Pay Per Click Ad Campaign Article

Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaigns are a very common way to advertise a product or service on the internet.  Basically, you submit your ad to the search engine of choice, in return paying the search engine for each person that clicks the ad to go to your website.  Search engines usually list their PPC ads on one side of the search results or the other (not to be confused with banner ads). PPC ads are usually very short (3 to 4 lines), which link to your website or landing page.  This article will help you write an effective ad campaign that has trackable results so you can optimize your website exposure without paying for clicks that were from people not interested in your product.

The first thing that you need to determine is what your potential customers are looking for on the internet.  Put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

Keywords

Search for the keywords that relate best to your product. Let’s say you sell Harley parts.  In the example below we have entered “Harley” into the search box.  As you will notice, the keyword “Harley” brings up two websites that are completely unrelated to Harley parts.  This tells us that a simple keyword will not get your website to show up.  If it did show up, it’s a good chance the customer is not looking for Harley parts.  If they click on your ad, then you have just paid for a click of a customer that isn’t even interested in your product!  While keywords are important, keyword phrases are even more important because they target your market.

Keyword Phrases

In the example above we were searching for just “Harley.”  Look what happens below when we search for “Harley parts.”  This search yields two websites that sell Harley parts.  With a keyword phrase there is a better chance that your ad will show up. There is also a better chance that you will get clicks from customers looking for Harley parts and not biker blogs!  You have just targeted your market!

Your Competition

It is recommended that you search the internet using keywords and phrases until you find the particular niche that you have to offer.  Visit the websites that are offering PPC ads to see if they are similar to your niche.  Once you find the pages that fit your niche look at the advertising that is on the side of the listings to see what your competition is offering in their 3 to 4 line PPC ad.  Is this where you want to be? R emember the ads you see are your competition.  They may be bigger and better at what they have to offer.  Look at their landing page.  Does their sales process make it easy for the customer to find what they are looking for?   How about the flow to check out; is it easy and logical?   If the landing page is cumbersome and hard to figure out, the customer will probably move on to the next website on the list.  You only have a few seconds to capture your customer’s attention before they move on.

Analytic Programs

Analytic programs allow you to see what pages your customers are looking at, how long they stay on each page, and where they came from.  This is a great way to track and test your PPC ad campaign.  If you put an ad online with a separate landing page, you can count the hits on that landing page as well as where the customer goes after the landing page.  You can have your landing page link (www.yourwebsite.com/link.php?id=1) go to your actual website (www.yourwebsite.com).  The customer doesn’t know any difference.  This method will tell you how many clicks came from that particular ad so you can track your ad campaign.  If you have great results, run the ad again.  If not, design a new ad campaign and try again.  You can have multiple ads running at the same time with multiple different keywords and phrases.  Test them all with your analytic program to see what works best.

Return On Investment

If you have a high click through rate and high sales you have got it right.  If you have high click through and low sales, something is wrong with your landing page.  It could be the sales process, the items for sale, the price, or the customer simply couldn’t find what they were looking for.  If your ad campaign costs $500 and your sales with a particular ad campaign do not exceed $500 in profit, then your ROI is negative.  At this point you know something in your ad campaign needs changing.  Once you find the right combination that has a high ROI, go all out with the ad campaigns, but keep tracking results because what worked last month may not work this month.  Sales during late November and December may be holiday related and January sales with the same great ad campaign may be dismal.  Keywords and phrases get old or out of date over time, so keep testing and measuring your results so you don’t waste your money!