We have written a new article about PPC search engine marketing positioning that you should check out. This is an area where a lot of beginning pay per click advertisers struggle. To summarize the article: don't get caught up in trying to position your ad at the top of the listings. That is a surefire way to lose your money! Following these six rules is much better guidance:

1. Don't bid overly aggressive just to have the number one spot.

2. Know what you can afford to pay for clicks. Know your numbers!

3. Split-test your ads.

4. Split-test your landing pages.

5. Measure your performance.

6. Understand the workings of your particular chosen PPC platforms.

For much more elaboration, read the complete article.

Labels: paid search, pay per click, ppc, ppc search engine positioning, sponsored search

I was having a conversation with my brothers this morning, and a thought popped in my mind that I thought I would share. Much of what we do here at Work Media is based around the idea of maximizing our clients' ROI, or return on investment. Our clients give us money, and we try to return that much money plus more.

But the concept of ROI is much more globally relevant than in just figuring out the value of financial transations. Everything you do, say, and think has an ROI.

For instance, if you stay up late and get up in a tired, hurried state the next morning, then your ROI might be a chaotic, unorganized day. If you plan your day the day before and get a good night's sleep, the return on investment will be that you feel good and have a productive day.

Every moment in life is a choice, and there are usually numerous options. When you sit down for dinner in a restaurant, you have many choices for your beverage. You can have beer, wine, cola, tea, or water, among other choices. Over time, which one do you think will provide the highest return on investment?

And of course, the classic: you can spend all your money, or you can set 10% of everything you make aside for saving and investing. It's easy to figure out your ROI on this one, because it can be measured in dollars.

So my advice to you is to estimate the ROI of every decision you make. Noone can be good all the time, but if you make more choices that have a positive outcome than those that have negative consequences, you will get a much greater return on your life.

We don't really do much in the way of life consulting, but if you need some help maximizing the return on investment on your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: paid search, pay per click, ppc, return on investment, roi, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search

You have to have patience when running a paid search campaign. Here is a real world example, from our own Google AdWords campaign. We are running a promotion right now whereby we are doing free optimization analyses. We're using AdWords ads, targeted to our local market, to advertise the promotion. Obviously the benefit to us is that we would collect local leads...if it worked.

The campaign had run for several days without much success. It was costing us a little money, but not much. I was on the verge of cutting it to try something else, when all of a sudden we got two good leads two days in a row, from companies based in Nashville looking to promote their web sites. The cost of these leads? Maybe $20 each, if not less. Compare that to the cost of a lead generation service where you are competing against several other companies for each lead, and it's a real bargain.

So have patience with your paid search campaigns. Don't pull the plug until you have enough data to know for sure that what you're doing is not going to work.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Here are a couple of items of news from the Google camp that we thought were interesting, and that you should know about.

First off, Google now takes the loading time of your landing pages into consideration when determining relevance for AdWords ads. Google requires advertisers to pay more for clicks if it determines that there is low relevancy between the keywords, ads, and landing pages. It wants to make sure that there is a strong sense of congruency - that everything relates and is relevant. But now they have gone a step further and are measuring the loading speed of your landing pages. Advertisers who have pages that load too slowly will be punished by being forced to pay more for clicks.

We don't agree with this move by Google. Economics takes care of this kind of problem. If an advertiser's keywords are not appropriate, or if its ads are not effective, or if its landing pages take too long to load, the economics of the situation will drive the advertiser away. The business will lose too much money to keep doing it. Google's micromanagement continues.

The other Google news item is that an ad purchasing system similar to what Google offers for newspaper and radio is now in beta testing for TV. The new platform lets advertisers purchase TV ad time on the Echostar satellite system. It is currently being tested by a few select advertisers, but early feedback seems to be very positive. The day is fast approaching when Google's advertising platform can be used to manage a completely integrated marketing campaign incorporating search, online content, print, radio, and TV.

Speaking of Google, we are still finishing up the first iteration of our AdWords management tool. We've been fixing bugs for weeks, but hopefully it will be ready to try out next month.

If you could use some help with Google pay per click management or any other online marketing activity, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 of Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay per click management, ppc, sponsored search, TV advertising

We are in discussions to provide search engine marketing services to a company with a very significant presence in numerous Latin American countries. One of their primary competitors has been making extensive use of Google's content network to distribute its marketing message to the same countries, so our potential client wants to do the same thing. In the course of a conversation yesterday, we discussed something which may be something you should think about for your own search engine marketing. And that is:

Should you go wide or go deep?

Here's what we mean. We don't want to launch an all-out marketing blitz in all of this company's market countries at once. We want to start on a fairly small scale, generate some data, and then start expanding. But is the best approach to take a single country and saturate it with search and content ads (going deep), or should we pick just a few target content sites and run ads on those sites in many countries (going wide)?

Each approach has its advantages. The deep approach will generate a lot of country-specific data related to lots of different sites and search queries. Chances are pretty good that what works with one country will work with another. So if we can generate enough data, we can probably create somewhat of a template that could be applied to the search marketing campaigns in the other target countries.

The wide approach makes sense if the advertiser already has a very good idea about what specific sites are effective for its marketing message. Our prospective client believes it knows at least one site that will be very effective, although we won't know for sure until we run ads and see if they result in converting customers.

Ultimately, like everything else to do with Internet marketing, it just comes down to testing. We don't know which strategy is best until we try some different things to see what works. Our suggestion in this case is to do both. By aggressively marketing in a single country AND marketing cross-country via a few select sites, we will learn very quickly which approach is best and can start doing more of it.

So ask yourself...should you go deep or go wide? The only way to find out may be to do some testing on your own.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad networks, advertising, internet marketing, local search marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

I read over the weekend that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo!. They are willing to pay a nice premium over where the stock is at right now (having been beaten down by disappointing earnings), so it would represent a nice profit for Yahoo! stockholders. Will the deal go through? Who knows.

As search marketers, we would like to see the deal go through. We have tried to use Microsoft's search network and marketing platform (and continue to try) but Microsoft just doesn't have enough traffic yet, and its ad serving platform sometimes just doesn't seem to work very well. There are some features of Microsoft's ad center control panel that we really like, and some that we don't like.

The same with Yahoo! There are some features of its control panel we like, and some we don't. If the merger does happen, we would hope Microsoft would combine the best features of the two platforms into something really useful. The keyword inventory of the combined companies would also come closer to rivaling Google, and would exceed Google worldwide.

Frankly, we would just rather have to only deal with two major search marketing platforms than three. We like a lot of the things Microsoft has tried to do. Combining Microsoft's technology with Yahoo!'s Web positioning would create something new that could really be a boon to search engine advertisers. It would also set up an even more competitive situation between Google and the combined company, which should result in an increased pace in innovation and a better situation for advertisers. It seems counter-intuitive to think that a decrease in competitors from three to two would result in more competition, but it would. Microsoft just does not have the search engine traffic to be a real threat to Google or Yahoo!. But the new merged Microsoft/Yahoo! would be able to give Google a real run for its money. And that would be good for all of us.

If you could use some help with your pay per click management, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, Microsoft, Microsoft adCenter, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing

I'm still working on the specs for our Google AdWords management application. I have to say...even just doing specs for something like this is a laborious task. Trying to get everything out of my head and onto paper that I want the application to do is difficult. If I were a better programmer, I probably would have creates specs from the start for my own purposes. But it really helped me to get a feel for what we could do with the AdWords API by writing code and building the thing organically.

I'm now trying to work out the logic of how the application should make automatic bid adjustments. I have read where some applications of this type use complicated Wall Street-style algorithms to make adjustments. These applications tend to be very expensive. And I really don't think we need to worry that much about it. The situation is sort-of similar to stock trading - you can obsess over charts and technical analysis to make just the right trades, but in the long run, a steady and consistent investment plan will likely do just as well.

One problem with a single magic algorithm to make adjustments is that it does not take into account the goals of the advertiser. For purposes of our application, I don't see any way around letting the user set his own account parameters to meet his specific goals. Some advertisers may just want lots of volume, regardless of conversion rates. For those situations, obviously, a wide open, aggressive bid attack is called for. More often than not, cost per conversion is a major consideration. For those advertisers, it is critical not to bid too much. Different objectives require different strategies.

So how does this relate to you? We just want you to think about your goals while managing your paid search campaign. Do you just need the visitors? Is there a a major branding component to your campaign? Do you need to turn a profit on the campaign right away? Or are you in a position to lose money initially in order to get new customers in your system? It is important that you decide early on what exactly you want to accomplish with your paid search campaign.

Your goals will have a major impact on how you manage your campaign. If volume, branding, and name recognition are your major goals, then you will want to be aggressive, bid high, and try to position your ads as high as possible. Likewise, if you are trying to get customers into your system even at a loss, you will want to be aggressive, though possibly less so than with a branding strategy. If immediate profitability is your main concern, then you need to be much more concerned with the price you are paying for clicks and conversion rates.

If you need some help withpay per click management so that it accomplishes your goals, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, Google Adwords, internet marketing, MSN, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

If you are driving traffic to your web site through paid search, but that traffic is not profitable, then you may need to re-examine how you are targeting your ads. Chances are your targeting is too broad. Remember, you don't just target with your keywords - you target with your ads and you target with your landing page copy.

For your keywords, you should use a wide package of keywords that includes broad, high volume keywords as well as more specific, low volume keywords. Make sure you have tracking in place so you will know exactly which keywords generate sales or leads. After a few weeks, you should have a very good idea which keywords you should be spending your money on.

If your keywords are driving traffic but no sales, then you need to look deeply at your ad copy. Are you attracting the right prospects? If you attract a lot of traffic that is not converting, then you need to tighten up your ad copy to attract the right prospects. You will generate less traffic, but it will be much more profitable traffic. Ask yourself this: who is your ideal prospect? What industry does he work in? Does he drive a truck? Does she have good credit? Whatever characteristics make up your perfect prospect, you can use that information in your ad copy. For example, if your ideal prospect is a deer hunter, maybe your ad copy should mention deer hunting. If your ideal prospect is disabled, maybe you should try an ad header like "Disabled? We can help". These are just hypothetical examples, but you get the idea.

The same thing applies to your landing page copy. You need to make it clear who you are looking for and write your copy with that person in mind. Think of this whole process like a big funnel, and you are doing everything you can to apply filters so that the prospects who arrive at the end of your funnel are very eager to do business with you. By fine-tuning ads and ad copy for specific groups of people, you should greatly improve the performance of your paid search campaign.

If you need some help better targeting your paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, conversion strategy, copywriting, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search

Google has changed the name of its "site-targeted" AdWords campaigns to "placement-targeted." We're not sure of the reason behind the name because it's the same thing it was before - a way for advertisers to advertise on specific web sites that are part of Google's content network, rather than on Google's search results pages. Perhaps the name change relates to Google's ongoing efforts to expand its advertising platform beyond just web sites, into areas such as radio and newspaper. Who knows.

The only difference, as far as we can tell, is that you are now allowed to bid on a cost per click ("CPC") basis for content ads, in addition to the existing method of bidding per thousand impressions ("CPM"). There have been occasions when our effective click cost for CPM campaigns was less than CPC, and there have been times when it was more. We like the fact that Google now gives you the option of bidding either way. It gives the advertiser more flexibility to try different bidding strategies and see what works best.

On a related note, we have noticed that Google's pay per action platform has been down for quite a few days now. We have one client using PPA (it is only available to select large advertisers), and we are beginning to see some very nice results with it. Our cost per acquisition is substantially lower than with pay per click. We aren't generating nearly as many total conversions as with pay per click, but we'll take a cheap conversion any way we can get it. But what is the deal with it not working? Is Google shutting it down already because they're not making enough money with it? We'll see.

If you need some help managing your Google paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per action, pay per click, ppa, ppc, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Facebook has just released a new advertising platform called Flyers Pro ads intended specifically for serving targeted ads to Facebook users. Rather than serving ads based on keywords, like search ads, the ads are served based on user profiles. For example, you can choose to display ads to users who, according to their profile, are fans of a certain TV show, movie, or sports team. You can also target them based on where they stand politically - liberal, moderate, or conservative (what about Libertarians like me?).

I confess to knowing little about Facebook. I used to play in a band, and we used MySpace to promote our band. But in the last couple of years I've just been too busy to spend much time engaging in online social networking. So the whole Facebook phenomenon has pretty well passed me by. Another part of it is that I am already on the outside of the age range of heavy users of the service.

According to Facebook, the oldest age with at least 1 million Facebook uers is 24, and the age with the most total Facebook uers is 19. I'm 34, so I'm on the outside looking in.


BUT...I am an Internet marketer. So now that Facebook is opening itself up as a marketing medium, I'm interested. The way ads in Facebook are targeted is completely different from search engines. Will it be effective? Who knows? But it's definitely something that advertisers should try out. I know we will. Like all forms of marketing, it will take a lot of testing to find what works (if it works at all), but it is a low cost form of marketing that should be explored.

If you could use some help with your online marketing, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, Facebook, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

We are perplexed by how mysterious Google tends to make things. Certainly, the company does everything it can to hide the intricacies of its search algorithms so as to disallow anyone taking advantage of it for artificial gains in search rankings. Fair enough. But Google goes far beyond that in hiding its secrets.

We recently ranted a bit about Google's sparse documentation related to its AdWords API and about the lack of logic behind ad Quality Scores. We're just as perplexed about Google's failure to give full disclosure about all of the features of AdWords. We are Google certified, having studied all of Google's exam material, but we had never read anything about dynamic keyword insertion until we stumbled upon it by accident.

That's right. Just like Yahoo! and MSN, Google allows you to dynamically insert keywords into an ad. The reason for doing this is that the closer the ad matches the intentions of the viewer, the greater the likelihood of generating a click to your site. By inserting the exact keyword that triggered the ad into the title or ad copy, you more closely match that user's intentions.

To dynamically insert a keyword, place the following code where you want the keyword to appear: {keyword: default keyword}. Replace "default keyword" with the keyword that should appear if the trigger keyword is too long in characters for the ad. For example, if the dynamic variable is used in the title, but the keyword triggering the ad is more than 25 characters, then the default keyword will be used.

Don't overuse dynamic keyword insertion or your ads will all become very generic and boring. But it is a powerful tool to use in moderation.

For help managing your paid search campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad writing, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Today we will continue with our series of posts chronicling the development of our proprietary Google AdWords management application.

One thing that's a little unwieldy about using the Google AdWords API via its various Web Services is that every time a Web Service is called, you have to pass in a number of variables, such as the account email and password, the client email, and the developer and application tokens. And it's not as simple as setting properties of an object to these values. The values have to be set as arrays, so I have to create a variable to hold each value, then pass that value into a single element array, etc. etc. This can result in a lot of code just that doesn't really DO anything. To get around this, all of the code that actually involves using the Web Services is placed in separate classes that my web user controls call.

Which brings us to another key development strategy, which is breaking major chunks of user interface and functionality into their own web user controls. This way, those same elements can be easily reused on other web pages. It takes more time early in the development process to set things up this way, but it will save us a lot of time down the road.

One thing that seems odd about the way the Google AdWords API works is that it has a service called Criterion Service that is used to do things like add or remove keywords or web sites from a campaign, or add new keywords. To me, it seems like it would make more sense for there to be a function provided by the Ad Group Web Service that would return the keywords for a particular ad group. A lot of the AdWords API functionality seems counter-intuitive.

We have quite a few working components of the system, so this week we will probably begin tying everything together into a cohesive unit. This is going to be exciting.

If there is anything we can do to help you manage your paid search or natural search campaigns, feel free to contact us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: api, application development, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

In Google AdWords Editor, when you are on the Ad Groups screen/tab, there are two options for making bulk bid changes: Advanced Bid Changes and Advanced Content Bid Changes. They accomplish exactly the same thing for search and content bids, respectively.

Clicking one of the buttons brings up the Advanced Bid Changes popup screen. The tool allows you to increase or decrease bids for the selected ad groups by a particular percentage or dollar amount. You can also set a ceiling or floor for bids.

For instance, if you want to raise all of your bids by 10% but bid no more than $2 in any particular ad group, you would select the "Increase bids by:" radio button, type "10" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "percent". Then you would click the checkbox labeled "Set bids no higher than:" and type "2" in the text box. Then click the "Change Bids" button.

Alternately, if you want to decrease all bids by $.50 but want to maintain a minimum bid of $1, you would click the "Decrease bids by:" radio button, type ".50" in the text box, and set the dropdown list to "USD". Then you would click the "Set bids no lower than:" radio button and type "1" in the text box.

If you are on the Keywords screen, you have a similar option (also labeled "Advanced Bid Changes") that does the same thing for keyword bids, but it also has a couple of extra options. One option is to raise the minimum cost per click for selected keywords that are inactive to the minimum for activation. The other option is to remove keyword-level maximum CPCs and use the default ad group bid. There is also an additional constraint option to disallow setting keyword maximum CPCs to values lower than their minimum CPC bids.

If you could use some help actively managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

When working with text ads (in the Text Ads tab) in Google AdWords Editor, at the very bottom of the screen are two very handy functions - Replace Text and Advanced URL Changes.

Replace Text does just what it says - it replaces text. It works just like find/replace functionality in word processing software. First you select an ad or a group of ads, then click the "Replace Text" link. In the box that appears, type the text you want to replace in the "Find text" text box and the text you would like to replace it with in the "Replace with" text box. You can specify whether to replace text in all of the ad fields, or in a particular one such as the headline, display URL, or one of the description lines. When you are ready to run the replace function, just click the "Find Matches" button. A popup box will appear that will require you to confirm the replace if any matches are found.

The Advanced URL Changes function allows you to do the following for a single ad or a group of selected ads:

Change the URL. To do this, type the desired URL in the "Set each URL to:" box.

Append a text string to each URL. To do this, type the string in the text box labeled "Append this text to each URL:". This is a very handy function if you want to append a parameter to a set of ads for tracking purposes. For instance, if you want to append a parameter to each URL so that you can identify the source ad group that generated traffic to your site, you could set the string to something like "?Source=Google-Ad_Group_Name". Then when you look at the analytics for your site, you can identify the traffic that originated from the ad group because it will have the ad group name appended to the end of the URL.

Remove a parameter from each URL. To do this, type the parameter name in the text box labeled "Remove URL parameter with this name". Continuing with the example above, if each URL already has the Source parameter but you want to remove it, you could type "Source" into the text box to remove it from a set of ads at once. To remove it from all ads, you would need to make sure that all ads were selected.

These functions let you make changes to your destination URL in bulk, which can save you a lot of time. Play around with them and see what uses you can come up with.

For help making the most of your Google AdWords campaign, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

The Google AdWords Editor has a Tools link on the main menu that has four options: Find Duplicate Keywords, Keyword Grouper, Show Ads with Selected Images, and Settings.

Find Duplicate Keywords is a very useful function for making sure you are not duplicating keywords across ad groups. To use it, select Tools/Find Duplicate Keywords, then select strict or loose word order (whether or not the separate words in the keyword have to be in the same order), whether to search for duplicates account-wide or within a specific campaign or ad group, and whether or not the keywords have to have the same match type to qualify as duplicates. Then click the "Find Duplicate Keywords" button.

The keywords found to be duplicate are listed in the Keywords screen/tab, grouped together by ad group. To eliminate any duplicates, you can select the keyword, then delete it, or right-click/cut, or set its status to Paused. We recommend pausing them, just in case you decide to use it again later.

The Keyword Grouper tool will automatically divide a set of keywords in an ad group into many smaller, more specific groups. One of the keys to successful pay-per-click campaign management is having ad groups devoted to a specific, finite set of keywords so there is tight congruency between the keywords and ads. The Keyword Grouper tool makes this easy because it does the work for you. It is often the case that an AdWords account begins with just a few ad groups which each contain lots of keywords. This helps keep things manageable and makes it easier to launch the campaign. But over time, as more time is devoted to the campaign, it becomes clear that there are sets of keywords that would probably perform better if they were broken out into their own ad groups.

To use the Keyword Grouper tool, select Tools/Keyword Grouper from the main menu. Then select the campaign and ad group within the campaign you would like to break up. Then click the "Generate common terms" button. This will extract the keywords from the specified ad group. To focus the generated keyword list, you can type words that should not appear in any of the returned keywords by typing them into the "Ignore these words" text box. Then click "Next".

AdWords Editor will then show you a preview of new ad groups it would create from the list, based on common terms shared among groups of the keywords. If you plan on creating new ads from scratch for all of the new ad groups, check the radio button that says "No, don't create any text ads...". However, it will probably save you some time to check the radio button that says "Yes, copy text ads..." This will automatically populate the ad groups with the same ads used in the original source ad group (or another ad group that you specify). Then you can go back through each new ad group and modify the ads as necessary. Finally, click the "Finish" button.

The Settings option on the Tools menu lets you specify various options, such as whether to hide deleted campaigns, ad groups, or ads. You can also specify if you want to download deleted and ended campaigns and ad groups. You also have the option to connect to an HTTP proxy and the account language.

The Tools menu contains some powerful features that can save you a lot of time. Get to know it - it could become your best friend.

If you could use some time-saving help for managing your AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Google AdWords Editor lets you create draft accounts, which are accounts that do not get uploaded when you click the button to post selected changes. The reasons you would want to set up a draft account are numerous, including:

You want to build out a new campaign and set everything up before actually adding the campaign to your account.

You want to build out new ad groups while maintaining existing ad groups through AdWords Editor.

You have a planned schedule of campaigns or ad groups and want to work ahead and to build out the campaigns without adding them to the account.

Or maybe you just want to practice building campaigns without risking negative effects on the account.

Whatever your reasons, AdWords Editor makes it easy. Here's how. Right-click on the account name on the left-hand side of the screen and click either "Add Draft Keyword-targeted Campaign" or "Add Draft Site-targeted Campaign". Or you can click the Data button on the top menu, then Campaigns, then the link to create a keyword or site-targeted campaign.

Once you create the campaign, you do the same thing you do with any campaign - specify the campaign name, daily budget, status, start/end dates, and whether the campaign is for search, content, or both. You can also specify the language and geographic targeting. The first time you set the campaign details, you will also have a form below that to add your first ad group. Type in a name and maximum cost per click, then click the Create Ad Group and Go to Keywords button.

When the time comes that the campaign is ready to be launched, all you have to do is change its status to active or paused.

Work Media is here to help you maximize the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. Call us today at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Here is a quick tip on using AdWords Editor for setting up separate search and content campaigns.

Google's AdWords Editor application is not without its bugs. One thing we would really like to be able to quickly do is create a copy of a campaign and then change it from a search campaign to a content campaign. We talked in a previous post about the advantage of splitting your content campaigns from your search campaigns in order to give each its own budget. Ideally, we should be able to make a copy of a campaign in AdWords Editor, make one a search campaign and the other a content campaign, and be done with it.

But it just doesn't work. At least not as of the time of this writing. The AdWords Editor throws errors when this is done.

But there is a sort-of work around that cuts at least some time out of the process.

What you have to do is create the shell of the content campaign in the AdWords online interface. It can have a single ad group, a single ad and a single keyword. Just enough to get it started. Then open up AdWords Editor and use the Get Recent Changes button to pull down the new campaign.

Once you have the shell of the campaign downloaded into AdWords Editor, you can use the editor's copy/paste functionality to add the ad groups from the corresponding search campaign. Since you can copy an entire ad group, you will automatically add all of the ads and keywords for each ad group. You will also need to check the settings for the campaign you copied to create the content campaign to make sure it is set for search only; otherwise, you will have duplicate settings.

If you need some help implementing an effective Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Performance statistics for your Google campaign can be obtained directly from the AdWords Editor interface. To turn on statistics, click the Data button on the main menu, then Stats, then one of the pre-selected date ranges or the Create Custom Date Range button to create a custom view. You can also click the button with the graph labeled "Showing stats for:" at the top of the page and select a date range. Statistics can be viewed at the account level, the campaign level, the ad group level, or for individual ad group elements such as keywords and ads. To view statistics for each level, click the appropriate link on the left-hand menu.

For instance, to get a quick overview of keyword performance (to see what keywords are costing the most money, and which ones are making the most money), click an ad group name on the left-hand menu. You will then be shown the average cost per click, total cost, conversion rate, and cost per conversion (if conversion calculation has been enabled in the account), among other values, for each keyword. You can then scroll down the list to see which keywords are converting the most or at the lowest cost per conversion. And you can see which ones are costing the most money yet generating few conversions.

You can also quickly see which keywords (or ads, or whatever) are performing the best by sorting them. To sort, just click the header of the column you want to sort by. To see which ones are costing the most per conversion, for example, click the Cost/Conversion column header. It is likely that many of the keywords or ads have no conversions, so this will group the ones that do have conversions together.

The advantage of using the AdWords Editor to view statistics is that it is a much quicker process than using the AdWords online interface, or generating reports through AdWords. As you scan through the list, you can make adjustments on the fly - increasing bids where necessary, turning keywords off, etc. - and then upload your changes.

If you could use some help maximizing the effectiveness of your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, paid search, pay per click, ppc, reporting, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

Today we're going to start a new series of blog posts - the Google Power Users Series. We're going to be focusing on strategies and techniques to get the most work done in the least of amount of time, while maximizing your campaign performance. So here we go...

Splitting Up Your Search and Content Campaigns

Most search campaigns combine search and content together. Oftentimes, this is not the best strategy. Even if you set separate bids for your content ads, you should probably just separate content into its own campaign. The reason is that content is almost always much less effective than search, but it may generate just as many if not more clicks.

For instance, here is some actual data from one of our clients:

Search
Click-through rate: 1.57%
Avg. cost per click: $1.71
Total cost: $261
Conversions: 20
Conversion rate: 13.07%
Cost per conversion: $13.07

Content
Click-through rate: .05%
Avg. cost per click: $1.03
Total cost: $414
Conversions: 15
Conversion rate: 3.73%
Cost per conversion: $27.64

As you can see, the content clicks, though they cost less, convert at a MUCH lower rate, and conversions cost twice as much. Also, content clicks are consuming almost twice as much of the total budget. Now, every case is different, and it very well may be that this account is getting all of the search clicks it possibly can and must run content to generate more overall traffic and conversions.

But that may not necessarily be the case! It may also be the case that if a cap was placed on the total budget that was spent on content, then more budget would be soaked up by search, which would result in an overall increase in conversion rate and decrease in cost per conversion. But the only way to do that is to move content into its own campaign. If content and search are running together in a single campaign, it could very well be that when the daily budget has been hit, much more of the budget was spent on less-effective content ads. If content is running in its own campaign, then it can have its own budget, so we can allocate more of our budget to search.

With the help of AdWords Editor, it is a reasonably easy process to duplicate a search campaign and change it to a content campaign (thought not as easy as it should be due to bugs in the AdWords Editor). We'll talk about that in a subsequent post.

If you could use some help in maximizing the effectiveness of your paid search campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay-per-click, ppc, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

There seem to be some technical issues going on at Google related to reporting. We have one client who is unable to change the range of data reported in his control panel. To see a specific range of data, he has to go through the full process of creating a report. Here is Google's response to the problem:

Thank you for your response. We do have a workaround for this issue for you to create a report. Please follow the instructions given below to create a report on demand:
1) Sign into your AdWords account.
2) Go to the 'Reports' tab.
3) Click on ' Create a Report Now ' link and create a report following the instructions given.
Please continue to manually generate reports until we find a solution to this issue. Also, our engineers are currently working towards resolving this issue. I apologize for the inconvenience caused.

And we have another client for whom conversion data is being reported incorrectly. This is a serious problem since we use conversion data as the basis for our actions. Conversion rate is a much stronger basis for determining the success of a keyword or ad than click-through rate. So the lesson here is to make sure you double check the data in your reports. And if you are having trouble (with date ranges, conversion data, or anything else) make sure you contact Google AdWords customer support (there is a contact link inside the control panel). We have found Google to be fairly responsive when it comes to these issues. Which you would expect them to be since having people run ads is how they make their money!

If you need any help managing your Google AdWords campaign, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, Google Analytics, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web marketing

Well, we've done it - we went a whole month between blog posts. I am definitely not proud of that fact. Hey, business is good, but that's no excuse to let our blog die. So let's try this again.

One problem we've had with Google up to this point is that if you ran geographically targeted ads, and you were physically located outside of the area, you had no way to preview your ads. There was no geographically-based preview.

Fortunately, Google has changed that. Check out the following URL:

https://adwords.google.com/select/AdTargetingPreviewTool

This page lets you type in a keyword and then specify a geographic location for which to view ads that are currently running for that keyword. Finally, you have the ability to run specific ad campaigns in different geographic areas other than your own and actually verify that your ads are running and see how they look. You can even specify particular geographic coordinates if you need that level of detail.

So that is today's Google power tip. Hopefully we'll find the time starting next week to get back on a regular schedule, bringing you tips and information you need to be successful with your online marketing.

If there is ever anything we can do to help you in your online marketing efforts, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search

In our last blog post, we began a discussion about Google's new Google Radio Ads feature. Today we are going to provide some more detail about the service so you can decide for yourself if this might be right for your.

Currently, all radio ads purchased through the Google system must be 30 seconds in length. There is a slight bit of flexibility - if your ad is within 2% of 30 seconds, Google will compress or stretch the ad. We suggest you just go ahead and make it exactly 30 seconds.

As far as the content of the ads, Google states that the ads must adhere to their AdWords' content policy (nothing promoting violence or discrimination, no academic aids, no anti-drug testing devices, no auto-clicking products, etc.) as well as a set of editorial guidelines specifically created for audio ads, which basically state that the ad should accurately represent your business and emphasize the unique qualities of your product or service. In addition, content promoting sexual content is not allowed, as well as political election or fundraising ads. Ads of a non-commercial nature are also not allowed.

With regards to the technical specifications of the ads, it may be in MP3 or WAV format. If MP3 format is used, the maximum file size of the ad is 1.5 MB. For WAV files, the maximum size is 11 MB. You may get slightly better sound quality from using WAV format, but it could take a lot longer to upload the ad. You're probably just fine going with MP3.

Given the cheap cost and high quality of today's audio recording/mixing equipment and software, you can easily create your own ad or hire a professional to do it. If choosing between spending your time on production or writing compelling ad content, we would advise you to spend the most time crafting your message. If the message is strong, and audio quality acceptable, then the ad will be successful if it is heard by the right people.

If you would like help running Google Radio Ads for your business, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, Google radio, Google radio ads, internet marketing, pay-per-click, search marketing, sponsored search

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. We've finally gotten so busy that publishing our blog has slipped way down our list of priorities as we do everything we can to keep our clients happy and our business growing. We apologize for the lack of new posts - we know you've been anxiously awaiting a new post for a week now.

Our friends at Bentley Systems are keeping us slammed. We are involved in a major pay-per-click management initiative with them involving many keywords, many ads, and many landing pages. Much like SEO, pay-per-click is a front-heavy process. Once you get your keywords set and your ads written, it's largely a matter of managing bids to maximize your return on ad spend. Bentley is a little different because there are SO many landing pages to create that we're doing a few a week, so it's much more of an ongoing manual process.

Our server crashed this week, putting us in a very awkward position. Our hosting company is replacing both the hard drive and memory. In the meantime, we have several sites down, which is ruinous for search engine rankings.

We also have a bunch of new prospects in the pipeline for whom we have had to have meetings, phone calls, and a series of email communications. We are a small firm. At the moment, the same people who are doing the actual work are the same ones doing the marketing. We hope to change that very soon.

Anyway...no lesson today. We just had not blogged in a week, so we wanted to at least post and say "Sorry", and we will try to do much better from this point on. If there is anything we can do for you, please call us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sem, seo, sponsored search

We at Work Media have started using the AdWords Editor tool quite a bit. The AdWords Editor is a free tool that Google recently released to allow for OFF-LINE editing of your AdWords account. It is a bare bones application with a couple of neat features. One feature that is very useful for a large account is the ability to report on duplicate keywords across ad groups.

We are currently managing an AdWords account for a software company with many very similar products. Our keyword research for each ad group has returned many duplicate keywords, some of which get added to the ad groups in an attempt to flesh out the keywords. The AdWords Editor will show us when we have duplicate keywords, so we can make sure we only use each keyword for a single ad group.

The main reason we've begun using the AdWords Editor is speed. Using the Google AdWords online interface is a fairly slow process. You can only work on a single ad group or ad at a time, and there is a lot of "traveling" involved in moving from one thing to the next. With the AdWords Editor, we can quickly move from one ad group to the next. We can quickly add a group of keywords, and even copy ads from one ad group to the next, or within an ad group.

The ability to copy ads is a feature we are making heavy use of. If you have read much of our writing, you know we encourage ad testing in which a single element is changed in each ad, such as the title. By copying and pasting ads, we can quickly create lots of ads by just changing the title (or body copy) on each one.

If there is more than one person working on your AdWords account at any one time, you should be careful about stepping on each other's toes with the AdWords Editor. It works by pulling down the data for your account, and when you are done you upload the account data. In the interim, there is the possibility that someone else could have made changes that are not reflected in the data you have.

The Google AdWords Editor is a power tool that can save you a lot of time. However, we suggest not using it until you understand how your AdWords account works. After a few weeks of actively managing your account, then switch to the AdWords Editor.

If you could use some help managing your Google AdWords account, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: AdWords Editor, google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

We have given advice on numerous occasions about using an ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)-based approach in setting your initial bids. In other words, don't just GUESS what your opening bids should be - use some logic to set a bid that will allow you to make a profit, assuming some minimal level of conversions. But once your campaign is running, you need to re-evaluate your bids on a keyword-by-keyword basis.

Over time, you generate solid data that you can use to adjust your bids. But until you have enough data, you need to use some common sense to make your adjustments. The main question you need to ask with regard to each keyword is: what is the likelihood that a person using this keyword will purchase my product or service? If the keyword is a broad, generic one related to your industry, the likelihood of any one person converting who visits your site from an ad triggered by the keyword will be very slim.

However, if the keyword is more specific, that would indicate a higher likelihood of a conversion because the person might be further along in the buying cycle. Therefore, that keyword is worth a higher bid.

Here is an example. Let's say you sell refurbished laptop computers online. A keyword like "computers" or even "buy computer" is very broad. It is also probably going to be very expensive. You might bid on the keyword to cover your bases, but you would probably bid low and really wouldn't expect a whole lot from it. But a keyword like "refurbished HP laptop" is much more specific. That would indicate a person who has already decided what he wants (a refurbished HP laptop) and is looking to buy it. For that keyword, you would want to bid more aggressively because of the higher chance of making a sale. Finally, a keyword like "refurbished HP Pavilion ze2000 laptop" would be the best of all because of its specificity. If you happen to have that model of laptop for sale, it might be worth bidding very high on the keyword because of the high likelihood of generating the sale.

If there is anything we can do to help you with your pay-per-click keyword bid management, please contact us at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, internet marketing, pay per click, ppc, roas, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing

Okay, after months of researching, writing, scrapping what we just wrote, re-writing, and re-writing some more, we have finally launched our latest book:

Yahoo! Search Marketing User's Handbook & Strategy Guide

We believe this is the first book on the market devoted purely to using Yahoo's new search marketing platform to manage Yahoo! paid search campaigns. It is an 85 page, 6" X 9" format pdf download. It is available at the following web site:

http://yahoosearchmarketingbook.com

for $49.95.

Here is some of what the book teaches:

How to create an account.
How to create campaigns.
How to create ad groups.
How to do keyword research so you TARGET THE RIGHT KEYWORDS.
How to administer and fund your account.
How to run reports.
How to set up analytics so YOU KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOUR CAMPAIGNS ARE DOING.
How to use Yahoo!'s dynamic text features to CREATE MORE POWERFUL ADS and SAVE TIME.
Strategies for setting your bids.
Understanding the math behind running successful ad campaigns.
How to write POWERFUL ADS that get results.
The importance of keyword/ad/landing page congruency.
How to create LANDING PAGES THAT GENERATE SALES.
How to beat Yahoo!'s Quality Index ranking.

Any purchaser of the book who is not satisfied gets his or her money back, no questions asked.

If you have any questions about the book, or our Yahoo! Search Marketing management services, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, Yahoo, Yahoo Search Marketing

You've probably heard that Google has recently purchased Double Click, an ad network management company. Well, in keeping pace, Yahoo! has just announced the purchase of Right Networks, an online ad exchange. Both deals greatly increase the respective company's reach by increasing the total ad inventory available.

So what does this mean to you?

It means the sooner you adapt to the new world of Internet-driven advertising, the better able you will be to take advantage of converging media. Face it - Google and Yahoo! are no longer search engines or directories. They are full-blown media giants who are steadily increasing their reach, both on-line and off-line. Being an informed advertiser experienced in the use of search engine interfaces gives you the cutting edge advantage. Soon you will be able to purchase search engine ads, TV ads, print media ads, billboards...all from a single company, using single centralized media management control panel.

Don't fear the future. Be on the cutting edge. It starts by running a simple pay-per-click text ad campaign. Where it goes from there, is only limited by your imagination and willingness to learn.

If you would like help entering the world of search engine marketing, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: ad networks, advertising, internet marketing, marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing

LookSmart is a lower tier search network that has a pay-per-click advertising model similar to the major search engines. The disadvantage of using LookSmart is that it has only a fraction of the penetration of Google or Yahoo (or even MSN, for that matter). The advantage is that, in general, clicks can be purchased for much less than the big search engines. Work Media has tinkered around with LookSmart in the past. Our initial results were not all that favorable, as conversions were very low. In all fairness, however, we really haven't done enough with LookSmart to draw any kind of valid conclusions.

LookSmart has just launched a contextual targeted distribution model through which you can place paid ads on its FindArticles web site. FindArticles is an interesting site that has (so it claims, at least) 10 million articles from magazines, newspapers, and other sources stored in a searchable database. Some of the articles are free, some of them are considered premium content that requires payment. With LookSmart's new advertising option, you can place relevant ads on articles that pertain to your industry.

You won't generate nearly the amount of traffic you will through the Google or Yahoo content networks, but the traffic will likely cost you much less on a per-click basis. It's definitely another component you might consider for your search strategy as a way to increase your reach and generate cheap traffic. As always, the quality of this traffic should be measured in terms of conversions over some period of time to see if it is worth spending your money on. If it generates a positive return on investment, then stick with it. If not, abandon it.

If you are already a LookSmart advertiser, you should be aware that your ads will automatically begin being displayed on FindArticles beginning in May, unless you specifically opt out of this option.

For help integrating LookSmart or other lower tier search engines into your search marketing strategy, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: content network, internet marketing, LookSmart, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Here are some quick, non-mathematical thoughts regarding your bidding strategy.

There is a fair amount of research that indicated that, in general, the higher your ad ranking on a search engine results page, the higher your conversion rate. So there's one strategy - bid to get to the top. The problem, of course, is that you can end up in bidding wars which drive your bid prices way too high. Even if that does not happen, you could still end up damaging your return on ad spend by paying too much. It is a balancing act between paying a price that generates a reasonable ROAS and that generates enough conversions to make it worth doing to start with.

However...

There is also evidence that in some circumstances, especially with lower volume "long-tail" keywords, LOWER ad positions generate a higher conversion rate. So applying this to your overall strategy, you want to bid for higher rankings on your high volume, general purpose keywords and low for your low volume, more specific keywords.

Ultimately (as we have said many times), user behavior is completely unpredictable, so you won't know what works until you test different strategies and see.

If you would like some help with your pay-per-click bidding strategy, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

While discussing the proper strategy for a new client who is in a brand new market, we realized that paid search would work, but that we would have to go about things a different way. The problem is there is no search traffic of any significance directly related to our client's business because noone even knows such a service exists. So how can you use paid search ads to get your message in front of your audience when there's no traffic to begin with?

Basically...you can't. At least not in the search engines. Not until some traffic materializes. In this instance, rather than try to display your ad to those already searching for you (the "pull"), you have to place your message on other properties where your target market lives, to make them aware that you exist (the "push").

In other words, rather than running search engine PPC ads, you need to use a site-targeted campaign to place your ads on web sites frequented by your target market. No matter how esoteric your offering, chances are very good that there are web sites that your market visits. That's how you can "push" your message, rather than trying to "pull" from existing search engine traffic. You should really do both, because there is the possibility that running your ads could create awareness of the existence of your offering, and your market might then begin searching for information about it, rather than clicking your ad. So hedge your bets.

We will discuss the specifics of implementing a site-targeted campaign in later posts, but we just wanted to point out that just because sufficient search traffic does not exist yet doesn't mean you can't still take advantage of paid traffic. It's the push versus the pull.

For help implementing an aggressive paid search campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

If you are on a very limited search engine marketing budget, you face two options when it comes to budgeting: either spread your budget out over the whole month (divide your monthly budget by 30) or spend it until it's gone, regardless if you use up your budget before the end of the month. Intuitively, you might think it is better to spread it out, but in our opinion, this is not really the case. Why? One word: data.

When you spread a small budget over a month's time, you are going to generate very little data for any one day, and it will take the whole month to generate sufficient data to do any kind of analysis. What kind of data are we talking about? Performance data. As we have said before, you do not know what keywords, ad copy, landing page copy, etc. will work. It doesn't matter how smart you are. The only way to know what works is by testing.

So rather than spreading your budget out over a month, go ahead and run your campaign wide open (within the confines of a responsible biding strategy). You will most certainly burn through your budget quicker, but if the campaign generates quality leads or sales, who cares? Why wait to generate new business? Why generate business next week when you can generate it today?

It's also better to do be able to analyze your campaign performance sooner than later, because you can then make changes to the next round of your campaign based on what you learn. Your next round should perform better than your first because you will have an idea of what works.

So...don't think of your budget in terms of an amount to spend over a month's time. Just think of it in terms of generating data and conversions as quickly as possible.

If you would like some help managing your pay-per-click campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

We recently came upon a web site with some interesting content:

http://www.marketingexperiments.com.

This site runs experiments to find marketing techniques that work well. The following page:

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/optimizing-site-design.html

shows results from an experiment in which two different landing page designs were tested for a couple of different web sites - the original landing page design and a new landing page designed to meet the expectations of the visitors to the site, based on research of what those expectations are.

In one experiment, the landing page of a service business web site was changed to meet customer expectations in terms of industry-specific visual appearance. The new landing page converted over 12% better. Not bad. In a year's time, that would represent a significant amount of revenue.

In another experiment, a new landing page was tested that used anxiety-reducing elements like testimonials and guarantees. The new landing page converted over 70% better, even though the original landing page looked very professional and was consistent with other landing pages in the industry.

So what is the lesson?

First off, know your customers' expectations. Not just in terms of service and whatnot, but what their expectations are in terms of colors, fonts, design, etc.

Second, use whatever it takes to put your prospects at ease - testimonials, guarantees, anything that proves that what you say is true and that you stand by your word.

Third...you need to create landing pages! Period!

For help creating landing pages for your search engine marketing campaigns, contact Work Media at 888-299-437 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, landing page, pay per click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web site marketing

Pay-per-click marketing is a fantastic way to engage in a targeted advertising campaign - this you probably already know. But what most people don't think about is what a quick and cost-effective testing ground search engine marketing is.

For example, if you sell a product that has very little actual cost of production (such as an information product), there is a price point at which you would generate the most revenue. It's probably not the lowest price you could charge, and it's probably not the highest (although it could be). It's probably somewhere in the middle. The difference between $49 and $59 could mean thousands in additional sales, but you have no idea what the right price point is until you test it.

That's where ppc comes in extremely handy. In the old days (the 90's) of direct marketing, you would have to conduct expensive sales letter campaigns to uncover such data. It took weeks and cost a considerable amount of money to run a split sales letter campaign to test two different offers. With pay-per-click, you can begin generating data today, and the cost can be as little or as much as you feel comfortable spending to find out what you need to know.

Here's how to do it:

1. Set up an ad campaign in your favorite search engine.
2. Run two or more ads for each ad group, with each ad linking to a landing page with a different offer.
3. Within a week, if your product and landing page copy is decent, you should make some sales.
4. Compare the revenue generated by each landing page. The one that generates the most revenue is probably the optimal offer.

You may want to run the test campaign for more than a week. The more data you have, the more confident you can be in your results.

This procedure can be used for any product or service.

For help using paid search engine ads to test your offers or other variables, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: advertising, internet marketing, marketing, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Today we're going to give a quick lesson on how to set up keyword tracking with your destination URL's in your Google AdWords campaign. In Google, as in all the search engines, you want to try and use a separate URL for every keyword in your campaign, so that when you look at your stats, you can instantly see exactly what keywords are generating traffic. It used to be that Google would only allow you set up a single URL for each ad in an ad group, but not for each keyword. Now, if you know how to do it, you can set up a separate URL for each keyword. Here's how:

First you have to set up your ad group. We're not going to go through all the steps on setting up ad groups. We're glossing over that part because you can't set up the keyword URL's during the process of setting up your ad group. You have to go back and set up your URL for each keyword in a separate step.

From the Campaign Summary screen, click the name of the ad group for which you want to set up keyword tracking.

Then click the Keywords tab.

Click the checkbox next to "Keywords" on the left-hand side of the keywords table header. This will select all of the keywords.

Click the Edit Keyword Settings button (this is not the same as the "Edit Keywords" link).

On the next screen, fill in your destination URL for each keyword, which will include the keyword itself. You might want to first type a URL without the keyword, such as www.mywebsite.com?keyword=, into the first text box and then click the "V" button next to the top URL textbox to copy the URL to all the other textboxes. Then you can just go from box to box adding the keyword to the URL.

Then click "Save Changes" and you're all done.

Now when you look at your web stats, you will be able to tell what keywords generated the most traffic because you will see URL's ending in those keywords.

If you can't get Google's own conversion tracking script installed, this is a great way to generate your own data (although it won't tell you which ones actually converted into customers).

For help managing your Google AdWords campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Yahoo has gotten overly strict in its attempt to only allow relevant sponsored search ads. We are finding that a lot of terms that are not directly related to the specific product or service are being automatically denied. We think this is short-sighted, because it eliminates the possibility of displaying your ads to those who would be strong candidates, but performing searches on other related topics. For example, if you sell diamond engagement rings, you may not be able to run ads for searches related to weddings.

We also have to admit that we're fairly perplexed by Yahoo Search Marketing's new Quality Index score that is applied to sponsored search ads. But here is a strategy to help deal with that particular issue:

Bid high at the start of the Yahoo campaign to generate as high a click-through ratio as possible. It seems that generating a high click-through ratio has a positive influence on the Quality score. Once you have established a Quality score, you can back off of your bids if you need to in order to maximize your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

Another strategy is to pursue a tight coupling between keywords and ads. Yahoo allows you to dynamically insert keywords, but it may still be helpful to write lots of specific ads that are highly related to their keywords.

We like the new Yahoo interface, but we're definitely not crazy about their new rules. But as we develop effective techniques for dealing with Yahoo (and the other search engines), we will be sure to share them with you here.

For help managing your Yahoo pay-per-click campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, Yahoo, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

Keyword research is a very important part of the process of running a successful pay-per-click campaign. If you only run ads for broad, heavily searched phrases related to your business, you will likely be competing against lots of other businesses, and bids may be quite high. But if you expand your view and seek more "long-tail" terms, you will face less competition, and clicks to your site will cost less.

"Long-tail" terms are less-trafficked search phrases that are more specific than broad, general phrases. In addition to being less competitive, and thus less expensive to bid on, they have another bid advantage. Often, they indicate a searcher who is farther along in the buying process. For example, the keyword "tennis shoes" indicates that the user is searching for information on tennis shoes, but may not have any particular brand in mind. However, the keyword "Nike Air Max 360" is an indication of a user who searching for a specific brand of shoes. The searcher using the more specific keyword is likely further along in the buying process.

Our favorite tool for finding keywords is Nichebot.com. You provide the tool with a keyword and it returns a list of related keywords, along with traffic and competition information for each one. Clicking on a keyword in the list of returned results will generate a new list of keywords similar to the one you clicked. You can use it to drill down through keywords and come up with lots of keywords you may not have thought of. But to use the tool to its maximum effectiveness, you need to come up with unique keywords to start with.

Think of all the different ways someone might search for information related to your products or services. For example, if you sell wedding dresses, you might want to research keywords related to tuxedos, limousine services, wedding and engagement rings, locations for weddings, how to conduct a wedding, etc. And of course keywords related to specific brands and products in your inventory. Running all of those kinds of keywords through a keyword tool like Nichebot will reveal many more keywords you can use in your PPC campaign.

If you would like some help conducting keyword research for your pay-per-click campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

The American pay-per-click market is getting crowded. You can still keep costs down by taking a "long-tail" approach (looking for lots of little used by highly targeted search phrases for which to run ads), but with growth in paid search revenue for 2007 estimated at 27% by Merrill Lynch, it is going to get increasingly more difficult to get a leg up on your competition.

So perhaps the time is nearing when you want to take a more global approach to your PPC (if it's relevant to your business, of course). Click prices for PPC campaigns in other countries are generally much lower than in the U.S. Yet the U.S. accounts for only 21% of the worldwide Web population. For those of you not that good in math, that leaves another 79% of the entire World Wide Web for you to market to.

One important key to being successful using paid search worldwide is segmentation. For one thing, you don't want your ads and bids for other countries mixed in with your U.S. ads and bids. You may end up bidding more than you need to. And ads for other countries need to be written for each country specifically. So each country in which you market your services via PPC should be set up with its own campaign.

It will take some work to figure out how to write your ads for other countries. You might want to start slow with countries that are not that different from the U.S. - Canada, Australia, the U.K., etc. A next logical step might be Spanish-speaking countries, such as Mexico and Spain. Of course, when you enter the domain of advertising in foreign language markets, you will either need to be fluent in the language or able to hire someone who is.

And as with all PPC campaigns, you will want to create landing pages tailor-made for each country. Your landing page design and offer should also reflect the culture of the country.

Will it be a lot of work? Yes. But you will open yourself to 5x more prospects, to whom you can advertise for cheaper than in the U.S.

Please contact Work Media today at 888-299-4837 or info@WorkMedia.net if you need assistance planning or managing a pay-per-click campaign for your business.

Labels: bid management, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

Yesterday we began our discussion of dynamic text options when setting up pay-per-click ads to run on MSN, focusing mostly on the option to dynamically add the keyword into the title or ad copy. If you recall, there are four dynamic variables you can use in your ads:

Insert Keyword Destination URL {param1}
Insert Dynamic Text {param2}
Insert Dynamic Text {param3}
Insert {keyword}

Today we're going to continue our discussion of MSN's dynamic text options by looking primarily at the Insert Dynamic Text option. The two available dynamic text variables can be set for each individual keyword when setting up keywords for an ad. After adding keywords to the keywords list, you will see two links directy above the list: Match Options and Dynamic Text. Match options, obviously, are the match options for the keywords that determine how strictly a search must match your keywords before triggering your ads. We'll look at that another time. The Dynamic Text option lets you set dynamic text variables for each keyword.

Clicking the Dynamic Text link gives you three options to set for each keyword: Show Keyword Destination URL, which lets you set a separate URL for each keyword; and Show Dynamic Text {param2} and Show Dynamic Text {param3}, which let you set two dynamic variables for each keyword. Your ads can then be written in such a way that the dynamic variables you set for each keyword will appear in the ad.

To have your dynamic variables appear in your ad, on the screen to add or edit your ads, place your cursor where you want the variable to appear, and click the Dynamic text link beneath the text boxes for the ad title or ad text. Then select Insert dynamic text {param2} or Insert dynamic text {param3}, depending on which variable you want to insert at that particular location.

Now when the ad appears in search results, it will display with the dynamic text you set up for the keyword that triggered the ad. This is a fantastic way to personalize your ads while cutting down on the number of separate ads you have to write.

If you wanna get really fancy, you could place one of the dynamic variables into the URL (or use the Keyword Destination URL variable) to send a keyword parameter to the destination URL. Your destination page could then take the parameter and dynamically place it into the text of your page. This would create a tightly coupled ad and destination, which should help improve conversion rates.

For help using running MSN ads to promote your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, Microsoft adCenter, MSN, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

The Microsoft AdCenter console used to manage sponsored search ads on MSN has some very interesting dynamic text features that let you leverage your time and effort.

When setting up an MSN ad, you enter text into four fields: Ad Title, Ad Text, Display URL, and Destination URL. When typing in any of those four text boxes, you will notice a link beneath the text box labeled "Dynamic text". When you click the Dynamic text link, you will see four options:

Insert Keyword Destination URL {param1}
Insert Dynamic Text {param2}
Insert Dynamic Text {param3}
Insert {keyword}

The option we have used most often is the last option, which automatically inserts the search term used in place of the dynamic text placeholder. For example, if you sell electronics, you set the title of the ad to use the dynamic Insert keyword function, so that is someone is searching for "Sanyo LCD TV", then the title of your ad will be "Sanyo LCD TV".

Research has shown that using the search terms in the ad (either the header or body) improves click-through rates. So Insert keyword function automates that for you. One caveat is that if the dynamic keyword causes the title or body of the ad to exceed the maximum character limitations, the ad will be declined for that keyword. For example, if Work Media had an ad for the following two keywords:

internet marketing
internet marketing consultant

and we had used the Insert keyword function for the title, the second ad would be denied because the title would be too long. One way to avoid this is to set up specific keyword parameters for each keyword.

We will talk about using the other dynamic parameters tomorrow (unless we think of something else really interesting to talk about).

If you need help setting up an effective pay-per-click campaign for your business, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, Microsoft adCenter, MSN, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

When preparing to begin a pay-per-click (ppc), or sponsored search, campaign, it really helps to go into the situation with an idea of what the numbers look like. By "the numbers", we mean what kind of return on your investment you can expect assuming different bid levels and different conversion rates. Following is a chart that is an example of one we might create when beginning a ppc campaign to give the client and ourselves an idea of what he might expect his return on ad spend (ROAS) to be. It also helps us establish a benchmark average bid.



These numbers are reflective of a company selling a fairly high priced item. We have used a range of conversion rates from .10% (1 in 1,000) to 2% (2 in 100). For a high priced item, we would expect a low conversion rate for online sales, possibly 0.25% (1 in 400). Assuming a 0.25% conversion rate, the $.50 bid makes more sense than the $.75 bid because it generates a ROAS of 548% (or $5.48 in revenue for every $1 spend), versus 416% for the $.75 bid.

However, at the $.50 level, you are going to receive fewer clicks to your site. If the ROAS at the $.75 level is acceptable, you may want to use the higher bid to generate more total revenue. In this example, the $.75 bid generates $42 thousand in revenue, versus $31 thousand for the $.5o bid.

The question of how much to bid may also be determined by your budget for the campaign. At higher bids, you are going to burn through your budget quicker. If there is so much keyword inventory related to your business that you are able to use up all of your budget regardless of what you bid, then it makes sense to bid lower...if ROAS is your main consideration.

If there is a branding component to your online marketing, then you may want to bid higher for higher positioning on the page. Another consideration is that not all sales are made immediately. If you position yourself as the leader in your category (high on the page), you generate more immediate traffic and more potential future business from prospects who visit your page but don't immediately do business with you. This branding component is not reflected in the kind of analysis we displayed above.

An analysis like the one above can easily be prepared using a spreadsheet, and we highly advise you perform this kind of analysis to get a feel for your numbers. Use the sponsored search control panel for whatever search engine you want to use to get an idea of what bids for keywords in your industry look like, along with how many clicks you can expect to generate at different bid levels. Using this information, you can estimate how much revenue you could generate assuming different conversion levels. Then you can calculate ROAS at different conversion levels. Doing this for each of the major search engines will also help you determine the best place to spend you money.

If you would like some help preparing to begin your own paid search marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, MSN, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, roas, search marketing, sem, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search Marketing

Bid management software for managing pay-per-click campaigns seem like a great idea. You tell the software what you want your campaign to accomplish, set up the ads, and let the software do the work of changing bids many times a day to accomplish your goals.

But it ain't all it's cracked up to be. And it ain't what it used to be.

For one thing, the search engines, while making their API (application programming interface)'s more robust, are making access to them more difficult. Yahoo has placed restrictions on the number of calls that can be made to an API. What that means is that if you have lots of keywords in your Yahoo search marketing campaign, there is going to be a tight limit on the number of times that bids for those keywords can be updated in any given day. That's the whole point of bid management software - to change bids.

Google, by contrast, has not such bandwidth limitation, but it charges for use of its API. We like to call it the Google tax. The current rate is a quarter for every 1,000 calls to its API. $.25 may not sound like much, but consider this: updating a single bid will likely require several calls to the API. If you have thousands of keywords that are all being updated 10 or 20 times day, that is many, many thousands of calls to the Google API. Over a month's time, it definitely adds up.

But on top of the problems using the search engine API's is the fact that bid management software generally works by making constant updates to bids to try and achieve some kind of specific metric, such as return on investment (ROI). If you guess about what the target metric needs to be, you could end up with bids that are way off. If you target an ROI that is too high, you may force the software into setting bids too low, which could end up cutting way back on the amount of traffic you generate. Likewise, if you target an ROI that is too low, you could end up paying more for your clicks than you need to.

The way to find out how you need to use your bid management software is by manually running the campaign for a while, doing lots of testing, and generating data. Once you have an idea of what your typical conversion rate is and what your profit is on a typical conversion, then you can determine what your bids need to be and what you can expect in terms of ROI. This kind of information is extremely valuable in figuring out how to configure your bid management software.

If you would like some profesisonal help in managing your pay-per-click marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.

Labels: bid management, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, Yahoo Search Marketing

You already know about pay-per-click. If not, you haven't been paying attention. Give us a call.

But did you know that Google has an alternate ad distribution method called "site-targeted"? This is different than using the content network. Standard content network ads are still keyword-based, pay-per-click ads. Site-targeted ads, on the other hand, appear on specific content-focused web sites that you specify, and they are priced on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) model.

When you set up a site-targeted ad campaign, you have several options with which to choose the sites to target:

• Browse categories. This option lets you browse through categories and sub-categories to look for sites that are categorized a specific way. Similar to adding keywords, the site selection screen provides you with a list of possiblities, and you click the ones you want to add to your selected sites.
• Describe topics. This option lets you type in words related to your business and Google will show you a list of sites that match those topics.
• List URLs. With this option, you type in specific web addresses where you would like to advertise and Google tells you if those sites are available to run ads.
• Select demographics. This option lets you select certain demographic options and Google will show you a list of sites whose audience matches those demographics. Possible demographics are gender, age, annual household income, ethnicity and whether or not the audience has children.
  

Regardless of what option you choose, a list of matching sites will display at the bottom of the screen for your selection.

After you have selected the sites you want to target, you enter a maximum daily budget and your maximum CPM.

The cost-per-thousand pricing model requires you to know and work your numbers in a slightly different way. Click-through rates are probably going to be much lower than search ads. But you really won't know what your CTR might be until you run start running some ads and see what happens. But if things work out, your net cost-per-click could end up being lower or about the same as standard PPC ads.

For example, if you pay $1.00 CPM and your click-through rate is .25% (1 in 400), then your cost-per-click is $.25. If your CTR falls to .1% (1 in 1,000), then your CPC rises to $1.00.

If you are careful in your selection of web sites you target and manage your CPM wisely, then you can do quite well using site-targeted ads in Google.

For help implementing a site-targeted search engine marketing campaign for your business, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

We have been spending a fair amount of time lately exploring the new Yahoo Search Marketing interface, and we've come upon one new feature that we are very excited about. It's the Alternate Text option for your keywords. This option lets you place a specific word or phrase in a particular location in the ad associated with the keyword. For this to work, the copy for the ad must contain the placeholder {KEYWORD:default_text} in the ad body or title. If alternate text is specified, then the ad will contain the alternate text. However, if the alternate text causes the ad to exceed the maximum character limitation, then the default text will be used.

Here is an example:

Let's say you sell shoes on your website. Let's also say you sell a line of shoes called "Hudsons", so you have an ad group set up for keywords related to Hudsons. Let's say the Hudsons come in three colors: red, yellow, and blue. You might have the following keywords in the ad group:

Hudsons
red Hudsons
yellow Hudsons
blue Hudsons

Your ad could be written like so: Find the {KEYWORD:default_text} you are looking for here!

The default text would be "Hudson", so the "Hudsons" keyword would use the default text.

The "red Hudsons" keyword could be set with the Alternate Text property "red Hudsons", so when the ad was displayed for that keyword, it would read: Find the red Hudsons you are looking for here!

The same would be done for the yellow and blue Hudsons keywords so that depending on which keyword had triggered the ad, it would be customized to match the exact search phrase.

This is an extremely powerful feature because it splits the different between using a single ad for every single keyword and using an ad for lots of keywords. The more personalized the ad copy seems, and the more tightly coupled with the user's search phrase, the more likely it will generate a click.

For help managing your Yahoo Search Marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, sponsored search, Yahoo, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

An "API" is an Application Programming Interface that allows you to hook into another computer system to exchange information with it. For example, Google and Yahoo both have search API's that allow you to extract search data from their systems for display in your own applications or web pages, formatted however you want. This data is generally in XML format and exchanged via a protocol called SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). If you're not going to be doing any programming, you really don't need to worry about this stuff. But the reason I bring it up is just to give a little bit of technical background for the remainder of our discussion, which is about using pay-per-click applications that use the search engine API's to get data.

In our opinion, it only makes sense for the search engines to provide open access to their API's and to provide plenty of information for advertisers to run effective ad campaigns. But the trend seems to be going in reverse.

Last year, Google announced that it would begin charging a fee of $.25 per 1,000 operations. This doesn't instinctively feel like a lot, but it is. Performing a single action in a pay-per-click management program generally involves several operations. And these programs, by their very nature, are intended to be used to make several or even dozens of bid changes for ads every day, for every keyword or keyword group associated with each ad. So this adds up to potentially many, many thousands of actions every day, adding substantial costs on top of the expense of paying for the ads in the first place.

A backlash has already started, as some companies are moving toward using cheap labor to manage their ads, rather than this expensive technology. Given that the easier it is for advertisers to manage their campaigns, the more money Google will make, we don't see how this benefits anyone.

Yahoo, with the release of its new ad management system, has also made a change to its API. Though Yahoo is not charging like Google, it has placed a much greater bandwidth restriction on the data returned from its API. What this means is that bid management programs will have to make fewer changes to bids to stay within limits. Again...why would Yahoo make it more difficult for advertisers to use manage their accounts? We know that constantly pinging search engine servers to make changes to sponsored search bids are a drain on their servers, but these companies make billions of dollars a year, and their profit should easily pay for enough servers to handle it.

As for MSN, except for invited parties, they have not yet released their API for general consumption (we wish they would get on with it), but we have a feeling that Microsoft will be much more open with its API, at least initially, since it is still playing catchup in the search arena.

The net effect of these changes to API's is that it just won't be as cost effective to use bid management software as it once was. With Google, you will be paying an expensive tax on top of your bids, and with Yahoo, you will have much less control. At Work Media, we are still experimenting with different ways to manage campaigns. We actually still do most of our campaign management manually and will probably continue to do so. Especially now that the search engines are making it so difficult to use their API's.

If you need help managing your sponsored search marketing campaigns, please call us at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

Labels: google, Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, sponsored search, Yahoo, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

Yesterday we began our discussion of the dual disciplines of successful Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing with an explanation of the mathematician side. Today we continue that discussion by looking at the artist side - the part of the process that involves creative writing. It's not really so much "creative" writing as it is direct marketing style writing. The PPC ad writer has very limited space in which to persuade the reader of the ad to click and visit the advertiser's web site. Writing the ad is actually the very opposite from a sales letter situation, where the top copywriters often flourish. The long-form sales letter is a forum that great copywriters love because they have all the room they want to draw the reader in, list lots of benefits (not features!), tell stories, and do everything they can to convince readers of the letter to visit. However, long-form copywriting experience comes in very handy when writing the copy for the destination web page. If they've clicked your ad link, then they have expressed some interest in what you have, so the destination web page is where you can use copywriting to convince the visitor to do business with you.

But as far as the ad itself, how do you use such limited space and so few words to compel the reader to click the ad? We've touched on PPC ad writing strategies in previous posts, but following is a summary of some of our tips to get you started:

• Use the search terms in your ad.
• Use a call to action.
• Write from the reader's perspective.
• Use buzz words like "free" and "guaranteed".
  

The first tip above is the most basic but perhaps the most important. You have to find the line between keyword/ad granularity and having a manageable number of ads. The more separate ads you have with few keywords for each ad, the more effective your campaign will be because the ads will more closely match the search terms. If you can use the exact search terms, or nearly exact, in the ad body, or even better in the head, then the more closely the ad will match what the person was looking for.

The second tip is a basic copywriting rule. Tell the reader what to do! The search engines may not allow you to use the words "Click here", but you still need to use some similar kind of phrase to tell the reader that he needs to take some specific action: "Visit now", "Buy now", "Come see", etc.

The third tip means that you use the word "you" and focus on the benefit to the user, as opposed to some kind of list of features. People do not buy features, they buy what those features will do for them - the benefits. Using the word "you" focuses the ad on the reader, so he knows that the ad is talking to him.

The fourth tip really gets into the "artist" area because this is where good writing really comes into play. There are certain words that get people's attention, and "free" and "guaranteed" are high on the list. Two huge tools in the copywriter's toolbox are giving away freebies - free reports, free samples, free memberships, etc. - and reversing the prospect's risk. Risk reversal means that you guarantee your product or service so that the customer knows he can get his money back with no trouble - you take on the risk, not the customer.

Much of this discussion is based on copywriting principles that have been around for years, tweaked to apply to the online world of writing for a very small ad space. We cannot recommend enough studying copywriting from some of the masters, such as:

• Dan Kennedy
• Brian Keith Voiles
• Jay Abraham
• David Ogilvy

There are many more fine copywriters, but if you look into the work of the above men, it will set you on the road to learning what you need to learn to be a strong copywriter. And that's how you tackle the "artist" side of the Pay-Per-Click equation.

If you need some help managing your Pay-Per-Click campaign, please call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, sponsored search, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

Pay-Per-Click, or Sponsored Search, marketing is an interesting field because of the duality of skills necessary to be successful in it. On one hand, you have to understand the numbers - you have to know what a customer is worth to you, how many visitors to your site you can reasonably expect to become customers, how much you can afford to pay for a single visitor, etc. On the other hand, you have to be able to write convincing, compelling ad copy, and the destination web copy has to also be well-written. So to be successful in Pay-Per-Click, you have to be both a mathematician and an artist.

The Mathematician

The Mathematician really needs to understand the goals of the Pay-Per-Click campaign. You need to know how many customers you want to try to gain and how much you can afford to pay to acquire each new customer. If you don't know what a new customer is worth, then that is something you really need to find out. Otherwise, you're shooting in the dark.

As a professional PPC marketer, I have clients asking me to generate x sales per day or per month while spending y dollars. This is often a difficult situation because it often means I need to get clicks as cheaply as possible while maintaining a certain level of conversions. The thing that makes this a difficult situation is that as click bids go down, often conversion rates go down as well. One reason is that to generate low cost traffic, you have to use content networks as well as search results, which are much less targeted.

Nonetheless, to even tackle the problem I need to understand the numbers. Here is a very simple formula to calculate how much you can spend per click on your PPC campaign:

Cost Per Click = Amount You Can Afford to Pay Per Customer * Conversion Rate

OR

Cost Per Click = Average Sale * Profit Margin * Conversion Rate

For example, if you generate $50 revenue per customer, on average, with a 50% profit margin, then you can afford to pay up to $25 to acquire a new customer. You would only break even at that rate, but at least you would gain a new customer and would have the opportunity to sell more products or services to that customer in the future. Assuming a conversion rate of 1%, then the numbers work out like this:

Cost Per Click = $25.00 * .01 = $.25

OR

Cost Per Click = $50.00 * .50 * .01 = $.25

So you now know that you can afford to pay a quarter per click. If you can double your conversion rate (which falls on the Artist side), then you can double your profit or double your bids.

As you watch your PPC campaign, you might find that certain products sell much better on-line that others. If this is the case, then you might want to re-work your numbers to emphasize the products that are selling. For example, let's say you have the following products, which are selling via PPC in the following proportions:

Product A - $25 profit per sale - 50%
Product B - $10 profit per sale - 10%
Product C - $40 profit per sale - 40%

Then your average profit per sale via PPC is as follows:
($25 * .50) + ($10 * .10) + ($40 * .40) = $12.50 + $1 + $16 = $29.50

Based on these numbers, you now know that you can raise your bid to about $.30.

As eluded to above, it may even be worth taking a loss on the first sale just to get the customer. If you know the lifetime value of your customers, then you can make this call. If you generally only do business with your customers a single time, then that is another area of your business you need to investigate - how to sell more to people who have already done business with you. This is where you should use vehicles like email, newsletters, blogs, etc. to create a community of customers who come to rely on you for information. It all comes down to creating a holistic, integrated marketing plan, and it all starts with knowing your numbers.

Tomorrow we will look at the other PPC discipline - the Artist.

If you would like some help managing your own effective, powerful Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

When setting up keywords for our PPC campaigns, it is generally a better strategy to set up keywords and ads with as much granularity as possible - in other words, use lots of ads for small sets of related keywords, rather than have a single ad running for lots of keywords. It is also better to use an exact match strategy, if this strategy generates enough clicks. If you cannot generate enough clicks using exact match, then you can switch to broad or phrase match (there are Google terms) ads, which will result in your ad being displayed more often. The reason you want to use exact mach whenever possible is twofold: 1. The ads will be more targeted, since your ads will only be shown to people searching for the exact phrases you specify; and 2. You will save some money on click costs because exact match ads are always shown above broad or phrase match ads.

Since we are arguing that you needs lots of ads representing lots of exact keywords, then you are going to need to generate a lot of relevant keywords. We highly recommend using a tool called NicheBot: http://nichebot.com.

Nichebot will show you a list of similar keywords for any keyword you type in, along with traffic and competition data for the keywords. For each keyword, it will show you how many people searched for the term during some period of time, the number of competing sites (sites that are specifically optimized for the phrase), and the KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index. This data will allow you to rank keywords so you can decide which are the best keywords to target for your web site.

The search engine tools section at http://seobook.com also has a nice keyword tool that uses data pulled from Yahoo's search inventory. The data also shows the number of searches for each keyword, along with other data such as bid rates.

Here a few more sources of possible keywords:

• product names
• competitor names or competing product names
• URL's
• names of people associated with your industry
• synonyms

Don't just rely on keyword tools to show you lists of related keywords. Think of anything and everything that people who have a need for your product or service might search for and use it as a keyword in your campaign. The wonderful thing about Pay-Per-Click marketing is that if you select a keyword that does not generate any traffic, you haven't lost anything. So you have nothing to lose and lots to gain by experimenting with different keywords, even if they seem wacky.

For help managing your Pay-Per-Click campaign, call Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email info@workmedia.net.

Labels: Google Adwords, internet marketing, MSN, pay per click, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search marketing, sponsored search, web site marketing, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

You put a lot of work into getting people to your web site - search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content creation - but it doesn't mean much if you are not able to convert traffic into customers. Following are a few tips for improving your conversions.

Make it easy for the visitor to convert

Make it very easy to do whatever it is you want your web site visitor to do. If you want her to fill out a form, make the form easy to find and don’t ask for too much information. This is another area where testing can help you find the best way to do things. For example, you could create two different landing pages with different forms, and then use pay-per-click ads to drive traffic to those two pages. Your analytics (discussed later) will then tell you which one converted better. You will then know with great confidence which of the two forms works better.

Get the visitor involved

You want to draw visitor into your web site and get him involved. Get them clicking, selecting and typing. Devices such as text boxes, radio buttons, check boxes and dropdown lists cause your visitors to interact with your web site. The more they interact, the more likely they are to engage in some kind of conversion event. Even if it's simply getting their email address, that is far, far better than their leaving with no conversion event at all.

Tell the visitor exactly what to do

Don’t assume anything! Give your visitors specific instructions on how to go about ordering, subscribing, contacting you, or whatever action you want them to perform. If they need to click the big red button, tell them to click the big red button. And despite what you may have heard, there is nothing wrong with a link that says “Click here”. Research has shown that those types of links actually have higher click-through rates. Don’t worry about insulting your visitors’ intelligence. You won’t. It is much safer to design for the lowest common denominator – those with little web surfing experience who need specific, step-by-step instructions.

If you need some help converting your web site visitors into customers, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.

Labels: content, content creation, conversion strategy, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search marketing, sem, seo, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing

We've spent the last couple of blog posts discussing the MSN AdCenter Labs beta tools and how you might use them for marketing purposes. Today we are going to finalize that discussion by looking at one more of the tools, the Online Commercial Intention Director. This tool gives a value for a search query or a web site from 0 to 1 that is an indication of the degree of the visitor's intention to purchase products or acquire information. For queries, it returns a single value. For URL's, it returns three values for three different OCI (Online Commercial Intent) types: NonCommercial, Commercial-Informational, and Commercial-Transactional.

There is little information about how this tool works, but it's an interesting idea that could be a valuable research tool. For instance, you could type in different search terms and use the result (the Probability for Commercial Query) to get an indication of how strong each search term is in terms of intent to make a purchase.

For example, let's say you sell wool clothing on your web site, such as sweaters. Typing in "wool" returns a Probability for Commercial Query of .65227. Buy typing in "wool sweaters" returns a Probability for Commercial Query of .79378. So the wool sweaters search indicates a greater chance that the person performing the search will engage in a transaction.

In testing the tool for URL's, I tried my own web site: http://workmedia.net, and got the following results:

Probabilities for Each OCI Type:
NonCommercial: 0.82111
Commercial-Informational: 0.1572
Commercial-Transactional: 2.1683e-002

Our site is a commercial site since we use it to represent our business and services, but it is also very information-heavy, which perhaps is why it ranks so high for "NonCommercial". When I ran the test with the URL "walmart.com", it still only showed a Commercial-Transactional value of 0.32238. So the tool doesn't seem to be all that accurate yet at guaging the commercial intent of web sites, as opposed to search queries.

For help implementing a state-of-the-art search engine marketing campaign for your web site, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, MSN, MSN Labs, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, search marketing, sem, seo, sponsored search

For our first post of 2007, we thought we would step back for a moment and talk about the differences between Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing, and which is best to concentrate on.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of optimizing your web pages/site to increase search engine visibility. This includes things like web page title optimization, keyword density analysis, stragic use of headers and bold text, etc.

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, can be defined in two ways. Often, it refers to general marketing methods of increasing search engine visibility, increasing traffic, sales, etc. This may include pay-per-click, blogging, newsletters, message boards, and other techniques. The term "Search Engine Marketing" can also apply specifically to marketing via sponsored search results.

For purposes of our discussion, we are going to go with the more narrow definition of SEM to apply specifically to pay-per-click, or sponsored search, marketing.

So the question then really becomes: which is better, and which should you concentrate on: natural search or sponsored search.

All else being equal, a natural search result is probably better than a sponsored search result. However, it could take you a long time to generate that natural search result, and you have no control over how your site listing will appear. Hopefully your web page result has a strong title which will be displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), but you are at the mercy of the search engine. With SEM, you have control over where your ad will appear in the results, when it will appear, and what information will be displayed.

Sponsored search results cost money. Natural search results are free. But to get that natural search result, you are either going to have to put a lot of time into optimizing and promoting your web site or hire an outside firm to do it. So although the actual listing is free, the amount of effort required to get there is not.

So which is better, and which should you concentrate your efforts on? Both.

You can use sponsored search ads to generate immediate traffic to your site, which will generate not only traffic, but information that can be used for purposes of natural optimization. For instance, you can analyze the data from your sponsored search campaign to know what search phrases convert the best. You can then optimize some of your web pages specifically for those phrases. Long-term, if you can achieve high natural search rankings and then combine that with sponsored search listings, you will own more "shelf space" for relevant search queries. The term shelf space refers to the amount of space on a SERP occupied by your business. If you have two natural search listings and a sponsored search listing on a SERP, then you have a lot of visibility on that page and a good chance of getting someone to click through to your web site.

Contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net if you need some help implementing your own Internet marketing plan.

Labels: google, internet marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, sponsored search, web marketing, web site marketing, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing

The keyword research process typically begins by generating as many keywords as possible from several different sources, such as the tools at Nichebot.com or the keyword research tool in your SEO software. Once you have a long list of possible keywords, you look at the numbers behind the keywords - the number of searches each keyword or phrase receives, the amount of competition for each, the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index), and whatever other measure the researcher thinks is important.

You will be tempted to automatically select the keywords that generate the most traffic with the least competition. And this makes perfect sense, and is a good starting point for keywords to target for Search Engine Optimization purposes.

But it's not the ending point.

Even if you know what keywords you have the best chance of dominating while still generating a reasonable amount of search traffic, you still don't know what search phrases will bring traffic that will most likely convert into customers. That's where your Pay-Per-Click campaign comes in. By running PPC ads for your keywords, you can generate data that will tell you which keywords convert at the highest rate. If you then focus your Search Engine Optimization campaign around those keywords, you will generate the most profitable traffic possible.

So the formula is basically a funnel that starts with every possible keyword that relates to your business and ends with keywords that generate a reasonable amount of traffic, have little competition, and that convert at a high rate.

Labels: internet marketing, keyword research, keywords, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, seo, sponsored search

I just got an email from Yahoo! explaining a change in the Manage Bids page of the Yahoo! Search Marketing control panel. According to this email, the "Top 5 Max Bids", "Position", and "Your Cost" columns are being replaced with "Estimated Average Position" and "Bid Range for Top Positions".

You are no longer going to see the bids of others. Internet marketers in Yahoo! will now rely on less information.

Apparently, the new Sponsored Search interface does not provide exact bids. Yahoo! is releasing the new interface to its customers in stages. To make it fair for everyone, they are removing the bid information from customers still using the old system.

I would be willing to bet that the companies getting the new interface the earliest are the biggest spenders on sponsored search ads.

So the big spenders get the benefits of the new system such as split testing, while the smaller spenders are stuck in the old system and having information removed.

Does that seem fair?

It's going to be even more important for advertisers to try to track ROI on a keyword basis. Contact Work Media for help managing your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.

Labels: blog marketing, internet marketing, pay-per-click, ppc, search engine marketing, sponsored search, web marketing, Yahoo, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Search Marketing