Pay-Per-Click Marketing: How to Waste Your Advertising Budget
A well-oiled pay-per-click search engine campaign can land hundreds of highly targeted visitors on practically any website within a matter of days. That isn't new information. Most experienced online business owners already know it.
But pay-per-click advertising is also one of the quickest ways to lose money, if it isn't done right. At the surface level, the process appears to be as simple as writing an advertisement, bidding for keywords, and waiting for traffic and sales to come rolling in. Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in the midst of today's heated competition for top keywords.
So, for a few minutes, let us play the role of devil's advocate, as we explore some of the common downfalls encountered by hopeful but inexperienced pay-per-click advertisers.
1. - Making Advertising Decisions Based on Emotion
The excitement of tapping into a new market, and the much anticipated thrill of watching click counters working overtime, can and often does lead to a hasty decision making process. Add to this a pressing need for a cash infusion, plus a bit of the gambler spirit, and a framework for failure will emerge.
2. - Overly Generalized Keyword Selection
Keywords that are too broad in scope can inevitably lead to an excess of non-profitable clicks, driving an otherwise profitable campaign into the red.
For example, a website selling athletic shoes should omit the simple term "shoes" from the keyword list. That term alone may generate a massive number of click-throughs. However, a good portion of the resulting traffic will likely be looking for sandals,dress shoes, or some type of shoe other than athletic designs.
3. - Poorly Worded Advertisements
Pay-per-click ads are notorious for restrictions on allowed word count. While the headline and ad body should contain as many prime keywords as possible, every single word in the ad should be weighed and measured for effect. A vague or loosely related advertisement may pull throngs of curious visitors, but the ultimate value of each of those visitors must also be considered. The point of a great ad is to attract only those who have a purchase already in mind.
4. - Failure to Calculate Bid Value
An untested ad leaves much of this process to theory, but even a theoretical profit model is better than none at all. Otherwise, the urge to bid simply for top positioning may ultimately spell an overall loss of profit.
Three critical points to consider are:
- product pricing
- an acceptable profit margin per sale
- a realistic clicks to sales ratio (CSR)
Let's say a modest CSR of 1% may be expected, meaning one out of each one-hundred visitors will order immediately. The product is priced at $69 and a 50% profit margin per sale is acceptable. Given these factors, up to 50% of the product price ($34.50) can be spent to achieve the sale and deliver the product.
For the sake of this example, consider that delivery costs are nil. Therefore, $34.50 divided by 100 clicks = $0.345 as an absolute maximum bid per click. There are only three ways to increase the bid above $0.345 while maintaining the integrity of the campaign:
- raise the product price above $69
- increase the CSR above 1%
- accept a lower profit margin per sale
5. - Failure to Track Results and Manage the Campaign
Once the advertising campaign is set in motion, results should be tracked and analyzed on a daily basis. Many pay-per-click search engines now provide in-depth analysis and reporting tools that greatly simplify this process. In addition, specialized pay-per-click tracking software is widely available, and in the absence of a workable alternative, will prove to be a wise investment.
However, based on this writer's own experience, no two selling days are alike, even on the Internet. We suggest that no fundamental changes be made to the campaign until at least five-hundred click-throughs have been gathered, or until the campaign has been live for several days.
Those suggestions are, of course, only rules of thumb. Any campaign found to be creating a cash hemorrhage should be discontinued immediately and thoroughly reevaluated.
6. - Failure to Enable Follow-up Marketing
An inexperienced pay-per-click advertiser might expect to begin turning a profit immediately after the ad goes live online. However sweet a dream that may be, it is often not the case.
Without follow-up capability, the profit potential of any pay-per-click campaign is severely reduced. A majority of prospects will not buy on their first visit, and may not return to buy later. As a result, the entire campaign may register a net loss on the initial run.
However, even a money-losing initial campaign can be turned into a winner over time, if the campaign is focused not only toward making immediate sales, but also toward producing a mailing list of interested prospects for later follow-up.
The mechanics of the follow-up tactic are beyond the scope of this writing. We invite the reader to visit the link below and investigate a series of articles on follow-up email marketing and the effective use of autoresponder systems.
Dan B. Cauthron is a 30 year direct marketing veteran and has been successful on the Net since 2000.
Subscribe to his 100% original content *Revenew Quick Tips* NEWSLetter and receive Dan's Hand Picked eMarketing Success Library free of charge - http://DanBCauthron.com/autoresponders.html; http://DanBCauthron.com
MORE RESOURCES:
RELATED ARTICLES
Wheres the Best Place to Put Google Adsense Ads?
Why, on your web pages of course. Ok, just kidding.
The Basics Of Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising
Not long ago, Forbes magazine has reported that pay per click ad sales are expected to increase to at least $8 billion by 2008.There are three fundamental elements that form the basis of a successful pay per click ad program and they are constant monitoring, response analysis, and refinement.
What is Google AdSense?
AdSense may be one of the fastest and easiest ways to monetize traffic to your web site whether you have products or services for sale or you simply provide free content to your visitors.Simply stated, Google AdSense enables website operators to place some code on their site that connects to Google's ad server content database and pulls keyword-relevant advertising onto the web pages.
Per Click - Do They Know Something We Dont?
I have utilized pay-per-click (PPC) advertising since its inception about two years ago. With PPC, the advertiser is only charged when a person actually clicks on their link.
Seven Tips To Getting The Nost From Your Google Ad Word Investment
With Google Ad Words . .
Pay Per Click or Pay Per Human Browser?
Pay Per Click advertising has been around a few years now. Pay per click is a multi million dollar industry which, as yet, is still in its infancy.
Grow Your Internet Business with Pay Per Click Search Engine
As you probably know, Google is the world largest search engine serving around 200 million requests of information a day at the time of writing this article. With such a large users based, no wonder many internet businesses are currently making use of Google Adwords (http://adwords.
Google AdSense Rewards Content with Adversiting Revenue
If you've been looking for an easy way to increase your website's revenue, Google AdSense may be your answer.Google AdSense is a phenomenal new advertising revenue program that is taking the Internet by storm.
Replacing AdSense Defaults with Paying Ads
Many online ad programs, including AdSense, will sometimes show default ads, or public service announcement (PSA) ads, when they have no paying ads to show. This can happen for many reasons, especially when their spiders crawl your pages for content.
Google AdWords: Like Playing The Lottery
A "dollar and a dream," is all you need said the television commercial. The lure of the Lottery is a seductive one: plunk down a dollar and you might become a millionaire for life.
Find Powerful Keyword Phrases in Five Easy Steps!
You may not realize it, but in the next few minutes you are going to learn one of the three most important steps to a successful pay-per-click campaign. That is, how do we find powerful keyword phrases in five easy steps? And the best of all, these steps are absolutely free!As a start, you should focus on finding keyword phrases versus individual keywords.
How To Increase Adsense Income
If you are already running Adsense on your site, you are probably thinking of ways to increase your Adsense income.If your Adsense is performing poorly, I have two tips for you:1.
Google Adwords Guide II - Why Use Negative Keywords
When you are running a Google AdWords campaign, it is important to include negative keywords. You should consider the use of negative keywords if some of the keywords or keyword phrases in your campaign are broad and generic.
Pay-Per-Click Fraud Exposed--Part II
According to Andy Jones, a member of the Best Practices Search Engine Forums, fraudulent clicks are just another aspect of the business. "Any of us that use AdWords or any other PPC has to pay for a certain percentage of fraudulent clicks," he said in a forum discussion.
The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Ads
Are pay-per-click ads the best method of getting customers to your website?Essentially there are two ways your website can get to the top of a search engine's results:* Pay-per-click ads, where you pay for your site to appear in the "Sponsored Links" area on the right side of the results page* Search engine optimization, where your site is optimized to be at the top of the natural/organic results on the left side of the results page (link to our SEO page)JupiterResearch analyst Niki Scevak stated that one in seven searchers click on a paid/sponsored link. If you do the math, that's only 14% of searchers who are choosing the pay-per-click ads to get to the information they are searching for.
How to Maximize Paid Search Results
Because of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many battle-scarred - "do-it-yourself" - businesses have not realized their desired objectives. Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in developing in-house.
Google Adwords - Manipulating Keywords For Success
As you probably know, Google Adwords is a pay-per-click solution offered by Google. As with other PPCs, you are given the ability to place your small advertisement on various platforms controlled by Google.
Surefire Google Adwords Formula
Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some would have you believe. Still just about anyone who is persistent can succeed if they'll but implement a consistent testing program.
What You Need To Know About Googles New AdWords Affiliate Policy
A lot of affiliates are selling other people's products with AdWords. This has been known as easy money, since no website is required.
We Are Right In The Middle Of A Pay Per Click Baby Boom
No, this baby boom will certainly not swamp the Social Security system (sort of a bad joke for those that live in the United States, but many other countries..
--
http://venteinternet.blogspot.com | http://pusatinternetmarketing.blogspot.com | http://webandblogdesign.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment