Pay per click increasing ROI
Category :: Website Promotion
By Kevin Gold
Because of increasing competition that has led to higher
advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many
battle-scarred - "do-it-yourself" - businesses have not
realized their desired objectives.
Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service
marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more
knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in
developing in-house.
Faced with a moderately or less performing pay-per-click
marketing program and the pressure to allocate resources
elsewhere, many businesses choose to drop their
pay-per-click marketing entirely - leaving a vast potential
of sales or leads for their competitors to harvest.
If your pay-per-click marketing is not generating high ROIs,
before you decide to drop it, try these proven strategies to
produce your desired results.
Discover These Proven Strategies to Produce Quick Results.
A. Keyword-Level Tracking
Track your pay-per-click marketing at the keyword-level -
referred to as the "root". For pay-per-click marketing, it
is essential that you know your "per click" results from the
money you have spent.
For example, if you have 1,000 keywords active in your
pay-per-click marketing program and you spend a total of
$3,000 a month - do you know which of the 1,000 keywords
produce the best results?
What if 80% of your sales stem from 20% of your keywords?
Moreover, what if this 20% accounted for just a small
percentage of your $3,000 monthly cost? If you do not have
keyword-level tracking you will not be able to make these
financially beneficial assessments. Time-tested experience
shows that the 80/20 rule applies to pay-per-click
marketing.
Does the 80/20 rule apply to your pay-per-click marketing?
Get keyword-level tracking.
But Beware of Matching Options!
Although matching options (i.e. broad, advanced, exact,
phrase and so on) offered by Google Adwords, Overture and
other pay-per-click search engines provide "convenience"
they unfortunately skew your keyword performance results.
If you setup a "broad-match" for the keyword "real estate",
you will attract visitors who have entered any possible
variation of the term "real estate" including geographically
specific "real estate" keywords that may have absolutely no
relevance to your product or service.
Here is a scenario where matching options skew your results…
You generate $1,000 in revenue from the broad-match keyword,
"real estate" yet the total click cost for it exceeds
revenue and because of the keyword's negative return, you
label it as a poor performing keyword.
What if the majority of the click cost originated from
irrelevant, broad-match keyword variations like "Louisiana
real estate" - while one variation, "real estate strategy"
generated all of the revenue? By identifying this keyword
(hard to do in a broad-match environment so rely on your web
stats program), taking this one keyword and isolating it as
an exact match you will reduce your total click cost while
continuing to generate the same revenues.
How are your broad-match keywords performing? Isolate
keywords to save click costs and to regulate individual
keyword performance.
B. Landing Page Development
Pay-per-click marketing is unique compared to other
mainstream forms of online marketing. In part because
marketers have the opportunity to select specific keywords,
write specific ads and direct the click-through to a
specific web page. This "connect-the-dots" controlled
structure creates the need to develop consistency among the
visitor's expectation from the keyword they enter to the ad
that draws their attention and down to the web page they
"land-on". Relevancy and consistency are essential for an
effective pay-per-click marketing program.
One of the reportedly major reasons why pay-per-click
marketing programs fall short of their intended goal is
because businesses direct all of their click-throughs to
their home page. Since most businesses' home pages are
designed to serve mutliple audiences (i.e. media relations,
investors, current clients, potential prospects, customer
services, etc.) they do not provide the level of relevancy
and consistency expected from the visitor to get them to act
confidently.
What in the Virtual World are Landing Pages?
Landing pages are simply web pages designed specifically for
a keyword or related group of keywords - and hence for a
particular customer type with specific buying behaviors.
They are highly relevant to the keyword searched and
consistent with the ad's claim. They immediately focus a
visitor's attention to a primary call-to-action (most wanted
response). In essence - landing pages ask your visitors to
take an action.
If your pay-per-click marketing is not living up to your
expectations, consider which web pages you are sending
visitors to. Are they relevant and consistent with your
pay-per-click ads and keywords? Do they offer too many
calls-to-action? Do they "fit" the expectations (and
communicate the benefits) of the visitor searching on the
particular keyword?
For example, you send a visitor searching on the keyword
"Sony LCD TV" to a web page with twenty varieties of
electronic products forcing them to further search for their
particular product. An effectively designed landing page
would present the visitor a "Sony LCD TV" with customer
benefit oriented copy, an immediate "buy now" call to action
and all applicable guarantee, shipping, customer service and
return policies.
Make it Easy for Your Visitors and they will Reward You with
Sales.
C. Keyword Selection
Keyword selection is important. The keywords you select
provide access to "pools" of visitors at different stages in
their buying cycle. By selecting the right keywords for your
products or services, you can open a completely new market
of ready-to-buy visitors.
Make sure that you thoroughly canvass your marketplace using
strategies such as:
• Your competitors' websites
Most importantly, "THINK" about your potential customers and
what direct or indirect keywords they may use to find your
products or services. Never give up searching for new
keywords to setup and test. Both seasonal and even weekday
keyword performance fluctuations should be analyzed and
studied in addition to potential associations people make to
find your products and services.
What about you - have you selected the right keywords?
D. Bidding Strategies
All pay-per-click search engines possess unique bidding
nuances. However, for the two largest, Google Adwords and
Overture do not become fixated on the top bid position. Test
how each keyword performs against your website's sales or
lead conversion metrics up to the seventh bid position.
Depending on your product or service, you may be amazed how
bid position six attracts less click-throughs but produces
greater sales or lead conversion on your website. Or maybe
position four generates better conversion. Regardless -
test, test and test - the outcome may mean lower costs and
higher sales conversions for you.
Consider this New Update in Your Bid Strategy.
Are you aware that Overture's top partners, MSN and Yahoo,
opened their results to up to eight "sponsor results" or
paid ads on the first page? In some cases, the fourth and
fifth or fifth and sixth positions will show at the bottom
of the first results page and again at the top, right margin
of the first results page - in essence two ads for the price
of one.
Do not be lured into competing for the first place position
instead keep an eye on your keyword performance (via your
keyword-level tracking) and occupy whichever position
provides the best sales or lead conversion.
E. Writing Effective Ads
Finally, always test different ads by interchanging words in
the title and description. For Google Adwords, try
split-testing two different titles and descriptions while
adding a unique tracking code to each one so you can
identify which one causes the best sales conversion
increase. Notice that I did not state, "the best
"click-through rate increase". Why? Because "a lot of
nothing" (i.e. a lot of traffic without sales or lead
conversion) is not a financially effective strategy.
Consider that even a single word change on your ad can
create a significant jump to your sales or lead conversion
rate.
Follow these strategies to boost your pay-per-click
marketing results today. Good Luck!
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Posted on Dec 15th (Wed) 2004
Contributing Writer
Article Date: 2004-12-03
• Your website's copy
• Third-party tools - Overture's Suggestion Tool,
WordTracker, and others
• Your website metrics program (look for "natural search
engine" keyword phrases)
• Search engines like Ask Jeeves or Alta Vista (who suggest
keyword variations)
About the Author:
Kevin Gold is an owner and principal of Enhanced Concepts,
Inc. a traffic generation and website conversion straegy
firm specializing in turning your website visitors into
sales or leads. Learn more by visiting
www.enhancedconcepts.com.
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