Pay Per Click StrategiesBetter Pay-Per-Click Results Start Here – We Guarantee It!

Wanna know the easiest way to capitalize on all the leads your Google AdWords pay per click marketing efforts are bringing you?

Get organized BEFORE you start an AdWords campaign. It’s so simple that most internet marketers don’t even think about.

The Psychographics of the Average Internet Marketer

We say this a little tongue-in-cheek, but really, the average internet marketer is so overwhelmed that they wind up doing only what is necessary to keep things rocking along. This is why most never get around to things like categorizing leads, doing follow up, designing special offers for their various niches, cross-marketing to their database, etc.

You can take class after class, learn “inside secret” after inside secret and buy the latest pay per click campaign management software, but if you don’t take the time to get organized – to use all of these tools – you will never realize their full potential.

Google PPC Marketing Advice: What to Do Before You Start Your Pay Per Click Campaign

So, before you start a Google pay per click campaign, decide:

How you’re going to store leads (do have a way to capture leads don’t you?). You should store them with some type of data management software;

When you’re going to follow up;

How often; and

With what kind of offer.

This is the bare minimum.

Keeping the Pareto Principle in mind (ie, 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your customers) you should have no problem increasing your bottom line if you get organized – before you start your Google AdWords pay per click campaign.

Have you heard? The AdWords Advantage Online Summit starts this week (Mar. 9)– there’s still time to register and save 40%!  Learn how to fast-track your AdWords profits during 14 educational sessions led by the Pay Per Click experts on March 9-30, 2010.

Just announced….The AdWords Advantage Online Summit (AAOS) has announced the schedule of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising online training classes to be held  March 9-30, 2010.  All AAOS participants will save 40% upon registration by the early bird date (March 4).

“Next week we will unveil the first ever online educational AdWords training summit for marketers to learn unbiased Google AdWords techniques from experts who have run multi-million dollar Google AdWords campaigns,” said Mary O’Brien, Adwords Advantage Online Summit and PPC Summit Founder.

 These 14 educational classes uncover the value of AdWords tools, resources and methodologies, and gives students ample opportunity to learn how to improve their AdWords campaigns through hands-on guidance for results at the top of Google.

Each one hour class will teach advertisers step by step how to leverage AdWords to their advantage and develop more profitable campaigns. Attendees will learn Google AdWords Pay Per Click solutions for all business types — Ecommerce, B2B, SMBs and more. Attendees will be able to access the recorded class for 90 days.

AdWords Advantage Online Summit Training Schedule (March 9-25):

> AdWords Optimization in Challenging Times
> Promoting to the Right People at the Right Time - Ad Scheduling & Geo-Targeting
> Assign Proper Attribution and Solve the Complexities of Measurement
> The New AdWords Interface – Save Time and Optimize Your AdWords Campaigns
> AdWords on Steroids: Implement Advanced Strategies Leave Your Competitors Gasping
> Slash Click Costs (37%) & Increase CTR (82%) Using Mathematical Formulas
> 30 Tips in 60 Minutes: Convert MORE AdWords Visitors into Buyers
> Understanding the B2B Buyer Sphere: How to Apply Enquiro’s Latest Research to AdWords
> Utilizing SEO and Social Media Marketing to Improve AdWords Strategy
> Researching and Managing Keywords-the Key to Google AdWords Success
> Get the Most out of Google Analytics & Google AdWords
> Contextual Advertising – Best Practices and Hot New Secrets
> AdWords for Local: Sort Heads from Tails, Find Free Clicks and Calls 

More information at AdWords Advantage Online Summit.

It’s the holiday season and a lot of first-time pay per click marketers are running campaigns. PPC marketing is an excellent way to capitalize on the busy holiday season. But, as with every revenue generating system, it pays to be careful–particularly this time of year. To that end, following are two things you can do to guard against click fraud this season.

Conduct Data Analysis: You get a wealth of campaign reports when you run pay per click campaigns. Take some time to go through them and do some data analysis.

Where are your clicks coming from? Are they converting? Does the referral source seem suspicious? Is your account being drained of dollars very quickly?

You don’t have to be an internet marketing guru to understand these reports. They are provided to help increase your ROI, so use them.

Set Affordable Ad Budgets: This is probably the simplest way to guard against click fraud, and is one of the things that make pay per click marketing so attractive.

Following is the key thing to remember when setting your PPC ad budget . . . set it to get the most exposure for your ads, without breaking the bank. This can be a tricky balance as you have to figure out the most profitable keywords and phrases to bid on that will: (i) bring in the most business; (ii) this time of year; (iii) via this medium (ie, the internet).

Confused by PPC Marketing: Get the Training You Need
And, this is why it’s important to know what you’re doing when use pay per click marketing. It pays to get pay per click marketing training to run successful holiday campaigns – indeed, year-round PPC campaigns – from the beginning. 

In our latest newsletter, we discussed how to Get the Biggest Bang for Your PPC Buck this Holiday Season. We want to to take another look at this topic and add a little bit more to it. The holiday season is so short and the economy is still struggling, so we’re staying on you a little bit so you can get the most out of it and start off the new year in good shape. 

Hire Help: one of the best things you can do right now is to hire help or outsource work. “But,” you may be thinking, “I can’t afford to hire help. My sales don’t support adding additional staff.”

We don’t mean hire staff to help with sales; we mean hire help so you can get sales. For example, if you haven’t done your “holiday” keyword research, then outsource it so you can get that Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice campaign up and going!

Start Early: Do you notice that every year the holiday decorations, holiday TV ads and holiday radio announcements seem to come earlier every year? This is because merchants are extending their selling season.

After all, the sooner shoppers start thinking about the holidays, the sooner they start shopping. What have you done to extend your holiday sales season? Offer early bird holiday coupons on you landing pages, use holiday language in all of your pay per click ads, “decorate your website, blog, landing pages (ie, use holiday themes), etc.

As an online marketer, your holiday doesn’t have a definitive date; it’s not Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day or New Years Day. Your holiday has a “selling” season – and it’s right now. Are your pay per click campaigns reflecting that? If not, then check out the AdWords Advantage Online Summit - it’s a must-attend online training event to help pay per click advertisers increase AdWords results!

Recently, Google started sending pay per click marketers their account performance data via email. This information has always been available to PPC marketers, but you had to log into your account to get it.

The reason getting this information via email is so important is because it:
(i) reminds you to check on your pay per click campaigns; and (ii) allows you to take a few minutes to tweak what may not be working.

So if you see an email with the following subject line land in your inbox, take a break and see what it says, for one or two insights gleaned from these reports can significantly increase your ROI. AdWords Oct 2009 Account Performance. Customer ID: (Your Customer ID Number)?

This is for October 2009, obviously.
Following is one way to quickly use the info in your Google’s Account Performance Reports to increase your ROI.

The report is categorized into four sections, ie: Account Overview; Keywords with the Most Clicks; Ad with the Most Clicks; and Content Sites with the Most Clicks.

If you’re pressed for time and can’t analyze all the data, as keywords drive success in pay per click marketing, go directly to the “Keywords with the Most Clicks” section. Using the info there, you can make do two things:

I. Increase Organic Traffic: As you have a list of your high-performing keywords there, use this to create keyword-rich copy for your website. You’ll drive organic traffic, in addition to the traffic you’re paying for.

II. Tweak Poorer Performing Ads: Add these high-performing keywords to ads that aren’t performing as well as you thought.

If you get in the habit of checking your pay per click ads when your Google Account Performance Report lands in your inbox, you don’t have to worry about settling into a pattern many PPC marketers fall into, ie, “set it and forget it” marketing.

It’s not hard to make money with Google AdWords, but many fail to do so because they make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Keep it simple by doing the following:

Decide On Your Offer: Putting together a successful AdWords campaign starts NOT with keywords, but with your offer. Why? Because you have to be very clear about this before you move on to selecting your keywords.

For example, if you operated an online bookstore, do you want to send readers to the romance section, the science fiction section or the history section? “But,” you may be thinking, “I don’t care what they buy, as long as they buy something.”

We counter with, in order to get browsers to “buy something,” you have to first get them interested in “buying what interests them.” And, this is where you get specific.

Think of it like a local bookstore they may wander into. A reader may pop in to buy a specific book, but once there, they start to browse and come out with two, three or four things.

The bottom line here is – web surfers don’t care about making a purchase from you. What they do care about is getting that book that their friend, mother, aunt, etc. recommended.

If your specific pay per click ad landed them in your online store, you have a chance of making that sale.
Use Keywords Effectively: Once you have tightly focused your offer, now you can move on to doing effective keyword research. Here again, be specific. When choosing keywords remember, it’s not about how much traffic a keyword will bring, but how much “qualified” traffic it will bring.

Rock the Landing Page! Round out your campaign by having a clear, concise, professional landing page that gets prospects where they want to be. Don’t make them surf to find what your ad promised. Land them there directly.

If you do these three things, you will be well on your way to Google AdWords campaign success.

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About the Author
Want to out perform your Google AdWords competitors? Attend the AdWords Advantage Online Summit (Dec. 1-17) and learn how to fast-track your pay per click marketing profits. Register now and save 40% at http://www.AdWordsAdvantage.com.

Last week here, we explained how video ads work. Now that you know that, this week we wanted to give you two specific tips for making them work for you.

Memorable Image: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Many pay per click marketers who use video advertising forget this. They get so caught up in the medium that they forget that the medium should serve an end purpose – ie, convert the viewer.

Your image should immediately capture your viewers in some way – intrigue them, amuse them, enlighten them.

How can you make an image memorable? A lot of what you do will depend on your type of business, but following are two quick ideas:

(i) Use Bright Colors: This is particularly effective if you use a black background in your ad.
(ii) Sparse Text: Many PPC marketers try to cram too much text into their ad. But sparsely worded ads can be very powerful. In fact, one famous copywriter used just two words in a headline once (Free. Money.) No explanation, no details, nothing. It was very effective.

Once you have their attention, you can . . .
Make Them Act: This is where a call-to-action statement comes into play. Just because it’s video does not mean you abandon some tried-and-true marketing practices. Do you want them to sign up to your newsletter, request more information, make an immediate purchase, call you, etc.? Whatever it is, let them know.

If you do these two things – at a minimum – you will be well on your way to creating very successful pay per click video ads. Want to learn more? Don’t miss Pay Per Click Summit coming to the Double Tree Hotel in Chicago, IL on November 4-5, 2009.

When most people think of pay per click marketing, they think of tiny little “word” ads that you click on. Video doesn’t usually enter the picture. However, “PPC video marketing,” so to speak, has been around for a couple of years.

In 2006, Google bought YouTube (for an astounding $1.65 billion, no less). This allows it to offer a very valuable service to internet marketers via an already established outlet – loyal “YouTubers” who like receiving content via video.

The Beginning of Video in Pay Per Click Advertising
It took Google about a year and a half to capitalize on their acquisition of YouTube. In February 2008, they started testing the use of video ads in their pay per click advertising model. Now, video ads appear as display ads on MySpace and other social media networks.

How Video Ads Appear in Pay Per Click Ads
Experts generally agree that it is very easy rich medium platform to master. Video ads show up as a single link under a normal pay per click ad.  This link is next to a plus-sign icon, indicating that there is a video (or more information to be found if the surfer clicks).

When a web surfer does click, a small window (about 160×140 in size) appears in which the video will show.  A timer shows how long the video is. Most are very short – less than 30 seconds. At the end of the video, a URL of the advertiser’s site appears.

Ready to Set Up Your Own Video Pay Per Click Marketing Campaign?
Learn more about how to set up and run a PPC video campaign (via Google). If pay per click marketing confuses you altogether, it’s a good idea to invest in some training (Pay Per Click Summit is coming up soon in Chicago on Nov. 4-5) to make sure you’re doing it right – from the beginning.

It’s October, which in some cases, means that you’re already late to the game if you haven’t put together a PPC holiday marketing plan.

The great thing about pay per click marketing though is that you can be up and running in minutes.

Following are three things you can do to ensure more profits this holiday season.

Holiday Keywords: Add holiday keywords to your PPC campaigns. This is a basic that many pay per click marketers forget – especially newbies. What are some of these: pre-Christmas sale; post-holiday sale; black Friday deals; holiday fragrances; holiday gifts for her/him; etc.

Bundle Products & Services: Last-minute shoppers tend to be stressed out because they’ve waited until — well, the last minute. The more you can pack into an offer, usually the easier the sale. This is why things like gift baskets tend to be great sellers. You ostensibly get “more for your money.” And, this is what every shopper wants – especially the procrastinators. Give it to’em!

Sell the Ease; Not Your Product: Many pay per click marketers are hyper-focused on selling their particular product or services. But again, especially around the holidays, shoppers are looking for more than this. What are they particularly looking for? Ease and convenience.

So sell the ease of online shopping – and live up to it. The easier you make it for prospects to order from you, the better. So do as much as you can to entice them, eg, offer free shipping, offer a generous return policy, offer a discount for ordering online, etc.

Note: Don’t offer services that are detrimental to your bottom line just to secure a sale; but make every effort to sell as much ease and convenience as you can.

By following these basic pay per click holiday marketing tips, you can help to ensure a profitable holiday season.

Last week at PPC Summit in Los Angeles, the Search Marketing expert trainers shared a wealth of Pay Per Click knowledge with the 100+ marketers attending the event. Keyword targeting is always a hot topic and the use of long tail keywords was one of the tips discussed.  

In our last post, Long-Tail Keywords In Pay Per Click Advertising Works, we covered the value of using long-tail keywords. Today, we want to continue this discussion, highlighting how to get more value out of the long-tail keywords your visitors may already be using to find you.

How to Get More Value Out of the Long-Tail Keywords Visitors Are Already Using to Find You
Many pay per click marketers don’t realize that a lot of their traffic may already be coming from some long-tail keywords. This presents a golden opportunity to get even more traffic and sales. How?

Quite simply, your web presence already has good search engine juice (ie, good organic rankings) for this term. However, it may not be ranked as high as it could be, since you have spent any time specifically optimizing it for that/those specific long-tail keywords.

Once you do this, you can exponentially build on traffic you are already getting. Following are two ways to do this.

Write More Content: Writing and distributing articles is one way to optimize a site quickly for popular long-tail keywords. This will give your site higher visibility quickly, especially if you distribute the content far and wide (eg, article directories).

Put Together More Offers: If a popular long-tail keyword is bringing you more traffic, look to see if you have any special deals, discounts, or other offers that can convert this traffic into sales. If not, put together one (some).

These are just two ways to make your pay per click campaign pay off with traffic you may already be receiving.