers have used successfully to keep clicks high, costs low, and conversion rates rising.
- Software tools. There are a number of software tools available that can help you save time, maximize keyword results , duplicate campaigns, split test, provide landing pages, and more.
Maximizing Your Advertising Dollar
It costs a lot of money to advertise. Some methods are more expensive than others. Whether you have a store, want to advertise your services, have an affiliate marketing business, or some other online business, advertising on the main search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN (Bing) can help you make money, gain recognition for your brand or niche, and grow your business. Online shoppers pay attention to ads. You can grab their attention not just in the search engines but also on blogs and websites that utilize contextual advertising. To be successful you need to learn how to market yourself and get traffic to your website. A lot of today’s successful online marketers use a combination of approaches such as: organic SEO, social media, and sponsored ads. Seasoned marketers have done split testing, done keyword research, created several landing pages, and spent time building campaigns. You could take the long road there and learn through trial and error but you could also invest in tools that save you money in the long run, bring you a big return on your investment, inform you of secrets, and help you shorten your learning curve., inform you of secrets, and help you shorten your learning curve.

7 Tips to Save Money on your PPC Campaign

Stop using Broad Match – A lot of folks doesn’t know or probably doesn’t bother to use the different keyword match types that are available in Adwords. By default if you type in a keyword in your adwords campaign it is set as a “broad match”. The problem with a broad match is that your ad is often displayed in other different variations of your keywords, even if these terms aren’t in your keyword lists. Even though Google says that the broad match always uses relevant keywords, but we (‘advertisers’) know that its not often best for your business. For example, if Jeremy Schoemaker of Shoemoney.com wants to bid on the keyword “Shoe Money” on a broad match, Google will probably find a lot of shoe related queries as relevant. (Which certainly isn’t the case here). So if you have done some work on your keyword research and you are confident with a couple of 2-3 words and long tail keywords, use the “Phrase” or [Exact Match] instead of a Broad Match.
Use Negative Keywords Effectively – I have seen a lot of PPC campaigns that doesn’t implement this sweet Keyword matching feature – Negative Keywords. Suppose you run a web hosting business and you are bidding on the keyword “web hosting” on broad or phrase match. So now suppose If someone performs a search for “free web hosting”, its basically going to trigger your ad. But do you sell web hosting for Free? No! Then do you want to pay for that extra click and have those unwanted impressions which is probably lowering your CTR (Click-Through-Rate)?You can use Negative Keyword match feature to filter out keywords for which you don’t want your ads to show. So words like “free”, “cheap” are common Negative keywords. But its not limited to that. Its absolutely essential to have negative keywords if you have a lot of broad/phrase match keywords in your campaign. If you are confused about your negative keywords, Go to Adwords Keyword Tool enter your keyword and choose the “Negative” in the drop-down under Match Type. This will show you a whole bunch of negative keywords that may suit your primary keyword.
Smart Bidding – If you have played with some auction sites like Ebay you probably know this secret already. A smart way of bidding for anything is to do the unnatural. Don’t bid like any other Joe, always try to bid in odds (I personally prefers to bid in 1s, 3s and 7s). Now the question is why? Well the main reason is doing odd things gives you an advantage over others who are always playing by their ‘predictabe’ rules. Thus it sort of gives you a higher chance of winning the bid war. So instead of bidding $0.10, I’d bid $0.13, and for $0.15 I’d prefer to bid $0.17. So for someone who is bidding in 5s (like 5, 10, 15, 20…), would need to place 4 bids to outbid my ($0.17). Moreover lets say if the highest bidder was $0.10, you can outbid him by only 1 cent ($0.11) rather than paying $0.15!
Create Separate Ad Group, Ads and Landing Pages – If your PPC account looks like my friend’s (1 Campaign, 1 Adgroup, 1 Ad, 1 Landing Page, 20 Keywords) then you are doing the whole thing wrong. Try to group similar keywords in Individual ad groups and create Individual Ads for those and point them to their designated Landing pages. This will not only improve your CTR but also improve your conversion. Lets say you are running a web hosting business, and you offer different types of hosting (e.g. Shared, Reseller, Dedicated etc). So for best result, you may want to split your whole keyword list into 3 logical segments related to the 3 different types of hosting you offer. And then use those keywords to create 3 different adgroups & Specific ads for the specific services. Point all those ads to your relevant landing pages (e.g. www.host.com/shared-hosting.html). This will definitely help you to get a better quality score as your ads & landing pages will become more relevant to the term the user is searching for. It is likely to increase your CTR & and will eventually lead to higher sales. So at the end of the day because of your good quality score you will be paying less and getting highly targeted audience to the highly targeted offer pages – All this just for a little bit of initial hard work from your side.
Geographic Target - If you are just a bakery at queens, why would you want to pay for clicks that are outside your business zone? Use the GEO target facility to target your audience well, this will substantially help you to lower your ad impression, higher CTR, higher quality score and a better ROI.
Time your Ads, Show your Ads When They Matter – If you are a local Pizza Store, would you want to show your ads when people at 3 AM search for Pizzas? (Assuming you don’t. have a 24 Hour Delivery). It would be ridicules and a big waste of money if you actually pay for clicks after your business hours where none of the searchers can actually order your pizza during that period of time. So What would you do? Use Ad Scheduling to time your ads to match your requirements. Ad scheduling lets you control the days and times your AdWords campaigns appear. So if you are running “Special offers” for Fridays, you can use Ad Scheduling to only show ads (a specific one) on Fridays. Try to think of a time when your ad would actually matter to your customer. By default, your ads will run for 24 hours in a day by trial and error you might be able to find out that running ads on a specific time of the day gives you more conversion! (e.g. People would search for “morning headache” usually in the morning after getting up from bed..)
Don’t bid on Content Network – I know some might disagree with me here but this is purely based on my own experience & what works best for me and my clients. I feel that even though bidding at content network is often cheaper, but in terms of conversion the performance of content network is very poor. Again, I’d say that this may be different for your case as some niches do really well in content networks. But if you are really starting out fresh with PPC & adwords, I’d urge you to remove content network from your campaign. This setting is set in the campaign level, so once you turn this off all the other ad groups that are in that particular campaign will be affected. What if you want the content network, but you dont want to harm your quality score by having too many impression and low CTR? Easy solution is to create a completely separate campaign only for content network and test the results! Note: You should ALWAYS modify your content network bid as its much lower than the search network bids.

6 Tips How to Write Effective PPC Ads

Posted on Saturday, 6th December 2008

Nowadays, it became quite easy to start and maintain Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns. Looking from the dull side, there is a lot of money being wasted given that these Ads are appealing to the visitor, thus reducing the Click through Rate.
Writing effective PPC Ads can be quite easy. The most important thing to remember is that the one and only goal of your PPC Ad is to get clicked. There is no room for branding and no time to sell. You can do all that on the landing page, but only if you get the visitor to your landing page.

Keep in Mind: The Headline

Just as in all advertising, the headline is the most important part of your PPC Ad. In fact, studies show that Ads with powerful headlines get clicked even if the rest of the ad copy is below average. The number one tip is to include your keyword in your headline. And whenever possible, include active words and speak to your target market. Avoid exclamation points or other symbols which only take up space.

Keep in Mind: The Benefits

Again, writing a PPC ad is not much different than writing a display ad - except of course you have much less words to work with. Emphasize the benefits to your visitors, not the features of your products. In other words, what will your customer get when he uses your product or service?

Keep in Mind: Your Target Market

Display Ads work best when the reader believes the Ad is meant for him - and the same goes for your PPC Ad. While you might not have enough space to use "Attention: Small Business Owners" you can probably fit the word "you" into your Ad.

Keep in Mind: The Action

You don't want to waste your precious Ad space with the obvious "click here" but you can refer to what action the visitor will take on your landing page. How about "take the quiz" or "request and instant quote" or whatever fits your particular situation.

Keep in Mind: Your Secondary Goal

The number one goal is to get a click, but what do you hope to accomplish once the visitor gets to your landing page? Do you want to capture names, or do you want to make a sale? If you want as many names as possible, offer something free in your Ad.

Keep in Mind: The Competition

Before writing your Ads look at current Ads for your keywords. Next, do the exact opposite of what the industry norm is. Why? PPC is similar to the yellow pages with all your competitors lumped into one space, looking almost identical. Do something different so you will stand out from the crowd.

5 PPC Tips to Save You Money

1. Use Negative Keywords – If you’ve used the Google Keyword Tool, you’ve probably noticed the “Negative Keywords” function. If you’ve chosen certain keywords or phrases that relate to your site, for example, “affiliate software”, you want people who search for just that to find your site and buy your software. However, if a user searchers for “free affiliate software”, your site will still come up. They may click on your ad, costing you money, and then immediately leave when they find out that you do not offer affiliate software for free. Use negative keywords like “free” and “cheap” to avoid wasting money on clicks by telling the search engine that you do not want those keywords to show your ad.
2. Use Phrase or Exact Match – With Broad Match, when users search for other keywords that the search engine thinks are relevant, your ad will show up on the results page, even if you don’t want it to. By using Phrase or Exact Match, only the keywords that you specified will trigger your ad to be displayed, decreasing your impression count, which will increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) and add quality to your campaign and ads.
3. Target Location/Languages – Targeting only the English speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, etc) will also help increase your CTR of your keywords and ads by creating a less diverse audience and targeting those who are more inclined to read your ad and buy your product.
4. Max CPC Bid – This is one of the more important PPC tips. For everyone 100 clicks that you receive on your ad, you can assume that your will get 2 conversions. So, you want to base how much your Max CPC Bid will be on the payout of the product. If you make $18.00 per conversion, multiply that by 2 and then divide that by 100 and you get $.36, which is what your Max CPC Bid should be for that product. Don’t waste money by bidding more than you have to.
5. Avoid the Content Network – The content network of PPC programs gets you a lot of impressions and for little money. However, the impressions are not as targeted and your CTR will go down and so will your conversions. If you’re just starting out with PPC campaigns and tools such as Adwords, MSN Adcenter, or Yahoo Search Marketing, hone your skills on the search network before taking on the content network, if you want to at all.
When you’re first starting out with affiliate marketing and PPC advertising, start with Google Adwords and once that is making you some money, move onto Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN Adcenter.
PPC can be tricky at first, so affiliate training programs like Free Site Signup offer complete PPC campaigns that have been tested and proven to be high converting. In order to help you get your affiliate marketing business up and running, Free Site Signup also provides pre-designed landing pages to use with your PPC campaigns so you can start earning your money immediately. It is recommended that beginner affiliates take advantage of affiliate training programs so there is no money wasted on trial and error. Let the pros handle that – you just get out and start making

Tips for Writing Killer PPC Ad Copy

in a highly profitable niche has to go up against fierce competition. So the question is, how can you make your PPC ad copy stand out from the rest? There is a mega-ton of advice on the Web and in various search marketing books on how to write outstanding copy for Adwords text ads. In spite of all the literature available on the subject though, it’s still far from being an exact science.
Most experts in the field agree you should use compelling and creative “buy language” combined with tricks for dynamic keyword insertion. One might argue, however, that the magic bullet affiliates can use when writing high-CTR (click through rate) ad copy is a lot more basic than that. So what’s it all about? CREATIVITY IN CONTEXT.
Being creative in context is about first knowing your competitor’s ads and then creating ones that are unique and which speak directly to your prospect in a style uniquely your own. Creativity in context means that you never write your ads in a vacuum, because you understand that those ads are always viewed by the user in relation to other SERPs. Creativity in context means that compelling ad copy originates from a strong understanding of your product or service’s competitive landscape. It means knowing that even though you might have the most original copy in the world, if it isn’t in the proper context, your ads will probably crash and burn.
Getting context right requires that you do some market research first. Let’s start with paid search. Before writing new ads, you should take your top three converting keywords in the ad group you’re writing new ad text for, and Google them. Can you find common threads in the top competitive ads that might provide an opportunity for you to capitalize? For instance, if every ad has some variation of “fix error x”, your ad will stand out better if you write something along the lines of: “Don’t fix error x until you read this advice.” Trying twists like this can significantly improve your CTR.
What about content network ads? Some top affiliates assert that very few keywords or ad groups allow advertisers the flexibility to have the absolute 100% best possible ad text on both search AND content. Again, originality and context are the keys to success here. If you’re writing search ad text to pop out on the SERPs, it stands to reason that you’ll also want to stand out on the content network.
The main challenge with the content network is that users see your ads in a different order and placement than on the search pages. If you use a content network conversion tracking solution (even the one in Google Analytics will do), take the time to scan the content network sites that send you the best traffic and get an idea of where your ads are placed on their site.
What do the other ads you see look like? What AdSense layout option are they using? Try to find common threads in all the other ads and then be creative and go a different route with your copy so that it’s still in context, but stands out from the crowd.
Note: It may also be worth your while to experiment with search-only or content-only adgroups to measure the success of writing copy for the individual delivery channels (i.e., search vs. content).

PPC Mastery Tips For Newbie – Adwords, Overture, MSN adCenter,etc

How long would a $500 last for adwords campaign? 1 day? 2 days? 1 week?
I doesn't matter how much you spend on PPC. What matters is how well your PPC campaign converts. PPC is defined as Pay Per Click in case you are new to this term. What is PPC? PPC simply means you pay advertiser for every click you get. It could cost you from a penny to a few dollars per click, it all depends on the competition of the market you are targeting.
Newbies always made mistakes. The common mistakes they make are targeting a general niche, non buying market, wrong demographic. etc etc etc. For an example, targeting "Free Golf Tips". You will get a lots of clicks by targeting this keyword phrase. However, this is not a buying market. Most of the users click on to that link are not ready to buy. They are not willing to take out their credit card for your product yet.
How to laser target your potential buyer and doesn't burn a hole in your wallet? Take golf niche as an example. I would write an ad targeting these keywords, "How to perform perfect golf swing" ,"Perfect Golf Swing Tips" , demographic targeting, male 30-45 years old in the Unites States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Why? Because these are the buying market, they are willing to use their credit card for your product that you are going to sell them.
As you notice, I target "How to perform perfect golf swing" instead of "how to play golf". Why? Simple… filter out competitors.
Golf niche consist of golf clubs, golf shoes, glove and many other golf accessories. It is too wide to target the golf word. "How to perform perfect golf swing" is laser targeting those who want to learn how to swing the golf club. Are there interested in golf shoe? NO. Golf clubs? NO… what they want is perform perfect golf swing. Give them what they want!

5 Tips For Creating Compelling PPC Ads

by Chris Stiner in Pay-Per-Click

Search engine marketers are always looking to capture a valuable and relevant click throughout their pay-per-click campaign. Here are five ways to help target those all-important searchers through compelling and effective ad copy.
1. Utilize Your Product’s Uniqueness – Most companies already know what sets them apart from their competitors. More than likely, your company has already completed hours of market research, so you should utilize this data in your ad copy. For example, if you have a Volvo dealership, capitalize on the safety aspect of your brand; if you have a Subaru dealership, then you could target “bad weather driving.”
2. Turn a Feature into a Benefit – Features are easily identifiable – they are the adjectives of a product. “Stronger abs,” “anti-lock brakes,” and “diabetes supply home delivery” are all valuable features, but you must highlight that they will also make you more attractive, keep your child safe, and save you time.
3. Use Credibility Words – “Guaranteed,” “Authorized Reseller,” “Certified,” “Bonded,” and “Secure” are just a few examples. With the intense competition and overwhelming number of ads that most consumers are bombarded with in the search space, many are drawn towards an ad that provides them some peace of mind about their choice to make that click.
4. Include Keywords in Your Ads – With the flexibility of 25 campaigns per account and 100 ad groups per campaign, make sure to segment out your keywords into lists that are associated with as few keywords as possible. By incorporating the main keywords into all of the ads within that ad group, your ads will be more relevant to the searcher and more compelling by nature.
5. Strong Call to Action – This one goes without saying these days, but it is good to be reminded that a powerful call to action can make or break your ad. Second only to a PPC ad’s headline is line 2 of your description. This is directly related to the fact that a call to action is usually placed here. “Act Now,” “Subscribe Today,” “Learn More,” and “Book Today” are just a few examples of a strong call to action.
Of course not every ad will utilize every feature listed here, but by incorporating some of these points into your next round of ad copies, you will see a lift in relevant traffic which will shine through with an increased conversion rate and a higher ROI.

The Top 7 PPC Landing Page Tip

If you're looking for PPC landing page tips then the best advice you can get, especially if you are doing pay per click, is to simply give Google what it wants in terms of structure as this will lower the risk considerably of getting slapped with high bid prices.
But a good landing page is not only vital in PPC. In fact, it's just as important to make sure your page is structured in the best and most efficient manner to maximize free traffic to your site and to keep the visitors from making a quick exit. This occurs when they find a website which provides different information to what their keyword search suggests.
In this article however, we will concentrate of PPC landing pages and steer you in the right direction in structuring your page to keep the paid ad services happy.
Tips For PPC Landing Pages
1. Using your home page as you landing page is one of the most common mistakes among small business owners on the Internet. This is a big mistake because it forces the customer to have to search through pages and pages of your website to try and find the product that you are selling.
It is much easier to make a small landing page that is not a full website. This is much more effective because it shows the customer exactly what the want to see. Using a landing page is much more effective when it comes into bringing in sales. The fact of the matter is that landing pages are much easier to create and require significantly less time to create.
2. Many people make the mistake of having an extremely generic landing page. In reality, you should have a different landing page for every single product that you are promoting. The fact of the matter is that someone clicked on your link because they were interested in a specific product. This is why it is important to have your page contain information that only pertains to this product.
3. Having a confusing and unorganized landing page is another mistake that many small business owners make on the Internet. Whenever you are trying to sell a product, on the Internet or in real life, it is important to be as clear and precise as possible. At the same time, you should keep your landing page simple and feed information to the viewer slowly.
4. Chances are that you have spent a lot of time optimizing your pay-per-click ads, but you may not have done the same thing with your landing page. This is a big mistake because it will result in significantly less sales. For each list of keywords it is important to have a landing page as well as a pay-per-click ad. It is extremely important to maintain a line of constant communication with your customers throughout the entire process.
5. Some people make the mistake of asking for too much information at once from their customer. If you ask for too much personal information at once then you may quickly scare them away. The fact of the matter is that not everyone is willing to give their personal information out on the Internet. There is no need for any additional information besides a first name and an email address if the individual is not making a purchase.
6. Many people make the mistake of putting too many images on their landing page. This can result in your site taking an extremely long time to load. There is no need to insert a large quantity of images on your website. It is better to keep your site simple and organized. If your site takes too long to load it may scare away some of your potential customers.
7. You're selling instead of providing information. When you get someone to click your ad you have already completed the selling process. The next part of the selling process is telling the customer what you have to offer for them. After they click on your ad, it is important to educate the customer about your product. This will encourage them to make a purchase without feeling as if you are extremely eager to get them to buy your product.

10 TIPS FOR YAHOO MARKETING SUCCESS
(Yahoo's Search Marketing subsidiary is called Overture)

by Richard Ball

Use keywords in ad text
Show the searcher that your ad is relevant. Yahoo will display the search keywords in bold in your ad if they're present. This helps your ad stand out from the crowd.
Bid for double exposure
Perform a search on search.yahoo.com and notice that 2 or 3 ads are displayed twice on the page, at the bottom of the page in full length and at the top right in condensed form. Rather than bidding high for the full ads at the top of the page, consider bidding lower for the bottom of the page and double your exposure.
Take advantage of bid gaps
Large advertisers blindly set bids across all keywords. This creates a tremendous opportunity to save money. Bid on a keyword by keyword basis rather than setting bids by category. Read this article for more information on bidding strategies, including bid gaps.
Avoid bidding wars
Don't waste money getting into bidding wars for a handful of high volume keywords. Instead, expand your keyword list to include more specific keywords that have a lower search volume. Collectively, these keywords will reach the search volume of more expensive keywords. Your average CPC (cost per click) will fall dramatically using this tactic. Use keyword research tools to expand your list of keyword phrases.
Use both standard and advanced match types
Start with match types set to advanced, unless you are on a very tight budget or nervous about your ad spend. Track initial results very closely. For high volume keywords that aren't performing well, either add excluded words or switch to standard match.
Use excluded words
Your advanced match ad will not be displayed if the search includes an excluded word. Add more excluded words at regular intervals. As your excluded word list grows, you will save money by avoiding unqualified clicks. Plus, you'll decrease the chance of your keywords being removed due to low click index scores. For example, if you sell products or services at a premium, include excluded words like:
free
cheap
discount
Use a relevant landing page
For most searches, don't point the ad to your home page. Choose a landing page on your site that includes the keywords from the search. In some cases, it's worth creating a custom page that's not in the normal navigation of your site.
Try the plural trick
The keyword selector tool doesn't usually differentiate between plural and singular forms of a keyword. However, there are instances where this is not the case. Always check both forms of a keyword. Creating ads for the plural form when it's available will increase your keyword inventory and will lower your overall CPC as most advertisers don't know to bid on these keywords.
Don't forget about MSN
When setting bids for keywords, test those keyword searches on both search.msn.com and search.yahoo.com to see the position of your ads. MSN sells their own keyword ads but supplements with Overture results. MSN can be a valuable source of traffic and should not be overlooked. Set your bids accordingly.
Track your results
Don't rely on Yahoo's reporting tools. They're reasonable, but you need more detail, particularly to see which actual keyword phrases your advanced matches are triggering. You'll need this to help build your list of excluded words for advanced match keywords. Plus, click fraud is a problem and needs to be addressed. If you don't have web analytics software in place, use our free Yahoo Search Marketing tracking software. Make sure Yahoo's Easy Track feature is turned on.

Webinar Synopsis: Top 10 PPC Advertising Tips for Killer PPC

Yesterday I tuned into the “Top 10 PPC Advertising Tips for Killer PPC Results” webinar presented by David Szetela, CEO of Clix Marketing. Szetela started off his presentation by telling attendees that he was faced with the task of not only coming up with 10 Top PPC Advertising Tips, but coming up with 10 NEW Top PPC Advertising Tips to share. So what were Szetela’s Top 10 PPC Advertising Tips for Killer PPC Results? Here’s your chance to find out…

Szetela’s Top 10 PPC Advertising Tips for Killer PPC Results
1. Day-Parting with Bing Data:
Many times search marketers rely on their intuition when it comes to scheduling their ads (i.e. “Customers won’t purchase my product at night time so I’ll pause my ads at night”). Szetela says that everything should be based off of some sort of data and now with the Microsoft Adcenter interface marketers have the ability to run reports broken down by the hour to determine when conversions are occurring.
Szetela also says that although Google and Bing users may have their differences it is safe to assume that Google users convert during the same times and therefore your ad scheduling findings may also be used on Google AdWords.
2. Ads at the Top of Gmail
The next top PPC tip was related to placement advertising on Gmail. More specifically, advertising not on the side of a Gmail message, but at the top of a Gmail message. To do this target this placement, add the Placement ad group <mail.google.com> Inbox Top Center.
3. New AdWords User Type
In the past there has been only two types of account access that a user can be given: Standard (administrative) and reports. AdWords now has a “Email Only Access” which will allow users of this access level to receive emails from Google AdWords about: ways to improve the account, newsletters, Google market research, and special offers.
4. New Conversion Optimizer Feature
Under the AdWords Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Model Szetela suggests using the Target CPA pricing which allows you, the advertiser, to tell AdWords the average amount you’d like to pay for each acquisition/conversion vs the maximum amount you’re willing to pay per acquisition/ conversion.
5. View Through Conversions
The view through conversions “count a conversion when there is no content ad click but a conversion did occur within 30 days of the last display ad impression”. Although Szetela feels that this is a pertinent measure of success he warns that the information is most likely only 50% accurate.
6. Focus Change History
Use the filter option within the Change History tool to find the change you’re looking for faster. Change History results may be filtered by changes made only to ads, keywords, budget, status, etc. or even a combination of the choices.
7. New AdWords Keyword Tool
The new keyword tool in AdWords allows the advertiser to narrow down the keyword results by categories. Not only may this help organize the good suggested keywords into campaigns and ad groups, but also increase the number of negative keywords you may find for the account, campaign, or ad group.
8. New AdWords Placement Tool
The new AdWords Placement Tool allows advertising more ways to filter to find appropriate placement sites. Szetela also noted that the old AdWords Placement Tool seemed to show only a percentage of sites available while the new tool seems to be showing all available sites for placement.
9. AdWords Sitelinks Ads
Now you can add sitelinks to your paid advertisements on Google. In order to be qualified to add sitelinks your ad must show at the top of the page. Unlike the organic listing sitelinks, the advertiser may choose what the Title or Anchor Text says as well as the destination URL (character limits do apply). Advertisers may choose up to 10 sitelinks, however, only 4 will be shown within each ad.
Google indicates that adding sitelinks to paid advertisements may increase your Click Through Rate (CTR) by an average of 30%; however, Szetela’s research has shown that adding sitelinks may increase CTR by 60 – 100%!
10. New AdWords Graph
And finally, Szetela spoke on the new ways to segment the campaign/ad group graphs shown at the top of the AdWords interface. He recommends using this tool to better segment the data to determine how to best optimize conversions or goals of the account.

Tips of PPC Campaign Settings

Filed under: Internet Marketing, Tips of PPC Campaign Settings — Sam Williams @ 11:27 pm

Tips of PPC Campaign Settings!
Has your Pay-Per-Click campaign disappointed you? Does it lack the power and impact that you had hoped for? BayTech can assist you in your endeavor to make your Pay-Per-Click Campaign work for you and give you a return on your investment that will make you glad you invested the money in your PPC Campaign and took the time to educate yourself about how to improve your currently broken PPC Campaign. Get ready for RESULTS!!! They are coming soon…
1. Do your best to avoid Phrases with less than THREE Words!
There is a massive difference between “stock market” and “stock market quotes.” The more words incorporated within a keyphrase the more targeted your keyphrase is likely to be for that query. Place yourself in the mindset of the browser, users searching for information will type “stock market” users who specifically are searching for stock market quotes will type the latter.
2. Don’t throw your money away! Ditch the “Broad Match”!
While I concede that “Broad Match” generally generates more traffic you will most often find that this is due to Adwords “Extended Broad Matching” and that a multitude of unrelated terms will sneak in. Unless you are researching for additional terms (by utilizing the “Search Query Report”) you should not waste your investment on keywords that don’t pre-qualify. DO NOT TAKE KEYWORD RESEARCH LIGHTLY! Do a thorough, comprehensive, in-depth, detailed keyword research before embarking on ANY Adwords Campaign. A good rule of thumb is always phrase (with negatives) or exact. This will let you know exactly what you are getting for your monetary investment.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, there are certain phrases that people will utilize while in different stages of their search. Identifying these correctly can potentially mean the difference between paying $30/conversion or $10/conversion.
3. Helpful bidding ideas:
A. Bid on Products and Items as well as Brand Names.
B. Bid on Manufacturers and Company Names.
C. Use buy compare and purchase keywords.
D. Leverage reviews of products.
4. Pay Attention to the Search and Content Networks
Observe your Campaign Settings to see if the Search Network and Content Network are turned on. It is best to switch off both initially as you can’t always trust where the traffic is coming from. Once you get the campaign to a solid CTR, Position and Return you can then test the Search Network to see if it is adding or removing value.
If you want to run a “Content Campaign”, it is suggested that you run it within its own campaign. Alone…….
5. Generate Highly Targeted Adgroups
Theme your adgroups around a specific keyword. If that keyword is “stock market quote” then the adgroup may contain:
“stock market quote”
“stock market quotes”
[stock market quotes]
[stock market quote]
Using these methods gives you the ability to create highly targeted creatives which relates directly to the keywords that you’re bidding on. Maintaining things highly related like this will increase your CTR, reducing your cost basis in the long run.
6. Utilize Highly Targeted Creatives
As previously explained you have the ability to write highly targeted creatives focused around a small group of keywords.
Bayted’s senior PPC specialists will help you increase your ROI and improve your targeted traffic by refining your PPC Campaign Setting’s.

6 PPC, CPM, and SEO Marketing Tips for Your Service Business

Online entrepreneurs have an incredibly wide range of marketing options available to them. While brick-and-mortar businesses are typically limited to directory marketing and direct marketing forms, online businesses have a highly valuable extra advantage: the ability to drive customers to them. Through pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and long-term SEO (search engine optimization) marketing, you can transform your online service business from a small operation into a dedicated multi-employee company.
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After all, online business is all about scale. With effective scaling comes higher returns, more manageable work, and significantly greater profits. These PPC, CPM, and SEO marketing tips won’t just help you grow your service business, but help you expand and scale it strategically so that along with your total revenue, your per-hour profits significantly increase.

1. Always use negative keywords.

Although marketers are keen to point to pay-per-click platforms as a short-term marketing option, the reality is that they require just as much branding and long-term thinking as any other marketing method. The wrong keywords can and will negatively influence your business, causing you to lose customers and online influence.
When bidding on industry-specific keywords, make sure you add negative keywords into your campaigns. For example, if your company specializes in ‘website design’ and prefers to work with large-scale clients with high budgets, it’s probably best to create a negative keyword profile featuring terms like ‘cheap website design’ or ‘one-off website design’. Negative keywords can help you target your audience more specifically, all the while excluding the type of clients that you don’t want.

2. Test different PPC platforms.

The most popular pay-per-click marketing platforms are almost always attached to search engines. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Bing Adcenter are some of the most powerful advertising services around, boasting huge audiences and the potential to dramatically change your business’s income.
Of course, there’s no reason to stick to just one advertising platform. Create a test budget and market your service business on Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Bing Adcenter. Potential clients are all over the place, and with an ultra-refined search presence it’s easy to accidentally miss some of them.

3. Advertise on other websites.

There’s no point sticking exclusively to search results. Once you’ve built up a basic advertising presence, why not expand your advertising to content-filled pages and other contextual placements. Create a list of popular websites that operate in your niche, and approach them with offers for advertising. Most popular industry blogs are interested in advertising partnerships, and with some testing and effect monitoring, it’s easy to work out which blog and website placements are effective and which aren’t.

4. Create a company blog for SEO.

When it comes to online services, particularly website design and online marketing, most websites are rather thin on content. They’ve got their service pages and occasionally a lengthy biography, but when it comes to industry-related content, most of their site is sorely lacking.
If you’re operating an online service business, an easy way to add ultra-relevant content to your website is through a company blog. Describe new projects and business information, highlight changes to your industry and niche, and give something back to readers and clients. With a twice-per-week blogging presence, your company website can easily have 100 extra keyword-heavy pages within a single year, boosting your ranking and providing real-life examples of your company’s value.

5. Write feature articles for experience and industry power.

A well-received feature article achieves two things for your business: the first is industry exposure, and the second is a potentially valuable backlink to your business website. A dedicated PR presence isn’t just worthwhile for direct media advertising and old-school exposure, but for online authority and SEO. Think about it this way – would your business value 100 useless links from self-made blogs, or several targeted links from high-authority media outlets and local newspapers? Value doesn’t just come through deliberate SEO, but dedicated online PR too.

6. Compare client acquisition costs across multiple marketing platforms.

After a few months of testing, you’ll invariably have some data to compare from your different marketing and advertising methods. From SEO to PPC, CPM advertising to direct email, there are undoubtedly going to be some major differences in the cost it takes to acquire a client, the amount of time required to process their orders, and the all-round value that they’re providing to your business.
From here on, you’ve got to do one thing: find the methods that are most effective, and eliminate all else. Focus your marketing efforts – and your marketing budget – on the platforms and strategies that bring in low-maintenance, high-value clients. Put this strategy into action and you’ll have more time to dedicate to business expansion, less stress from client acquisition, and a significantly optimized service income.

Tips to Optimize AdWords PPC Campaigns Using Impression Share Report

Impression share report is one of the best sources to determine the health of your AdWords PPC campaigns and take proactive actions to optimize your AdWords PPC campaigns. You can use the impression share report to determine
1. How well your campaigns are performing overall for the keywords you are advertising
2. If you are losing opportunities to reach target market because of ‘Low advertising budget’ or ‘Low ranking & Low quality score’
The impression share report gives data across Google search, search partners and content network. When you are creating the report choose Ad Distribution and Ad Distribution with search partners. These metrics will give you break down of your campaigns’ performance across Google search, search partners and content network. This is important for performance across Google search, search partners and content network are different. You don’t want to be looking at overall averages across all networks to make all the wrong decisions.
The following are the metrics you need to understand properly before using the impression share report to analyze your PPC campaigns.

Impression Share (IS) –the total number of times your ads were shown (i.e. impressions) for all keywords in your account for the various match types (Exact, Phrase, Broad and Extended Broad)

Lost IS (Rank) – Impressions lost due to low rankings.

Lost IS (Budget) – Impression lost due to low budget.

Exact IS – The number of impressions lost for keywords from your campaigns that exactly matched the user search query. Please note that Exactly matched doesn’t mean exact match. E.x. Your campaigns might contain keywords in only phrase or broad match. But when a user searches for the exact keyword, your ads will be triggered for those keywords. So AdWords considers keywords that exactly matches user query irrespective of match type to determine Lost Impressions.

Impression Share (IS) is what you got and Lost IS (Rank) and Lost IS (Budget) are what you lost. So if you add up the 3 columns, it will total 100%. The formula will look like this:
Impression Share (IS) + Lost IS (Rank) + Lost IS (Budget) = 100%
I will use the below sample data to show how to analyze and optimize your PPC campaigns.

AdWords-Impression_Share-Report

Low advertising budget
Determining whether you are losing opportunities to reach customers due to low budget is the most easiest and direct. From the data sample you can clearly see if you are losing opportunities due to low budget and take proper action to allocate budget.
Low ranking
This is a bit tricky. For example if you look at campaign ‘D’, it shows the campaign lost 59% due to low ranking. Campaign ‘D’ hasn’t lost impressions due to budget.

Remember Ad Rank = Max. CPC X Quality Score (Q.S.)
If you are not missing impressions due to budget then it’s probably due to Q.S. So make sure to check how well your keywords are doing in terms of Q.S. If the Keywords don’t have a Q.S. of at least 7, then there is room for improvement. Another way to ensure if you are losing because of Q.S. is check your actual keyword rankings and the Q.S. using Placement/Keyword Performance report.
If your keywords are in top positions but your Q.S. is very low then you are losing because of Q.S. Once possible explanation is the impressions share data is based on all match types. Currently the Q.S. is low enough not allowing your ads to be shown for other relevant search queries in broad and extended broad match.
Exact Match IS
This is the most important metric for if you have high Exact Match IS, then you are reaching your target market for the most important and effective keywords. If you are losing significantly then it means your competitors are doing well and you are losing. In the above image you can see Campaign D, E and F present significant opportunities to improve the Exact match impression share and generate conversions. But you prioritize and chose to start with Campaign F for its losing opportunities under Google search.
In general advertisers don’t have much control over ad display on Search partners. So optimize for Google search and then try to review other search channels. Advertisers should try getting the most from Exact Match impression share. There is no specific good or bad numbers to gauge and it depends. But in my opinion anything above 90% is good.

Online Marketing Interview Strategy It’s All About You

At the end of the day, the main person looking out for you is you. Make sure to ask the questions that are important to your happiness and career. One of my personal favorites is finding out as much as possible about my future boss. As I blogged about a while back, your manager can make or break your PPC career. My advice: I’d rather have a great boss at a not so great company versus a poor manager at a great company.
It’s still a hot job market for PPC right now since PPC is a recession proof career. Take advantage of this situation to find the absolute perfect match for you. I know from my perspective as an interviewer, I always want the match to be perfect from both sides. I want to hire employees that will be at the company at least a few years. For that reason alone, I always want to ensure the fit is ideal for both parties.
As a closing tip, I’d also recommend keeping your interviews extremely confidential. Again, it’s all about you and your job security. Don’t let your current employer think you’re interviewing. Don’t start slacking off and doing poor work at your current gig. Many times, interviews take longer than expected or don’t work out at all. Your first responsibility is to you and your current employer. Your second responsibility is to your exploratory discussions with other potential employers. Of course, should you decide to leave, please leave gracefully. This will be the topic of a whole other PPC Ian post in the future.

Search Marketing Interview Strategy Research The Company and Interviewers

The competitive benchmarking aspect of PPC is very high leverage. If you’re really good at research, you’ll uncover nuances that others miss and make the company a ton of money. For this reason alone, I really like candidates who do a thorough job researching the company and the actual interviewers. Some candidates recently have even mentioned that they read PPC Ian and like it a lot. While some would say that has nothing to do with the job, I’d argue that it does. Candidates who have researched me on the Internet are making sure their future manager is right for their career (see next section) and also are demonstrating their ability to benchmark. Take the extra time and do your research!

Search Marketing Interview Strategy Research The Company and Interviewers

Online Marketing Interview Strategy Highlight Your Investment Hobby

This is a simple, yet powerful tip. The vast majority of great corporate PPC employees I have known over the years enjoy investing during their spare time. When they’re not investment hobbyists, they at least know the companies in the space extremely well. As a general way to retire young and accumulate wealth while also looking like a strong businessperson in your PPC interview, I recommend building up an expertise in investing and showcasing it a bit during your interview. From the interviewer’s perspective, we’re hiring SEM managers to basically run an operationally intensive business. Investment experience is a great way of showing judgment and maturity.

Online Marketing Interview Strategy Highlight Your Investment Hobby

Pay Per Click Interview Strategy Proactively Demonstrate Your PPC Skills

At the end of the day, pay per click is a highly technical trade. There are many moving parts and skills are critical. While I always do my best to get a comprehensive understanding of the candidate’s Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter skills, sometimes time will run out and I’m not fully convinced of the candidate’s ability. I’ve been able to get around this by sending follow-up questions via email. However, what always impresses me are candidates that take the time to clearly spell out their skills proactively. I’m always excited to interview candidates who talk at length about their experiences with the various platforms and the PPC levers: Keyword generation, keyword deployment, negative words, ad copy testing, landing page testing, reporting, analysis, technology and automation, and niche tricks. One of your greatest assets is your trade specific knowledge, make sure to spend the time showcasing it!

SEM Interview Tip Polish Up On Your Mental Math Skills

As an interviewer, I place a very big emphasis on math. From experiences at other leading companies in the space, I know I’m not alone. I like to ask mental math questions starting on the phone interview, building all the way up to large half hour case questions during the in-person interviews. If you’re a bit out of practice, make sure to polish up on your math skills. The investment will not only help your interview, but will pay dividends in your PPC career in general. The ability to perform quick mental math can make the difference between looking unconfident and like an absolute PPC superstar.

Search Engine Marketing Interview Tip Passion Is Everything

The first post on PPC Ian was all about my passion for PPC. This was my first post for a reason: Passion is everything in this world. Whether you’re interested in becoming a pay per click corporate leader, a successful entrepreneur, or a world class athlete, you won’t get too far without passion. For this reason alone, passion is one of the first things I measure when conducting a pay per click interview. Sometimes we’re all low on energy. I can totally relate as someone who’s routinely up late at night. However, take control of your mind and get hyped up for your interview. Get rest the night before, eat a good meal, drink an energy drink, do whatever it takes! Passion will get you very far in the corporate world.

Pay Per Click Interview Tip Dress Professionally

A while back, I wrote a post all about the benefits of dressing up for your search marketing job. I truly believe in the power of PPC perception driving reality. No matter how good of a job you’re doing, you can’t ignore perception and the game in general. Since perception and first impressions are everything, please dress up for your interview. Even if you’re interviewing at lunch and have another job try to change before you arrive and then change back before going to your old job. The power of professionalism is often overlooked in my opinion

PPC Interview Tip Focus Exclusively on PPC

If you’ve been reading my blog a while, you most likely know that my interests within online marketing are quite varied. While my heart is in large corporate PPC, I’m also an SEO and domaining entrepreneur in my spare time. Given that context and the general perception that a varied skill set is better, the following tip may seem a bit counter intuitive: Focus exclusively on PPC in your interview and avoid expressing an interest in dedicating significant time to SEO, email, and display advertising.
At large companies, there are separate departments for PPC, SEO, email, and display, typically reporting into the CMO or VP of marketing. The pay per click budgets are large enough that 100% PPC focused employees are mission critical. Without exclusive attention, the campaigns will fail. I’ve been in a plethora of interviews where the interviewee talks at length about their plans to learn the other marketing channels, almost to the extent that shows they’re bored with PPC and looking to move on. My advice to you: Avoid giving this impression at all costs!
I’m certainly not advising you to lie (ethics is everything in this world). If you truly have interests in diversifying your skill set and moving on from PPC, I highly suggest interviewing for a general marketing position at a startup. However, if you’re interested in becoming a Director of Search Marketing at a large company, it’s all about focus.
Of course, it’s important to show that you’re an expert on multiple fronts. As you get to the Director or VP level, a varied skill set is critical. However, it’s important to portray yourself as someone who knows all of the different channels (learn them during your spare time), but is interested in a heavy PPC focus (95% or more of your time). As a real life case study, my personal exclusive focus on PPC over the last 5.5 years has propelled my career from Marketing Associate at a startup to Director of Search Marketing at a large publicly traded company.

11 Killer PPC Tips

Posted in PPC by Tom on the March 10th, 2008

Add keywords till your brain is numb! You should be aiming for thousands of keywords, not just hundreds. It is boring as hell, but vital to a strong PPC campaign. Your competitor may be able to beat you on bid price, but you can beat them for free on keyword volume.
Keywords in an ad group should be very closely related. As a general rule of thumb I keep it to regional varations and where the words are in a different order e.g. blue widgets & widgets blue. This will help keep your keyword’s Quality Score high and your CPC low.
Be aggressive with your choice of keywords, bid on whatever you can get away with. These are often some of the best converting terms.
Do not bid too high on new campaigns just to quickly find keywords that convert. Your aim should be to run a profitable campaign right from the start.
Spot trends amongst your keywords. If a keyword performs really well, are there variations or synonyms of this keyword that you could add to your campaign? Also consider bidding higher for this keyword and closely related terms.
Only delete keywords if they do not convert at all. If a term converts very occasionally, but not enough to justify its current bid price, just lower your maximum bid. It’s better to have keywords show on page 2 or 3 than not show at all. You won’t get many conversions, but they are better than none!
When adding new keywords, consider stepping your bid amounts according to match type. Broad match should have the lowest bids, then phrase match, then exact match. See my post on match type ROI for more information.
Keyword research tools help you get a campaign off the ground quickly. Copyblogger has a few nice reviews on keyword research tools.
When you consider that 25% of search engine queries are new, its worth spending some time coming up with your own keywords. To help me do this I often think in themes – how would a poor person search for this product? what would someone type in if they were in urgent need of a service? Then I set myself a target of say 20 keywords for each theme.
Be wary of bidding on keywords that are too generic, for example loans. Bids will be hugely competitive and such terms are frequently targeted by click fraud. You are unlikely to make any money on these.
When deciding how much to bid or when to delete a keyword, bear in mind that only around 85% of your PPC traffic will be from valid searches. Some clicks on your ads will be accidental, a few will be click fraud, some will be competitors trying to lose you money [but conversely helping your CTR!].

Top 5 PPC Management Tips

jclayc | March 4th, 2008 - 12:51 am Pay per click (or “PPC“) advertising is familiar to most people as those tiny ads that show up along the top and right column of Google and Yahoo sponsored search results. As little as 2 years ago, money ruled the paid advertising marketplace – he who had the most $ got the number one spot. More recently, Google AdWords has added a Quality Score or “QS” to how paid ads are ranked. This makes sure the ad and landing page both talk about the keyword being bid upon. Money + Quality = better placement within the sponsored results. So, what are the top PPC management tips in this new age of “QS” if you’re going to maximize traffic and minimize cost?

Base your paid advertising keywords on your website’s copy – if you don’t talk about it on your site, don’t bid on it. Conversely, if you want to break into a new area of practice, add content to your site first.
Segment your ad groups based upon your site’s available landing pages. The search engines like to see that you’re delivering visitors to a page appropriate for their query.
Make sure you use your target geography and as many keywords as reasonably possible in your advertisement itself. State that you are Ft Lauderdale lawyers or an Ohio criminal lawyer
Create multiple ads per ad group. Hey, let the search engine test and choose the best copy.
Turn off Content Match. Too often, this is nothing but a moneypit.

These five things alone can significantly improve the performance of most legal, paid advertising campaigns. Of course, if the website you’ve built to receive these visitors is of poor quality or without clear contact methods, even a huge volume of traffic will result in little business for your firm. These recommendations assume your website is able to convert PPC traffic to leads.
See Also:

Tips for Better PPC Ads

By shervin | Published: April 21, 2010

Here are some ideas for improving your PPC ads. Some are as old as ad copywriting itself, others are more specific to the pay-per-click arena:

Keep your groups of keywords tight. Think hard about what kinds of keywords are most important to your ad, and confine your keyword use to them. It sounds like a no-brainer, but a lot of people forget about it. It’s an easy way to improve your click-through rate.
Work keywords into the ads whenever possible. This follows along with the above rule. Bold the keywords, and work them into the header and remaining lines as much as you can. Use the Auto-Replace Formula {KeyWord:PPC Ads}
Give ads visual appeal. Cascade your lines, capitalize important words, keep lines short or keep the ad itself very short (it’ll have to be anyway). There’s not a whole lot you can do with simple text to improve visual appeal, but there are a few things, at least.
Get inside your readers’ heads. Try to think about their specific needs and concerns, and write the ad (and keywords!) to them.
Use specific numbers. “76.83%” looks a lot better to readers than “75%.” It comes across as more specific and factual, and piques curiosity. So instead of 120, try “up to 123″ in your copy.
Phrase things as a question. The reader/audience has a question in their minds; by getting inside the readers’ heads, you can phrase that question for them in a way that they will respond to.
Borrow ideas from other ads. That doesn’t mean to plagiarize, but to check out the competition whenever possible and think about ideas that work. Cribbing from your competitors in this way isn’t unethical or inappropriate; if you’ve got a successful ad, they’re going to be cribbing from you.
Test multiple versions of your display URL. Experiment with things like capitalization, “www,” sub domains and pages. But keep in mind that the display URL needs to be an actual accurate URL.
Make sure that your ad is relevant to your landing page; this is known as landing page optimization. Again, this seems obvious, but not everybody realizes it. If the first thing that a customer sees is something that delivers on the tease that your ad offers, your conversion rate is naturally going to be better. If you bait-and-switch, you’re going to have a lot of confused, disgruntled readers who are just going to hit the back-button.
Double check your spelling and grammar, and keep it short and direct. Nothing will torpedo your credibility quicker than an ad that looks like a foreigner wrote it.
You don’t have much space to convey your ideas; economy of words is all-important. Even sentence fragments are fine if they get the meaning across quickly.
Include a call to action. “Start Today” or “Act Now” are some examples. However, keep in mind that you cannot say “ .
Appeal to emotion. Just simple words like “fear,” “happy,” “confused,” “apprehensive,” “alone” or “loved” can push emotional buttons in the audience that will make them respond.

Here are 13 online PPC advertising courses tips worth checking out:

1. Google AdWords Certification Program

If you use AdWords for your PPC marketing efforts, consider becoming AdWords certified by participating in this program. It includes an extensive study guide covering all areas of AdWords advertising. To get your AdWords certification you must pass two tests: a fundamentals exam and one of three advanced exams. Each exam costs $50.

2. Microsoft adExcellence program

If Microsoft adCenter is your pay-per-click advertising platform of choice, it's probably a good idea to get your adCenter accreditation by participating in the Microsoft adExcellence program. This program offers training videos on a variety of topics like keyword match options, ad copy best practices and bidding. The accreditation exam costs $50.

3. Yahoo Learn Online

Yahoo offers a variety of tutorials and archived webinars that are free and comprehensive. Tutorial topics include how to navigate your account, how geo-targeting works, and how ad testing works. Archived webinar topics include enhanced targeting capabilities, ad ranking, and back-to-school ads.

4. Market Motive courses

Market Motive offers two types of online PPC programs: one where you take one course a month for up to three months and another where you commit to three months of courses. The second option, which is significantly more expensive, involves faculty guidance, real-world projects and a dissertation. Classes include video lessons, quizzes, and web conferences.

5. SEMPO Institute's search advertising classes

The SEMPO Institute offers an SEO/PPC class for beginners as well as an advanced PPC class. The former has 14 lessons and costs nearly $400 for non-members, and the latter has 13 lessons and costs nearly $1,400 for non-members. Upon successful completion of the advanced class, which includes strategies and tactics from experienced PPC professionals, you receive a certificate of completion whose logo can be displayed on your website.

6. Search Engine College Pay-Per-Click Starter Course

There are two versions of this course: one that provides guidance from industry expert Kalena Jordan and a "self-study" version that does not involve her guidance. Only students taking the first version qualify for certification. The class discusses paid advertising with Google and Yahoo, as well as a variety of other topics on PPC management. It includes 10 downloadable PDF lessons totaling 97 pages.

7. ROI Revolution's Google AdWords Beginner Online Training

This $97 class is devoted to Google AdWords. It includes three video training sessions that last about 90 minutes apiece, and a fourth video devoted to strategies that can help you sidestep common beginner mistakes. The instructors are Timothy Seward and Mike O'Rourke, founder/CEO and PPC account manager, respectively, at ROI Revolution.

8. International Webmasters Association-HTML Writers Guild Web Site Promotion class

This six-week course covers PPC advertising in addition to other topics like SEO, link
campaigns and affiliate strategies. It costs $100 and is taught by search marketer Cindy
McMahon. McMahon posts lectures, readings, and other assignments once a week in the "online
classroom." The class requires one textbook: 101 Ways to Promote Your Website by Susan
Sweeney.

9. Stikky Media's Pay-Per-Click Online Certification Course

This tutor-supervised course is fairly pricy, but it includes over 300 pages of downloadable PDF lessons, 30 interactive online review quizzes, and 12 months of access to the online classroom area, among other benefits. Students who receive at least a 70% overall on their quizzes and final exam, and successfully complete all the necessary assignments, become PPC certified.

10. GutsGo's PPC Course

If you would like to learn about paid search advertising using a variety of search engines, this may be the class for you. This class, which is a partnership with the Internet and Mobile Association of India, discusses Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask. The website doesn't mention the class's cost, though more information can be obtained by contacting GutsGo.

11. Direct Marketing Association's Search Engine Marketing Certification

Two levels of this class are offered, basic and advanced. Both levels discuss PPC as well as SEO. Specific topics addressed include powerful landing pages, misleading metrics, and good bidding strategies. A certification exam can be taken at the end of the course, though certification must be renewed every three years.

12. Marketing Experiments Landing Page Optimization Certification

This $595 course teaches you how to increase your landing page relevance, how to design your page to hold your readers' attention, and how to motivate your visitors toward the desired action, among other landing page-related topics. It includes various case studies on how particular companies increased their number of sales conversions.

13. PPCblog PPC Training Program

Members of PPCblog have access to a handy set of PPC marketing tools and over 50 modules covering PPC marketing basics plus detailed tutorials on advertising via Google AdWords, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and MySpace. Have a question that isn't covered? You also have access to an active community forum. Membership is $179 per month.

PPC Tips – Some Words Of Advice

January 13, 2010 by Roy Sencio
Filed under: Online Business, Promotion and Marketing

New users can find themselves in a black hole if they venture unaware into marketing, which is also called paid search. The simplicity of the PPC model appeals to beginners. Traffic can be driven almost instantly to the arbitrary web page of their choice, often for a minimal cost-per-click. Without proper monitoring or lousy campaigns from the get-go, they often go into deep credit debt. Additionally, the three tips shown below for starting out in PPC marketing were not followed.
The more relevant your ads are, the better the search engine rewards will be. The more closely your advertisements relate to the content, the better their rank will be and the less you will be charged for those rankings. Doing keyword research is the best way to achieve higher relevancy.
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Suppose you wish to direct traffic to your landing page, and you want to create a list there. Words and phrases that occur often, or keywords, should be identified for your particular niche. Then, generate long tail keywords by adding modifiers to those broad keywords. For example, ‘Golf’ is a general keyword whereas “how to improve your golf swing” is a focussed yet long tail keyword. You will more than likely spend over a dollar per mouse click. Long tail keywords have less competition because they are used less, so you will pay less.
It is similar to tip#1, however a strong, direct campaign will increase the ROI, substantially. There are several factors incuded in an advertising campaign, and you can develop them to be as relevant as possible.
Once again, the keywords must be applicable.
Cases, online marketing keywords and ads trying to lose weight, the search engine, plans to slap you at the click of a ridiculously high price. Because of this, your ad copy needs to be relevant as well. It is best to use the complete keyword in the ad. Each keyword will require a unique approach. At first sight, it looks as though it requires hard labor, but it is really a good investment on a long term perspective.
Your landing page also needs to be optimized. Your major keywords should be able to be spotted on places such as your landing page, in your domain name, headings and in the body of your website.
Basically–someone clicking on your ad expecting a solution for a receding hair line and instead finding your home business opportunity website is going to get you hit by search engines, whose purpose is user relevancy.
Welcome to PPC such thing as the interests of the pilot – you just have to constantly monitor the test to ensure that everything runs smoothly, the fine-tune your campaign. For example, your cost-per-click might increase without warning. When that happens, you want to be there to be able to adjust for the change. Some of your ads could suddenly start experiencing a low click-through rate, in which case you would want to test new ad copy, test new keywords, or dump the ad. It takes constant monitoring to ensure that you pay as little as possible per click, achieve the best rankings, and get the best click-through rates. Though it requires hard labor, it gives you very good returns.

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