How to Get Started in PPC

January 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Guest post by Marianne Pratt

Are you finally ready to give pay-per-click (PPC) advertising a try? Maybe you’ve dabbled in PPC but your efforts need a boost. Or perhaps you’ve put your proverbial toe in the water and now think PPC may be a career opportunity for you. Knowing how to get started in PPC will ensure your next steps take you where you want to go.

Used properly, PPC can make your marketing more efficient, producing greater search engine visibility, more traffic, higher quality leads and quickly quantifiable results. Just being able to track and control your advertising can do wonders for your ROI.

Follow these basics on how to get started in PPC:

  • Do your homework. Google is the easiest place to start, because they offer lots of help. You can even earn an AdWords certificate.
  • Set goals and identify metrics to analyze results. [Read more...]
Filed Under: Paid Search, PPC Tips

2012 Marketing Predictions

January 11, 2012 By 2 Comments

Well, we’ve started a new year, and what blog worth its salt would be complete without a New Year’s predictions post!? So without further ado, here are my marketing predictions for 2012.

Social media will grow throughout the organization.

Social media has predominantly been the domain of the marketing department. This year, you’ll see it extend into other parts of the organization such as sales, customer support and account management. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity for Marketing. On the one hand, you have the opportunity to “outsource” social media to tens or hundreds of individuals throughout your organization and radically amplify your marketing messages. On the other hand, with all those individuals blogging, tweeting, etc. to the world, you have the potential to lose control of your message. Get ahead of this problem by working closely with other departments to provide them with training and messaging, and leverage social media monitoring tools to keep an eye on things.

Mobile marketing will become a priority.

According to comScore, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices between September and November of last year. This marketing channel can no longer be ignored by marketing departments. At a minimum, you need to be sure your web site is mobile compatible. Beyond that, you should start testing marketing programs that let you interact with your prospects on their mobile devices, whether that’s using QR codes, click to call in your mobile ads, location based social media, etc. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Advertising, Paid Search

Don’t Try to Mess with Google: A Story of a Misguided Ploy to Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sign up for a Click Fraud Prevention Webinar

Click fraud is the modern day equivalent of helping yourself to your neighbor’s electrical connection, albeit with less risk of death by electrical shock… for now. However, just because this sophisticated form of Internet trickery is not deadly, this does not mean that it is not malicious. Click fraud is the falsification of clicks on paid advertisements on search engines in which the creator of the fake clicks skims a portion of the advertiser’s budget for themselves. These fake clicks blow through the advertiser’s budget with the aid of an automated script or computer program that imitates a legitimate internet user clicking on an ad.

There is no story more interesting or peculiar than that of Michael Anthony Bradley, a self described computer programmer from Oak Park, CA. In the spring of 2004, Bradley approached Google engineers claiming that he had uncovered a serious security flaw in their paid search ad mechanism that left them as a proverbial sitting duck in a pond of sharks. Bradley, a sort of veteran of the paid search industry, having worked for various other PPC firms in the past, claimed that he had come across the flaw while developing technology for other companies.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search, PPC Tips

2012 New Year’s Marketing Resolutions

January 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

NYE HatI am not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, especially the typical ones, like losing weight. But the resolutions I enjoy the most are the ones where I’m learning and having new experiences. This year, I want to focus on spending each month learning about a skill set that is ancillary to my job but not core. I don’t have to become an expert but knowledgeable enough to understand the basics. I’m going to kick off January with design and plan on reading books and speaking to several experts, so the next time I review a brochure or want to make changes to the blog, I can offer better counsel or a better explanation of what I want.

Curious as to what other marketers were hoping to learn this year, I asked around to see if other people had made marketing resolutions and here are some great resolutions. I’d love to hear in the comments if you’ve made any New Year’s resolutions related to your job in the comments below.

Elisa Gabbert, Senior Marketing Copywriter, Wordstream — Check out the Wordstream blog and on Twitter at @egabbert

“We spend a lot of time creating new content at WordStream – not so much with the updating of old content. That’s bad because people find older pages through Google and may be getting outdated information. I resolve to spend 5-10% of my time keeping our most popular SEO content up-to-date. Or at least delegating it to an intern. ;) ”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search, Social Media

5 Steps to Refresh Your Campaign by 2012

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you’re like most busy marketers, there’s a lot about your paid search campaign that has been ignored for longer than you’d like to admit. Now is a great time to review your campaign and get it refreshed and ready for 2012. Here are 5 things you can do now to get your campaign off to a good start next year.

1. Review performance data

If you haven’t reviewed your campaign performance in a while, that’s the best place to start with your campaign refresh project. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will help you see if your campaign is trending in the right direction or not, and if not, what you should work on first to fix it. Start by looking at your Click Through Rate (CTR), Conversion Rate, Cost Per Action (CPA) and average Cost Per Click (CPC) to spot problem areas in your campaign. These key metrics will help you identify problems with bid prices, ad copy and landing pages. We’ll talk more about each of those below. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search, PPC Tips

How Does the Search Alliance Quality Score Work?

November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Guest post by Marianne Pratt

The Search Alliance is a working partnership between Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft), created to help them compete more effectively against Google in the paid advertising marketplace.  The Alliance calls their program AdCenter.

The Search Alliance Quality Score is similar to a Google AdWords Quality Score in that your ads receive a 1-10 numerical ranking.  But AdCenter uses a very different formula to determine that ranking.  Also unlike Google, the Search Alliance Quality Score does not determine ad placement or affect bid prices.  It is meant as an educational tool to help advertisers achieve better results.

How it works

Your overall Quality Score is based on separate scoring for keywords, your ad and your landing page.  This is good because it allows much greater analysis, but potentially dangerous because if one component fares poorly that could lower your overall Quality Score, relevance and ultimately your ROI. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search, PPC Tips

Don’t Be Your Paid Search Campaign’s Worst Enemy: 3 Ways You May Be Hurting Your PPC Campaign

November 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Ok, you’ve done the hard work and launched your first paid search campaign. But you’re just not seeing the success you expected. Here are 3 things you may be doing that are hurting your paid search campaign. Remedy any of these problems and you’ll likely see a fast improvement in your campaign.

1. Large, unfocused ad groups

I get it – building dozens of tightly focused ad groups is a pain in the neck, and it’s a lot to manage. But it also gives you the best opportunity for success. If your ad groups contain more than 20 or so keywords, or focus on more than a single product, you need to break it apart into multiple, tightly focused ad groups. Once you learn to digest data from a number of ad groups, you’ll find that it’s much easier to see where you’re finding success and which ad groups need some work.Plus, you’ll be rewarded with a higher Quality Score. Google rewards you for having small, focused ad groups that have a strong connection between keywords, ad copy and landing page content. A higher Quality Score will lower your average CPC and improve your ad position. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ad Groups, Paid Search, PPC Tips

Get Your Head in the Game: 5 Steps Before Starting a Paid Search Campaign

November 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Paid search can help you get consistent, predictable, affordable sales or leads, and it can help you learn a lot about your product and message. Before you begin a paid search campaign, be prepared.

1. Understand your model.

To be successful in search marketing, you must have a complex understanding of your ROI (return on investment) as it applies to paid search. Research competitors’ click and conversion numbers, and be prepared to set goals that are aggressive – but attainable and flexible.

2. Be prepared for calculated risk.

All marketing activities involve risk. While feedback is immediate and transparent with paid search, you must still be able to allow room for exploration. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search, PPC Tips

The Importance of Mobile Friendly Websites

October 26, 2011 By 1 Comment

Collection of iPhones. Guest post by Akvile Harlow

With times changing and technology evolving, it’s important to stay up to date on current advancements and trends. With mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets on the rise, it is crucial to adapt to how users search for your business online, especially if ecommerce is your specialty.

As cliché and true as it is, you do only get one chance to make a first impression on a customer. With an increased amount of mobile searches conducted, it is important to have a mobile website that is not only functional, but is also user friendly. As a consumer, if you search for a certain product and you appear in the search results, users expect that your site will work properly on their device. Websites that have an overwhelming amount of information and don’t fit the parameters of a mobile website are inconvenient and frustrating to use. If your website isn’t mobile user friendly, your bounce rates may become significantly higher as mobile devices continue to grow in popularity. Face it, many of us are constantly on the go and aren’t spending as much time on our computers like we used to. If your customers are on the go and need something, make sure to provide it to them the first time before they bounce from your site, go elsewhere, and forget about you.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Paid Search

Yahoo/Bing Search Alliance: The Dark Horse of Paid Search

October 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Search AllianceWhen it comes to paid search, many advertisers I speak with on a daily basis look no further than their Google AdWords account.  With around 65% of the total search market, Google must be the best platform for your search marketing budget, right? Wrong.

Since forming in 2009, the Yahoo/Bing Search Alliance has been gaining ground in the world of search and provides businesses an advertising platform that should not be overlooked.  Here are some eye-opening statistics:

  1. According to comScore, Yahoo and Bing combined get more than 30% of search traffic.  If advertising exclusively on Google, you are missing out on almost a third of your possible customers.
  2. According to an Online Consumer Report from RichRelevance, Yahoo and Bing produce greater conversion rates and average sale orders than traffic from Google.

There are a couple reasons why your paid search ROI may improve once you begin advertising on the Search Alliance. For one, the marketplace is not as mature as Google AdWords.  Fewer advertisers means less competition, which means you pay less for clicks.  Secondly, Bing has marketed itself as “the decision engine”, prompting many searchers to use the search engine when they are looking to decide on a purchase as opposed to gathering general knowledge on a subject. This benefits advertisers trying to target an online audience already looking to buy.

While the Yahoo/Bing Search Alliance is a fantastic platform for paid search, it is not a magic bullet to success.  A well-balanced paid search campaign that targets traffic on Google, Yahoo, and Bing is your best bet, especially if scale and traffic are important to you.  Different verticals perform better on different search engines, so the key is to experiment on both platforms and keep a close eye on where your ads perform the best.  Just remember, Google is not alone.

Filed Under: Paid Search
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