Keyword Elements

Breaking keywords into elements can help us understand which roots and qualifiers are performing best in a relative sense. It can also help us manage and maintain keyword building blocks, especially for those accounts which use thousands of keywords across a large number of ad groups and campaigns.

Understanding Keywords

Our PPC Managers use this 2×2 Matrix for categorizing keywords. The matrix and keyword categories provide a framework for selecting the right keywords for each type of Pay Per Click campaign according to each campaign’s specific economic condition.

Benefits of Negative Keywords

Negative keywords can significantly improve click through rates (CTR’s), which drives Quality Scores higher, which in turn drives CPC lower, which leads to higher Return on Ad Spending (ROAS). Best thing since sliced bread? Not quite, but negative keywords really can make a difference.

Measuring PPC Returns - ROAS vs ROI

Return on Ad Spending (ROAS) and Return on Investment (ROI) are often interchanged as though they mean the same thing.  In this respect, Google is the biggest culprit.  While Yahoo characterizes Pay per Click (PPC) spending as “Spending!” Google glibly refers to it as an “Investment.”  Calling Pay per Click spending an investment is like calling a joy ride on a ferris wheel an investment.  The return lasts for one revolution of the wheel.  Enjoy it while it lasts, but don’t expect to derive a lasting benefit from the experience.

PPC Versus SEO

Pay per click (PPC) or Search engine optimization (SEO)?  It’s a question every Internet Marketing professional answers in one form or another almost everyday. For most companies, we recommend doing some form of both.

Managing Shooting Stars

Aside from your predictable actual Geo Market Competitors, Ad Spaces can sometimes be littered with blundering passers-by who have unwittingly purchased 20 short, 8 digit broad match keywords nationwide with no negatives.  While it may only take each such Shooting Star 20 minutes or so per day to torch through his $100 ad budget, still, for that glorious 20 minutes your Ad Space will be cluttered with an inappropriate ad.

Ad Space versus Geo Market Competitors

Your Ad Space Competitors are not necessarily the same folks as your Geo Market Competitors. You’ll recognize your Geo Market Competitors immediately as the lot you compete with day in and day out for new customers. Don’t be surprised if you find some unfamiliar names in your Ad Space; apart from Ad Space Blunderers, you may also find advertisers who are purposefully applying a Tangential Advertising approach.

When Bounce Rates Provide Best Performance Metric

If you are in the process of choosing a professional PPC Ad Account Manager, then you’ve probably been bombarded with the term “ROAS,” and its cousin “ROI.” Everybody wants a “Return on Advertising Spending.” Some PPC Management Gurus are even so bold as to characterize PPC ad spending as an investment; those will be the ones favoring the term “Return on Investment.” Both terms refer to a critical form of analysis required for the effective management of a PPC ad account.

PPC Impressions Can be Expensive!

An Impression is the instance of your ad appearing on a search or affiliate webpage. If your ad appears below the fold, and the prospect fails to scroll down the search phrase and see your ad, then you will still be charged for an impression. If your ad would have appeared on page two of the search results, but your prospect did not go to page two, then you will not be charged for an impression. Charged for?? Well not exactly, since it is pay per click, right?

PPC Budget Squeeze

While Google sets no minimum daily budget for advertisers, sometimes the market sets an implicit daily budget.

A company finds itself in a PPC Budget Squeeze when the market bids for its ad space exceed the advertiser’s daily budget. Some ad spaces are simply more competitive than others, and some advertisers’ budgets are set to target merely a fraction of relevant searches for their geographic market. When both conditions exist, then the advertiser risks being caught in a PPC Budget Squeeze.