How To Set Up A Pay Per Click Advertising Campaign
Here is a basic 5-step guide to setting up your pay per click advertising campaign.
Step 1: Determine your advertising budget and the level of risk you are willing to take.
- Larger search engines (e.g. Google, Yahoo) are less risky as they already have excellent market coverage and typically offer excellent customer service.
- On the other hand, the larger search engines cost more to achieve a top ranking.
Step 2: Decide which search engines you wish to advertise on.
- Find out which search engines your competition is advertising on.
- Do your homework – research each option carefully.
Step 3: Decide which keywords you want to bid on.
- There are plenty of free tools available on the internet to help you research keywords and tell you what the current bid price for certain words and phrases are currently running on different search engines.
- Pick your keywords wisely as they can range in bid prices from $.10 to over $10.
- Don’t limit yourself to one keyword or phrase. Large corporations often have thousands of keywords.
Step 4: Design your landing page.
- Your landing page must be clear on what products you are selling, the products’ benefits, how to make a purchase and why your product is better than your competition.
- Your website’s homepage is usually not a good choice for a landing page. If visitors want to learn more about your company, they will do so on their own initiative.
- The fewer clicks that a visitor has to make to purchase your product, the higher the sales.
Step 5: Begin the bidding process.
- Most search engines have automated the bidding process so that you do not have to actively participate in the process. They will stop when they reach your maximum bid.
- Personal involvement is always a good idea, at least at first.
- Read the search engine’s terms of use carefully. Look for minimum bids required, deposits required and what happens if you have to cancel your campaign.
- Usually, PPC search engines will only allow less than 10 ads to show up on a search results page. Research has shown that unless your ad is among the first 3 or 4, you are much less likely to have visitors to your landing page.
What You Need To Know About Pay Per Click Fraud
According to various reports, up to 20% of all pay per click traffic delivered to advertisers originates from false sources, not from actual potential customers. The majority of click fraud originates from two sources – competitors and website owners. Competitors want to drain your advertising budget by producing false clicks that you have to pay for, even though they were not viable leads.
Website owners sometimes work in tandem with search engines by agreeing to feature their ads and provide their customers with more exposure in return for receiving part of the revenue generated by each click. Thus, some of these website owners will try to generate as many clicks as possible to increase the profitability of their agreement.
Click fraud has become enough of an issue to attract the attention of major publications, such as the Washington Post and BusinessWeekonline. According to Endofclickfraud.com, if an organization spends $15,000 on PPC advertising distributed among the top tier search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, and is paying between .50 and $1 per click, they could be losing $2220.00 to fraud.
What Role Should PPC Advertising Play in Your Marketing Strategy?
Your business cannot afford to rely on PPC advertising alone. It is too expensive to keep up with the ever rising bid amounts for profitable keywords. However, there are certain instances in which PPC advertising can be invaluable.
- If you are starting a new campaign to draw attention to a new product or service, PPC advertising is a great way to create a buzz.
- If you sell a product or offer a service that consumers can purchase immediately upon arriving at your website, PPC advertising is very effective.
- If you are able to find keywords that create a market niche for your organization, PPC advertising can be cost effective. For instance, if you can generate traffic with a highly specific keyword, such as “PerfectPoint Pencils” instead of just “Pencils”, PPC advertising may be a good option.