As I’m not selling PPC advertising, or even consulting services to set up effective PPC accounts, you can decide if you want to believe what I’m about to say.  “PPC, Pay per click marketing is one of the most effective, focused and measurable advertising venues ever devised!”

While that statement is true in my opinion, there are plenty of dismal failures to go right along with it.  Why?  Well, if a business person can see how sales can be made from their website, then they usually believe that PPC can be the way to get visitors there to buy.  So, they set up a campaign right away.  They buy some keywords and phrases, and they place their ads.

It’s amazing at first, as they begin to get visitors within hours.  The excitement builds, and they see a lot of visitors within the first few days if they worded their ads well and bid high enough for clicks.  As the dollars mount with the clicks, they begin to become concerned, as there aren’t any orders from all of these visits.

Then, after a pretty hefty budget is exhausted the first month, there still aren’t any sales.  They tell themselves that they should have listened to those who told them it is a waste of money to buy clicks, and the account is cancelled forever.  It happens all the time.  So, instead of just telling you that it does happen, let me tell you why.

1. They never should have opened the account and bid for the first click until they had done their research.
2. Their landing pages, the pages where the ads are set to take the visitors, are not set up to be successful and generate business.  Why?
   • The key word or phrase the visitors used to get there isn’t immediately visible on the page, letting them know that they have arrived at the information they wanted.
   • The information they want isn’t on the page.  Unless they entered a phrase like “order a blue widget,” then they probably want some information about blue widgets before they can be convinced to spend some money.  Not having that information quickly available on the landing page will cause them to leave.
   • Worst, you take them to your home page instead of a page created for the ad that brings them to the site.  Using the blue widget example again:  If they did that search, why would you take them to a home page for your company that makes widgets, gadgets, and thig-a-ma-jigs.  Too much of what they don’t want makes it hard for them to locate what they do want.
3. They didn’t research their key phrases, key the ads to each major phrase, and then key the page to the ad and phrase.  It’s a package.  The Internet searcher typing in “blue widgets” may or may not want to purchase today.  The searcher typing in “how blue widgets are made” definitely doesn’t want to buy, but they do want information.  Tie your page content to the search phrase and the ad, and you’ll keep that visitor longer, and perhaps entice them to order.

Notice the title of this post is “Before the First Click.”  This planning needs to be done first, with landing pages created for your major targeted key phrases.  THEN you can bid them and place the ads to get those visitors to the site.  They’ll find what they want, making it far more likely that they’ll convert to a lead or a sale as you desire.

• You open an account and provide a credit card or other method of payment.
• Unless you set up differently, you will never pay unless a searcher sees your ad in the search results and clicks on it, going to your site landing page.
• How much you pay and where your ad is displayed in results  is determined by proprietary calculations that consider your maximum bid per click (what you’re willing to pay), your ad “quality score” and other factors.
• An ad gets a quality score based primarily on CTR, or Click Through Ratio; the number of times it is clicked divided by the number of times it is presented (impressions).
• In other words, ads that are worded better and draw a higher percentage of clicks can get positions higher than those of a competitor that has bid more for position.
• Other factors are considered, with some opinion that the quality of the landing page is also considered.

Those are the very basic explanations of what goes on in PPC marketing.  There is a lot to learn if you want to make the most of it.  However, with the proper knowledge, well-constructed ads, and excellent landing pages, this can be the most targeted lead-producing marketing you’ll ever do.

Example:  My real estate site received 180 visitors last month on my most competitive key phrase in this market.  My cost was the amount I budgeted of $150.  Of course, 180 visitors that leave right away because they don’t find relevant information they value would make that wasted money.  However, if they do like what they find, what other type of marketing can you do that will bring you such a targeted consumer, allowing you to track their visit and your Return on Investment?

[important]There’s a video intro to PPC on Google in the Premium Content below the Related Artciles.[/important]

Related Articles:

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This video is a quick introduction to Google Adwords, and I explain some of the terms as I show them to you in an actual real estate account.

These videos are high resolution, so use the box as shown here to enlarge to full screen.

Example: A company that sells “blue widgets” will set up a PPC account with Google, Yahoo, or another service. They’ll write an online ad promoting their product or site, and wait for it to be found. Based on a number of ranking criteria, their ad will show up in a certain position in the paid search results on the search engine results page (SERP). If the searcher clicks on the ad and goes to the site, the advertiser is charged for the click.

How much they are charged will vary based on a number of proprietary factors for some search engines, and for others, it’s the highest bid in first position, and on down the line. So, this is also a competitive marketing tool. Your bid will influence where your ad is placed, however, with Google and Yahoo, the two largest, there are other factors that are considered for ad ranking.

A quality score, as Google calls it, for an ad is constantly being computed. It is a proprietary algorithm, but generally is based on the CTR (Click Through Ratio) for the ad and sometimes the quality of the landing page. Let’s define:

1. Click Through Ratio (CTR) – The number of times visitors click on the ad through to the site divided by the number of times the ad is presented, or “Impressions.”  It’s expressed as a percentage.  Many advertisers are quite happy with CTRs of 5%, while some can only manage tiny percentages for their CTR.
2. Landing Page – The page where the visitor is taken from the ad, where they landed.  It should be highly relevant to their original search, as well as the wording of the ad.  In other words, a page all about “red widgets” would get a lower score if the ad was worded around “blue widgets.”  The search engine wants the visitor to find what they expected.

Here’s a very brief look at how the PPC ads are displayed on Google search results pages, and a couple of comments about the way PPC works: