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You’re not alone.
In fact, there are thousands of people like you with similar problems. Because, despite it’s enormous potential, PPC marketing presents many pitfalls for the unwary.
What is PPC Search Engine Marketing and What’s So Great About It?
PPC search engine marketing (PPC marketing) is an advertising service offered by major search engines like Google and Yahoo where someone searches on a particular keyword or keyphrase and short advertisements (mainly text but also graphical) are generated on the “search results page.” The advertiser only pays for the presence of their ad when someone clicks on it.
Consequently, there are two major benefits of PPC marketing for advertisers:
1. It’s highly targeted – advertisers can target their ads to specific keywords and keyphrases to optimize their chances of being seen only by their target market.
2. It’s a “pay-for-results” system where you only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad. This enables you to minimize the money you spend on advertising to people who have no interest or ability to pay for your product or service.
PPC marketing is “direct response” advertising at it’s finest – you can promote your products and services exactly at the moment, and in the place, when and where people are looking for your products or services… or, as is more likely, solutions that your products or services provide.
And you only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad in order to visit your website.
Even more exciting is the fact that in many categories, your cost per click – how much you pay for someone to click on your ad and visit your website – can be quite low - 10¢, 5¢, even as low as a penny. (Don’t let me mislead you though; clicks can also be very expensive – some as high as $50!)
But as we’ll see, how much you pay for a click is somewhat irrelevant. It is not your cost-per-click (CPC) per se that should determine whether or not you pay for a given keyword or keyphrase.
It’s whether or not your value-per-visitor (VPV) exceeds your CPC.
Your VPV is how much money, in net profit, each website visitor is worth. If your visitor value exceeds your CPC, then it doesn’t matter how much your CPC is…
But more on that in a moment.
So PPC marketing sounds great, right? Well, it is. But, as I mentioned, there are a few pitfalls… If you’ve run a PPC campaign you’ve probably encountered them.
Some of these relate to the technicalities and nuances involved in constructing and maintaining a PPC campaign. It’s not rocket science, but it sure does require plenty of time, attention to detail and… in short, WORK!
But apart from these, there are 3 much more threatening hazards that anyone attempting to run a PPC campaign must know about.
We call them the 3 Dirty Little Secrets of PPC marketing because, frankly, many consultants proclaiming to offer PPC services won’t warn you about them.
Dirty Little Secret #1:
You Can Achieve a High Click-Through-Rate and Generate Lots Of Traffic To Your Website… and Still Waste All Of Your Money!
How? Because you’ve paid for “junk traffic” – traffic that doesn’t convert into customers. In fact, if you want lots of traffic and a high CTR, and you’re willing to waste all your money simply choose some highly searched on keywords that have few competitors… refer to something or someone popular (like a movie star)… or use the word “free” in your ad copy… make sure your ad appears at the top of all the listings… and… yep, you’ll probably get lots of clicks.
Reality check: there’s no point running a PPC campaign unless you generate quality traffic. In other words, qualified traffic – website visitors who are:
You see, PPC marketing (like search engine optimization) doesn’t just influence how much website traffic you generate. It also influences how much traffic you convert.
So a well constructed and managed PPC campaign plays an essential role in optimizing conversions by maximizing the number of qualified visitors to your website.
So what exactly might cause you to waste your money?
And so on.
Here’s the second dirty secret, and it’s a biggie:
Dirty Little Secret #2:
In Some Cases, No Matter How Targeted and Well-Constructed Your PPC Campaign Is... No Matter How High The Level Of Traffic… No Matter How High Your CTR… Y ou Will NOT Convert Your Traffic Into Customers.
There are two major rules in marketing on the Internet. Like many rules, these can be broken, but in our experience (and I mean direct experience – just ask us about a couple of our dud products!) – and in the experience of thousands of other businesses online – you will not make money online if you break these rules:
1. There must be a well-defined and large enough market. “Large enough” means large enough for you to make money, assuming a conversion rate of 1-3%, (which is average). The number of searches on related keywords and keyphrases is often a good indicator of the size of a particular online market.
2. The market must be willing, able and ready to buy your products and services. How will you know this? Here’s a big indicator. Look at how many ads there are when you search on the keywords you’re targeting. In other words, how many businesses are promoting similar products and services to the same market? If there are none – this tells you loud and clear: the market – no matter how big – is not willing to pay for your product or service. For example, the number of searches on “jokes” is huge… but you won’t see any ads when you do a search on jokes. Why? Because people know – and expect – to find jokes online for free.
So, even if you have lots of highly targeted traffic and a high CTR… you may not convert a single visitor into a customer.
And I promise you this - if we believe you’re targeting a market that isn’t willing, able or ready to buy your products and services, we’ll tell you straight away. We won’t be wasting your time or money – or ours – trying to “beat a dead horse.”
And now for the third dirty secret:
Dirty Little Secret #3:
In Some Cases, You Can Have The Greatest PPC Campaign In The World, But You Won’t Get Many Clicks… Or Customers.
Why? Because not enough people are searching on the keyword or keyphrases you’re targeting… and, in some cases, not enough people are searching for the type of product or service you provide, period. It may seem obvious, but time and time again people get sucked into running PPC campaigns that are doomed to fail from the start.
Often, it’s simply because not enough – perhaps very few – people are searching on search engines for your product or service.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t sell your product or service on the Internet or in the “real world” – it just means that people aren’t using search engines to search for it. You might be selling a product or service that people want… but it’s not the kind of thing they’ll think to search for, or think to use a search engine to search for.
The funny – or perhaps sad – thing is that some simple keyword research will indicate whether or not there are enough searches to justify running a PPC campaign or not.
This isn’t to say that a lower number of searches per se means your PPC campaign is doomed. Or that you can’t run a profitable PPC campaign by taking a different tack.
If you have a small, but highly targeted and hungry market looking for your solution that may be enough to support a cost-effective PPC campaign. And, it’s also possible to reach your target market if they use the Internet to look for something somewhat related to your product or service.
But these are challenges that require some research beyond the “obvious” keyword research, some PPC creativity, and the fortitude and budget to try a few different tacks, are required.
Having said that, if after conducting extensive research and analysis we still don’t think PPC marketing will work for you, we’ll still tell it to you straight!
How To Avoid The PPC Pitfalls and Achieve a
PPC Campaign That Delivers Results!
Now you know the three dirty little secrets and can avoid these pitfalls.
You can educate yourself on how to run an effective PPC campaign.
You can learn through trial and error, and you can learn from others’ mistakes.
But as you’ve probably gathered, there’s a steep and somewhat treacherous learning curve to PPC mastery.
And the learning never stops.
Compared to other advertising media – print, television, radio, even conventional banner ads – PPC marketing is new and still changing.
Google, which has only been offering its PPC marketing service Google Adwords, for a couple of years now, has already introduced several rounds of changes affecting what and how advertisers can advertise.
So you need to decide whether you want to devote considerable time and energy getting a handle on PPC marketing yourself… or whether you’re time is better spent focusing on your business… and outsource your PPC management to others. People who live, eat and breathe PPC marketing.
Well, no surprises as to what – and who – we recommend!
Honestly, we here at Kikabink love search engine marketing (“search engine marketing” generally refers to both search engine optimization and PPC marketing). So, when it comes to PPC marketing, you can expect nothing but my dogged determination to deliver you the most effective, and most profitable, PPC campaign possible.
And you won’t have to worry about a thing – you won’t have to spend endless hours, pulling your hair out, trying to get your head around the complexities of PPC marketing. And, because of our guarantee, you can’t lose. We’ll analyze your unique situation and discuss a mutually satisfactory goal for your PPC campaign. We’ll then get to work to achieve it – and if we don’t, we’ll keep on working (for free) until we do!
If that excites you… then let us manage your PPC campaign for you.
Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you won’t know what’s going on. In fact, I’ll tell you right now how we’ll put your PPC campaign together. Take a look at the PPC marketing Process below. It shows you all the steps we’ll go through – with you – to ensure we generate the results you want.
(If you don’t need all these steps – for instance, if you’re already be running a PPC campaign and just want us to improve and/or manage it, that’s fine. You can engage us for all or just one or a few steps, depending on your needs.)
How We Develop An Incredible PPC Campaign For You - Kikabink’s Proprietary PPC Marketing Process
Even if you don’t engage our services, you’re about to get a solid education in how to put a PPC marketing campaign together, so read on:
Step 1: Business Analysis
This is essential if we’re to develop an effective PPC campaign for you . It won’t involve much more than consulting with you and/or your marketing staff and reviewing any key documentation you can give us. But learning about your target market, positioning, unique selling proposition (USP) and products and services will be imperative for us to map out the objectives and strategy for your PPC campaign.
Step 2: Keyword Research
Once we understand what you want to get out of your PPC campaign, we’ll get to work researching appropriate keywords and keyphrases (I’ll just use “keywords” from now on, but I really mean both). We use several keyword tools – including competitive analysis tools to analyze your competition – to come up with appropriate keywords - keywords that:
1. Are highly specific and relevant to your product or service.
2. Are relatively popular – searched on by enough prospects.
3. Don’t have too much competition (such that you can’t afford the bid price and/or end up with an ad placement that isn’t seen by enough prospects).
4. Have a CPC that is below your expected VPV.
Step 3: Landing Page
This is an important step often overlooked by PPC advertisers and consultants. Yet, having the right landing page is the key to whether you convert the clicks you get into sales. After all, getting clicks is pointless and a waste of money if you can’t convert them!
So our objective is to ensure that your landing page answers the question in the mind of your prospect when he or she clicks on your ad. In other words, there must be a “match” between the keywords, the ad, and the landing page.
Once we’ve identified the keywords people are using, it may be necessary to modify the landing page – or to create different landing pages for different keywords, or groups of keywords – to maintain relevance between the keywords and your products and services.
But don’t get me wrong – in many cases it may be too cumbersome and barely beneficial to have a different landing page for each keyword. Consequently, we’ll group related keywords together and ensure they all lead to an appropriate landing page. Creating keyword groups is also essential for the purposes of constructing your ads (see Step 4) and setting up and managing your campaign (see Steps 5 and 6).
In some cases, there’s no point changing the landing page because you’re targeting keywords with only a loose relationship with your product or service. (And yes, this is sometimes worth trying.) In this situation, your ad must bridge the gap between the keywords and your landing page.
Step 4: Ad Design and Copy Optimization
We’ve identified and grouped the best possible keywords, and made sure that your product and service is presented in a way that appeals to people who search on those keywords.
Now we need an ad that attracts qualified prospects by giving them an indication of what you have to offer on your landing page.
So your ad has a couple of jobs:
1. It must attract qualified prospects.
2. It must be a logical “prelude” to your landing page . (If the ad promises one thing, and your landing page refers to something else, you won’t convert many – or any - clicks you get.)
And, depending on your objectives, you may need a text ad or a graphical ad.
How Your Ad Bridges The Gap
Why do we write the ad after we create / modify the landing page?
Think of it this way. Our keyword research identifies what people are looking for that relates to – and ideally, is – your product or service. To maximize your chances of converting these people into customers, you want to speak to them in their language. For example, if you’re searching for “red socks”, and click on an ad that says “red socks”, only to be directed to a landing page about “blue t-shirts”…. what’s the first thing you’ll do next? Click off the page, never to return!
That’s why we want to ensure that your landing page immediately reassures them that yes, you understand their problem or goal. So there must be a clear relationship between the language searchers use to describe their problem or goal, and the language and presentation you use to present your solution.
Your ad is what brings these prospects onto your landing page.
It immediately conveys an understanding of what they’re looking for and promises that they’ll find it when they click.
Now, in some cases your ad has to work a little harder. This is where someone is searching for something that has only a loose or tangential relationship with your product or service. Here, your ad must essentially say: “I understand you’re looking for X. Did you know that you also need Y (or Did you know that y could also help)?” You are still getting qualified prospects because they know that you’re promising Y (not X) when they click on your ad. |
Split-Testing
By the way, we’ll write two ads for each ad group, and split-test them on an ongoing basis. See why this is so important in Step 6.
Step 5: Campaign Setup
Now we’re ready to set up your campaign. We’ll work out which search engine is most appropriate, work with you to establish your budget, timeframe, geographical coverage, language and other such campaign elements. Then we’ll group the keywords into campaigns and/or ad groups (based on the keyword groups we’ve already created), set maximum bid prices – based on the position of the ad and the need for the CPC to be less than your (expected) VPV, include negative qualifiers, and allocate the ads. Then we’ll start your campaign!
Step 6: Campaign Management
No matter how much time or effort we put into your PPC campaign, it’s unlikely to be as successful as it can be straight off the bat.
Only by always innovating, testing and tracking, will you get better and better results:
And that’s our aim when we manage your PPC campaign – to continually improve your results.
Consequently, we’ll always be “split-testing” elements of your campaign – one ad against another, one landing page against another, one keyword against another – in order to make your PPC marketing more profitable.
We’ll also manage your bids and the “gap” between your bids and those of your competitors. For example, if one of your competitors changes their bid, we’ll adjust yours accordingly. This ensures you always pay the bare minimum for the ad position you want.
Reporting
In the course of managing your PPC campaign we’ll send you regular reports on the progress of your campaign. These will be once per week for the first couple of weeks, then every 2 weeks for the next month, and then once per month:
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Reports 1 and 2: once per week
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Reports 3 and 4: once per fortnight
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Reports that follow: once per month
Here’s a guide to what you’ll see in your report:
Campaign Statistics:
Ad Group Statistics
Keyword Statistics
Advertisement Statistics
Visitor and Customer Tracking
Tracking visitors and customers from the PPC ads they click on, to the webpages they visit, to web-based sales process or shopping cart, to order completion. |
Don’t Want Us To Do Everything? Just Pick and Choose!
If you’ve already covered some of the bases, we can provide additional support in any of the areas we’ve outlined.
So What Does It Cost?
We’ll quote a project fee based on your individual requirements, but here’s a guide to how we structure our fees, and the minimum you can expect to invest:
