Pay Per Click Marketing Explained
By · CommentsPay per click is a form of internet marketing most commonly associated with search engine marketing. The most popular sources of pay per click marketing are through Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter (which displays ads on Yahoo and Bing). Pay per click marketing makes use of the user search terms to display relevant advertisements. When a searcher clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged a specific amount (this is how “pay per click” was coined). The searcher is then directed to the advertiser’s website.
The detail of how pay per click marketing is slightly different between each platform but the basic idea is the same. Firstly, you will be asked to create an ad that is related to your product or service. This ad must be relevant to the keyword searched to increase the likelihood that the searcher will click on it. The CTR (Click through Rate) is an important metric in pay per click marketing. The CTR represents the amount of times your ad was clicked based on how many times it was viewed (known as the amount of impressions). Therefore, you want to have a high CTR which would mean that your ad is highly relevant to the searchers.
After creating a very relevant and targeted ad, you will be asked to select keywords to bid on. This is the most important aspect of pay per click marketing and requires research into your product or service. You must predict which keywords people will type that would make them inclined to purchase your product or service. For example, if you were selling ipods, you would bid on terms such as “buy ipods” or “purchase ipods cheap”. The traffic that is searching for these kinds of terms are already in “buy mode” and don’t need to be convinced or pre-sold. On the other hand, if you were to bid on terms such as “best ipods” or “how to reset ipod” you will be targeting information seekers who are most likely not interested in purchasing an ipod or may need a pre-sell page. Another popular strategy is to bid on keywords related to other competitor brands such as Zune and offer them a reason to buy an ipod over a Zune player. If you want to dig deeper, you can do a demographic search on websites such as Quantcast or Google Ad Planner which will give you demographics on what kind of an audience buys ipods. If you realize through this demographic search that it is mostly teens who are buying, you can bid on other keywords that teens are likely to search such as “MTV” or “online games” and display your ad to them. This is known as demographic targeting and although it is less targeted than exact “buy” keywords, it is effective for targeting a large audience and if optimized, can be very profitable. Once you have selected the keywords that are most relevant, you will be asked to place a bid on each keyword. This bid represents the maximum amount you are willing to pay every time your ad is clicked. The higher this bid, the higher the position your ad will appear on the search engine results page.
The last piece of the puzzle is to create a relevant page that the visitor will see which is relevant to the search term that they searched. The line of congruency is very important to the conversion rate of a product or service. This line starts with the keyword which should be included in the ad title, ad body and if possible ad display URL. This keyword should then appear prominent on the landing page that the visitor sees. If these similarities are lined up effectively, it is very easy to convert a visitor into a customer. The landing page should identify the problem and offer a solution to the visitor. Furthermore, it should be split tested whether it is better to capture the name and address of the visitor to sell to them later or link straight from the sales page to the order form. Each of these methods of converting the visitor has its advantages and disadvantages which largely depend on the type of product of service that is being advertised.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to marketing on search engines which mainly includes marketing through PPC and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). With SEO, there are many factors that Google and other search engines use to rank your website. However, it is much easier to obtain a high position through PPC marketing. This is one of the reasons why anyone with a small budget can “test the waters” and see if certain keywords convert for their product or service. However, the danger to this is that you must have a specified budget for pay per click advertising and ensure that you are not spending more in advertising than the revenue they are bringing in. Once a campaign is optimized and you have zeroed in on the conversion rate for certain keywords, it is very lucrative and hands-free in most cases to run a PPC campaign.
PPC marketing is effective for any business owner or new company that is out to create brand awareness. However, it is recommended that if a company does not possess skills on how to write effective ads or select the proper keywords, they should hire a specialized company or individual to create and monitor the campaign. With proper guidance, creating an online version of most offline businesses proves very lucrative to the business owner. In some cases, offline businesses have doubled their profits by creating an online marketing campaign through Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter.
Overall, PPC marketing is very effective in creating a long term and relatively inexpensive marketing campaign for your service or product. Offline businesses should definitely set a portion of their marketing budget to create a test campaign on Google, Bing and Yahoo. These platforms have made it relatively easy to setup and create a test campaign. However, it is recommended that in order to use PPC marketing to its fullest benefit, business owners should employ small companies which specialize in PPC marketing. This will ensure that their advertising dollar will be used in the most beneficial manner to increase profits while keeping advertising costs low.
Internet Marketing – Past, Present and Future
By · CommentsInternet marketing is the selling of products or services online. It has grown radically over the last 2 decades with the increasing amount of people who own personal computers. Today, companies such as Google and Facebook are some of the largest companies in the world. The success of these companies is due to that fact that they have millions of users online on their sites and can advertise to them. Traditional forms of marketing such as print and television are not able to compete with the reach and effectiveness of marketing online. As increasing number of the world’s population comes online, it is obvious that businesses must create an online presence in today’s market to remain competitive.
The barrier of entry to marketing online is very low. Anyone with a credit card can create an advertising account on Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc and start to advertise any product or service they wish. This has created enormous opportunity for anyone that has a computer to make an income online. There are millionaires born overnight who take the time to understand the system and compete with major marketing companies from their basement.
There are numerous ways to market your product or service online. The most popular form of advertising is through Google. You can pay for advertising on Google search result pages. This is known as pay-per-click (PPC) marketing. It is given this name since you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and follows through to your chosen website. This form of advertising is very effective since it is targeted. Your ads will be shown when someone searches for phases (known as keywords) that you decide. Therefore, using your creativity and market research, you can come up with a list of possible keywords that your potential market will search for.
Another way to drive visitors to your website is through search engine optimization (SEO). This is the process of ranking for certain keywords based on Google’s ranking algorithm. Google crawls sites on the internet and creates a ranking based on a number of on-site and off-site factors. There are numerous blogs and websites dedicated to ranking on the first page of Google for specific keywords. In order to start getting traffic through SEO, you must first come up with a list of keywords that you want to rank for. Then, you must create pages on your website optimized for those keywords and link to other websites that are related to your product or service. How well you are able to accomplish the on-site and off-site tasks on your website determines which position Google ranks your website.
Social media has grown exponentially over the last five years with sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter gaining popularity every month. These sites are based around connecting people and allowing those with common interests to connect all over the world. They also monetize through advertising placed on their websites. Therefore, similar to creating a Google advertising account, you can create a Facebook or Myspace advertsing account and start advertising. The form of advertising is different than advertising on search since visitors on social media websites are not readily searching for products or services. The ads must be appealing enough to interrupt the user and direct their attention to your offer. This can be achieved through targeting options offered through Facebook or Myspace.
Other forms of advertising that can be utilized are display ads such as banner or video ads. These ads can be seen on major news sites, Youtube and other major sites. They are in the same category as social media advertising since they are interrupting the user and directing them towards another website. Since it is very difficult to target offers to specific audiences in most cases, products or services are advertised which have a broad appeal such as credit reports, weight loss or fitness products. Display advertising is mostly used by and most effective for brand advertisers who want to get their brand in front of as many eyes as possible.
Having worked with advertising products and services online for a number of years, there are some niches that are “evergreen” and will continue to sell online. The three most common and profitable niches are health, wealth and relationships. There will always be people looking to lose weight, better their financial situation and find companionship. It is enormously lucrative to become an expert around one of these niches and create a product or offer a service which appeals to this crowd.
If you are a brick and mortar business looking to create an online presence, it is very easy to see what your competitors are doing to profit from marketing online. Through simply searching on Google with keywords related to your business, you can see if any of your competitors are advertising and the way in which they are setup. In most cases, if you have a product, you can offer to sell and ship the product straight from your website and create an additional stream of income overnight. I have seen local businesses double their sales or leads by just advertising on Google. It is worth testing for any business in order to gain more exposure from visitors all over the world.
If you have a brick and mortar business, you may see a few hundred customers in any given day based on your location. However, if you were to advertise online, you can potentially send thousands of visitors to your website from all over the world! This could mean a significant increase to your profits. In today’s world, it is necessary for businesses to take advantage of the fact that the computers are embedded in so many of our day to day tasks. Therefore, in order to market effectively, you must be where your customers are.
In the future, computers will continue to penetrate more households and bring more people online. With the decreasing cost of computers, the amount of people appearing online will continue to grow exponentially. This means that businesses must continue to adapt to the changes in technology and go to where their customers are spending most of their time. Today, mobile advertising is seeing unprecedented growth since businesses can now advertise to users right on their phones. However, the way in which you advertise must change with the platform as people are in a different mindset when they are on their personal computers as opposed to browsing on their phones. Those businesses that can adapt to the new technologies will see amazing growth and those that fail to realize the potential of online advertising will wonder how they got left behind.
