Pay Per Click for Marketing Research

Yesterday we met with an advertising company in Denver and discussed the role of pay per click in the context of an Advertiser’s broader marketing plans. The meeting began with a great presentation by Heather Lutze (if you haven’t seen her show, then you’re missing out). Following the presentation, several of us fielded questions. One related to the proper steps of commencing a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) effort and whether it pays to delay the process with pay per click (PPC). My reply was that pay per click, if managed properly, by definition results in a measurable positive return on ad spending. Of course that’s great for any Advertiser, but many marketing managers overlook the other potential benefits of using pay per click advertising to methodically test keyword lists, website content, and website design, in advance of any on-page SEO design, or SEO link building efforts.

In this sense, advertising agencies and marketing managers should think of pay per click advertising as a form of self-funding marketing research.

Comparison Shoppers got you by the tail?

For hyper-competitive ad spaces, content network advertising can sometimes convert more efficiently than search advertising.  One reason for this is that when a qualified prospect lands on an Advertiser’s landing page, the browser back button offers more alternatives for search sourced ads than it offers for content network ads.

Setup Impacts Quality Score

To set up a new Adwords account you have to understand how Google calculates Quality Score. The decisions you make during setup will ultimately determine what kind of Quality Scores your account earns. Be conservative initially to ensure the account gets off on the right start. Here is how we do it.

Tangible Improvements

Monitor Quality Score at the keyword level. When you encounter poor scores, abandon the phrases or improve the scores! Poor quality scores for keywords drag down the performance of an entire pay per click account. Here are some tangible things you can do to optimize quality scores.

It’s all about the Ads!

This is the first in a series of specific things you can do to improve the performance of your pay per click account. Sometimes with all the fancy tools we have for managing pay per click accounts, we forget about the basic fact that what we are doing is advertising. You want to improve performance? Write better ads!

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.

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 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.