Pay-Per-Click Advertising Basics (What most people know).
When someone searches Google for example for "Buy a car", the are presented with relevant results. Some of these results are the one's Google has selected, because they are ranked as the most relevant pages for that search term. The others (highlighted below) are paid listings that businesses pay Google for, every time they are clicked, hence the name "Pay-Per-Click Advertising".
The paid listings work as an auction, where the business that is willing to pay the most amount of money per click will be listed in the top position and the less you'd like to pay, the lower down the list you go.
So you can essentially say to Google "I'll pay you this much every time someone clicks on my ad" and you will be placed at the suitable position, depending on what others are paying per click at that particular time.
You choose which keywords you think your potential customers are searching to find your product and service, you can also narrow it down to a specific location.
Most businesses do this, but the reality is, it's ineffective and can be extremely costly!
Some advanced "Tricks of the trade" (What you need to know!).
For a PPC campaign to be effective, there are practices you must follow in order to minimise cost and maximise your return.
Some of these are:
- Target Location
Unless you only sell products online, people prefer to buy locally! Our research proves campaigns that are targeted to your local area are more effective, so start by making the location targeting specific to your main area. For example "Sydney CBD". - Your Keyword List
The more specific searches are, the better chance you have to target content specifically to them for a much better result.
For example, lets say you own a car dealership in Penrith and you sell second hand cars under $20,000. People may be searching "buy a car" but this is very broad and does not specifically match what you provide. They could be looking for a brand new Mercedes, so you've wasted the money you paid to have them click the ad and visit your website.
You should be using keywords that are as relevant to the product or service you provide as possible. For example, people may also be searching "buy second hand car under $20,000". Your target location is set to Penrith, so you're attracting local people that want to buy exactly what you sell. This dramatically increases the effectiveness of your advertising while minimising the cost. - Your Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
This is the cost you are willing to pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Most people assume, the higher the CPC, the more you have to pay. In the short term, this is true. BUT... there is a thing that exists called an "ad quality score".
Google for example is most concerned about providing their users with as relevant searches as possible, they automatically give you a discounted (per click) rate if your click through rate (CTR) is high, because this means your ad must be very relevant.
So, the more you pay per click, the higher your ad goes up the list and then your click through rate increases, so Google treats your ad as more relevant and gives you your discount. So your now receiving more clicks, your ad is above the competitors and it's not costing you a cent more. - Your Ads
Having a well written ad is one thing, but there are a few tricks that are guaranteed to increase your click through rate.
-Use your exact keywords in your ad title and in some cases the description text. Google automatically bold's keywords in your ads that match the search.
-Turn the title into a question. Do this by simply adding a question mark at the end of the title. Every single time in our research and testing this has proven increase the click through rate by at least 40%.
-Use Title Case. This means making giving each word a capital letter. Sounds simple but is very effective. - Your Landing Page/Website
When people click on your ad because it says you provide exactly what they were searching for, does your website or your landing page promote that specific thing?
Having a quality relevant landing page not only makes your PPC advertising more effective but also increases your ad quality score and again, Google for example reward you with a discounted click price. - Your Landing Page/Website's Enquiry Rate
Does your website or landing page convert many of it's visitors into enquiries? Find out how to Increase the enquiry on your website. - Conversion Tracking
You must be tracking your conversions so you know which ads and keywords are working, and which are not. If you have an ad that generates 3 enquiries for every 50 clicks you pay for, and another that gets zero enquiries for every 50, the first ad will deliver a much higher return where as the second is throwing money down the PPC black hole.
The huge benefit of running an effective campaign with your website.
Once your website sales funnel is in tune and you have an effective pay-per-click campaign running, you can actually work out exactly how much it costs to "buy" a new customer.
So now your business has an additional sales machine that you can turn on and off at any time that can bring in a an extremely predictable amount of new business at an extremely predictable cost.
EXAMPLE:
Let's say you sell a product for $900.
It costs you $1 every time someone clicks on your Pay-Per-Click ad, and you tell Google to spend $100 in that day (You can set daily budgets) so you receive 100 targeted visitors to your site.
For every 100 visitors you receive through your website, your visitor/enquiry rate is 8% so you'll receive 8 enquiries.
You convert 30% of those enquiries into sales, so you make 2.4 sales which equals sales of $2160.
The campaign cost you $100, so you net $2060 in sales.
In the above example, it cost $100 to get 2.4 new customers. So it actually cost $41.66 to buy each customer.
Depending on the industry you're in and the number of competitors using PPC advertising, the cost per click will vary anything from $0.1 per click upwards.
