Getting Great ROI from Pay-Per-Click
On a recent project, WebINTENSIVE’S PPC professionals achieved a sharp increase in clickthroughs from 0.4% to 9%. Here’s how:
- Experiment: The most important word for PPC. You can constantly change the days and times at which the ad appears, how high or low on the page it can appear, what keywords trigger it, how much you bid for it, what wording it contains, what geographic regions of users see it…if you continually try changing every control you have and noting the result, you can improve your ads in a matter of weeks and optimize them in months.
- Keep Finding Keywords: Part of a successful PPC campaign is a good collection of keywords—what the users will be searching for to see your ads. (Keywords are most often combinations of words; “keyphrases” would be a better name for most of them.) Constantly be on the lookout for words and phrases that a user in your target market might search for. Beware of keywords that are too broad: if you don’t sell copies of Microsoft Office and TurboTax, then “software” by itself is not a good keyword for you because most users who search for it will not want what you sell.
- Use High CTR% to Get Position: PPC providers want you to think that they offer a neutral, unbiased bid-based advertising market. This is not really true. The PPC provider has a strong interest in the user clicking on *some* ad that appears (and ideally on more than one). This means that the provider wants high-clickthrough-rate ads to appear; an expensive ad won’t make the provider any money if nobody clicks on it. As a result, providers build a bias toward high-clickthrough-rate ads into their systems. You can take advantage of this: by constantly experimenting and pushing up your clickthrough rates, you can put your ads in high positions that might otherwise cost you more.
- Follow the Clicks: Monitor what happens to each click on your ads. How many of them turn into leads or online purchases? Determine your ROI on this basis—leads and purchases, not the clickthoughs themselves, are what you ultimately want in return for your money. That being said, clickthrough rates provide convenient short-term feedback when you conduct experiments with settings and ad wording.
- Watch the Users: Map the progress on the site of each user who clicks through. Does it look consistent with what was offered in the ad? (e.g., is the user going to the part of the site that sells or offers what the ad specifically touted?) If not, it may indicate a usability problem: the user who clicks through might have problems finding what was offered. Or it may mean that something else is distracting her with its special appeal–so maybe you should try advertising that instead!
- Use Every Word: The typical PPC ad has room for maybe 6-8 words of text. Don’t waste them! It’s possible to pack a surprising amount of meaning and impact into this short a space. Do make sure that the target users will understand any abbreviations or acronyms.
- Distinguish Yourself: Look long and hard at the other ads that appear for your keywords. Why should a user click on yours and not theirs? This is basic competitive advertising logic, but intensified by a small space and a common format. Use your imagination to find ways to attract attention without seeming gimmicky. (Early on in our own PPC adventures, we doubled clickthrough rates by changing “webintensive.com” to “webINTENSIVE.com”, an accurate portrayal of our company name.)
- Use AdWords First: The same ads and settings can produce surprisingly different results on different PPC systems. We have found Google’s AdWords to be the most reliable system on which to conduct our PPC experiments. Other systems can provide valuable clickthroughs, but are often too erratic to be trusted which the main process of experimentation and refinement.
- Test Marketing Ideas: PPC is not only a way to get leads and customers–it’s the world’s most rapid and flexible marketing development tool. Two weeks and a $200 investment can often tell you which of two messages resonates more with your target market. (The strict word limit can also help you narrow down exactly what you want to say!) We have more advice for you on this topic.
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