I see this topic quite a bit among my other haunts. PPC is a two edged sword...but it doesn't have to be. Just knowing how to use PPC campaigns is not enough and in my opinion only makes up about 33% of your overall PPC campaign.
Umm...OK Stephen is a lunatic.
Let me explain.
Real World Example from Clickz:
Quote:
Retailer X sells dress shirts online at $300 each (nice shirts!). Assuming a 10 percent profit margin, he earns $30 per shirt. His Web site's conversion rate is typical of online retailers today -- roughly 2 percent (according to Shop.org). For every 1,000 visitors, Retailer X sells 20 shirts for $6,000. He earns $600 in profit from those sales.
By dividing the $600 profit by the 1,000 visitors, we know the breakeven bid is $0.60. So Retailer X's average CPC on Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) or Google AdWords must be $0.60 or less.
Another way of looking at this is by cost of customer acquisition. In this example, the 1,000 visitors at $0.60 CPC (define) cost $600. Divide the cost of the campaign by the number of acquisitions (20). The cost per action (CPA) is $30.
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The more paid search bid prices increase, the more critical a site's conversion rate becomes to simply
remain in the game. Plain and simple if your landing page or the landing page your going to promote (affiliate program) is not
smoking hot and compels
YOU to buy the product/service your PPC results will be dismal at best.
If you're going to promote your own product/service or an affiliate program
make sure your landing page is
T. I. G. H. T. tight, aesthetically pleasing with minimum navigational links...and test multiple versions.
Don't skimp here and
HAVE a copwriter write the landing page for you if you can afford it. Lower ticket items you can get away with having weak ad copy as long as the page is aesthetically pleasing and original. But anything over the notorious $97 is going to take some compelling ad copy to convert well and have people reaching for their wallet.
Affiliates often get frustrated their PPC campaigns have moderate click thrus with no results.....hmm....why does this happen? Because there's a gazillion other affiliates doing the same thing
YOU are. That is using the merchant or retailers generic landing pages or ad copy.
Individualism and originality that seperates you from the rest of the pack is the key here.
Things I do before I set up a PPC campaign
1. Would I buy the product?
2. Is the landing page perfect or do I need to build one? (For affiliate programs) *Hint: some affiliate managers will create custom landing pages for you. It's part of their job...ASK!
3. What is the minimum PPC bid for the main keyword? Easily checked in Adwords....also if this happens to be high $1 or more think about setting up a niche content site around it and market the affiliate program on the side
4. Take that main keyword and plug it into
www.nichebot.com or the tool I use
www.keywordelite.com to uncover the targeted niche keywords. These are your bread and butter if the main keywords are too steep to bid on. The total amount of people who search for these terms will be much less but they will be a
highly targeted and receptive audience.
5. Make your PPC ads stand out. PPC ads should be headlines. Headlines get attention, deliver a complete message and pull you in...that's why they're headlines.
So which is better?
"Make $100,000 working from home."
"Make $100,000 working from home this year."
Obviously the second one because it has a greater sense or urgency. I know that's really basic but I hope you catch my drift.
6. Make another headline and split test the ads. Kill the weak one. (PPC is all about testing too.)
In the long run YES PPC advertising is a viable and profitable solution when properly done. But it takes...well...work. And more than I'm willing to put it in nowadays w/o someone who specifically sets up PPC campaigns on your staff.
I am much more interested in other advertising mediums such as article marketing which privides life long benefits, fast indexing and laser targeted visitors....but that is another story.