PPC Advertising

Research and Feedback

The only guaranteed way to figure out the words your customers are likely to use is through feedback.

One quick and simple (though potentially expensive) way to get this feedback is to set up a trial PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign and to cast your net wide, gradually removing search terms that are of no use to you.

For example, paying for an advert on the search term ‘blue cars’ will get your advert displayed near ANY search engine results related to blue cars.

You then use tracking software to narrow down the terms which bring traffic to your site that converts to leads, sign ups, sales etc. and remove all the search terms that are of no use to you (e.g. ‘old blue cars’, ‘cars’).

The risk in this however – if using Adwords – is that you build up an account history of low clickthroughs, which will affect the price that you pay for ads.

Another way is to begin conservatively with one or two specific terms and to try out new search terms as you get more confident. Bear in mind that if you’re TOO conservative and only spend a miniscule amount of money on PPC you will never get enough meaningful data to use as feedback.

Yet another way to gain insight into the terms your customers are using is to analyse existing log-files.

A considerable amount of time must be spent on discovering and testing search phrases your customers use. It’s also necessary to test the wording in the adverts that your customers see next to the Search Engine Results (the ‘creatives’) and to track your visitors to and around your website.

Clickthroughs

You’ll also need a bidding strategy. If you’re always ‘number 1′ (at the top of the adverts) you may be wasting money. The top adverts cost the most but don’t necessarily attract the best-qualified visitors. Casual users are more likely to click on the first advert they see whereas those with a genuine interest are more likely to browse down the adverts and click on the ones they think are most relevant to their needs.

In Google you pay for ‘clickthroughs’ (a user clicking on your advert) and your position in the page’s advertising hierarchy is determined by what percentage of clickthroughs to impressions you get and how much you are prepared to pay for those clickthroughs.

As a rough guide for every 10,000 users typing in your search term roughly 100 will click on your advert. You will pay for those 100 ‘clickthroughs’.

It’s then up to you to convert those clickthroughs as you see fit. If you’re selling your product directly then out of those 100 users betweeen 1 and 3 will go on to purchase your product. On the other hand if you’re giving away a free PDF White paper and require only an email address you might get a 70% sign-up.

Creatives and Landing Pages

Having discovered the words your customers are using on the search engines you need to create an advert (your ‘creative’) that is concise, informative and appealing, and make an offer to potential customers that will tempt them to click on that advert.

You need a landing page for your users to arrive at once they’ve clicked on your ad. This landing page needs to be focussed and relevant to your advert. You should have a clear idea of what the purpose of your landing page is. Are you trying to sell your product immediately? Are you asking users to contact you for a free quote? Are you asking them to sign up to a newsletter (with a view to ‘upselling’ them later)?

Generally speaking your landing page needs to give users exactly what they hoped for in as quick and painless a way as possible and with no distractions or deceit.

You also need to track your users. Tracking tells you which search terms, adverts, offers and creative copy worked best – and ultimately helps you to increase your ROI.

Is Adwords for you?

Adwords isn’t the only PPC programme, but it is (currently) the largest.

If you’re a small business thinking of using Google Adwords then it’s probably not for you. It’s too time-consuming and expensive. The user interface is horrible – seemingly designed by programmers – and takes forever and a day to understand. Understanding the ins and outs of relevant keywords, Quality Score, creatives and landing pages also takes forever. You’re also unlikely to make any money for many months because Adwords is essentially pay-to-play – you spend a few thousand pounds until your account history eventually clicks in, and then your clickthrough costs start to decrease.

Furthermore, rules constantly change and are arbitrarily implemented – for example, the trademarked term that you’re not allowed to use might be constantly used by other advertisers. If and when your adverts are prevented from appearing (for whatever reason) they’re just stopped with no explanation at all and it’s up to you to realise that that’s happened, and then to try and figure out why.

Do too many minor things wrong too often and you get banned. If you get a life ban then ALL your websites are banned from using Adwords / Adsense. Go to the Ad Approvals and Policy forum in the Adwords Support Forums and you’ll find endless examples of advertisers spending thousands of pounds a week who’ve been banned for life for mysteriously violating their policies. There’s no appeal process and the Big G will refuse to tell you why you’ve been banned.

Here and here are some examples of people who’ve been banned from using Adwords. Note the stock copy-and-paste replies, and the (allegedly) completely fictional dialogue with a ‘specialist team’.

Google’s breathtaking arrogance is best summed up in their standard ‘Goodbye Sucker!’ email: ‘Our support team is unable to provide any further information. Please do not contact us again. For questions about other Google products, please visit http://www.google.com/support. We appreciate your cooperation.’