I was lucky enough to get into a free teleseminar with Andrew Goodman, founder of Page Zero Media and author of the definitive Pay Per Click (PPC) book, Winning Results with Google AdWords and Mona Elesseily, author of The Unauthorized Yahoo! Search Marketing Handbook.
I have read both of these books and have implemented many of their ideas to create successful PPC campaigns for my clients. Even though Goodman says small companies can set up their own programs, that's coming from an expert who does this for a living. Personally, I would recommend reading his book before deciding to try it yourself OR if you are thinking of hiring someone, so you know the vocabulary and the right questions to ask.
Here are my notes from the teleseminar.
Top 5 Advantages of PPC Marketing
- Customers are looking for you, not the reverse.
- Return on investment is measurable as compared to other marketing approaches
- It raises credibility and brand awareness for your company - you will be perceived as "cutting edge."
- You can get "real time" data on your marketing campaign to determine what's working and what's not
- You can use PPC programs to test your marketing message before you put that message out in more expensive media, i.e. print
5 Key Strategies for Successful PPC Marketing
- Set up your campaign to target the correct market
- Write copy that communicates value and has a strong "call to action."
- Correctly target your ads by category, i.e. products, services, regions, keywords
- Organize your keywords thematically
- Figure out what analytic tools you are going to use and why, i.e. be clear about what you're measure, such as sales or lead generation
3 Key mistakes to avoid
- Don't market to the whole world - use geo-targeting options
- Forgetting to track your ROI (return on investment) - web up web analytics and tracking codes on your landing pages
- Reacting to fluctuations in your data and pulling your ads - understand that fluctuation is normal and watch for trends over time.
How to Choose which Search Engines are best for Your Business
Estimates of Market Share
- Google - 60 - 65%
- Yahoo - 20 - 30%
- MSN - 10 $
- Ask.com - 5-6%
Bottom line is the PPC programs don't have a lot of differences, but Google sets the standards. Advertise on all of them. Remember, PPC is not a "set and forget" program - you need to monitor it periodically. (I tend to do monthly reports, then look at trends once the account has at least a 3- 6 month history. After that is when I do tweaks or go back to review the goals of the client and check to see if the PPC program is meeting those goals.)
What will it cost in time and money?
Andrew Goodman charges $4000 for just the initial consultation, then a flat fee for the next 3-4 months, then a percentage of what you're spending on your campaigns to maintain it.
For do-it-yourselfers, he says that if your monthly PPC spending is under $1000/month, you'd be better off to do it yourself. (I wonder if he doesn't want to be bothered with accounts that small.)
What Changes do you see coming for 2007?
- Google is developing tools to test multiple versions of ads and landing pages to see what gives the best conversion rates.
- Yahoo is coming out with new analytic tools which will allow you to track all the keywords that led up to a sale
- The PPC programs are adding Quality Scores into their ranking algorithms, such that they will look at the correspondence of keywords in the ads and the content of your landing pages.
Miscellaneous Notes
Some research shows that longer queries, i.e. longer search phrases tend to convert better if your ad runs in lower positions. Core terms convert better in higher ad positions. Ad positions from 3-7 are the most "bang for your buck" according to Mona.
Look to Yahoo's Editorial Policies for their description of what they want on landing pages.
Whew! That's it for now.
Annette Vaillancourt
Girl Geek Web Designs: Custom Websites and SEO for Small Businesses on a Budget
1-877-866-GEEK
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