Posts Tagged ‘PPC campaigns’

What I’m about to tell you will totally revolutionize your PPC campaigns and make you A LOT more money.  It’s simple, but not well known and not widely practiced.  Most of your competition isn’t doing it.  This is why you should be.  Really, I should not be telling you this.  I should really keep it to myself.  Maybe I’ll just write about organizing your campaigns or how you shouldn’t run search and content ads in the same campaign.  Been there, done that.  Shoot.  Then again, it should be ok.  Most of you will follow the principle anyway, so I should have nothing to worry about.

First, you’ve been duped into believing that when you place your ads on search engine results pages for your targeted keywords, you are taking part in the activity of advertising. After all, we call it “ppc advertising,” the links on the pages are called “ads” and we call the people running the campaigns “advertisers.”

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As much as the title is vastly overstated, these questions will at the very least help you ponder SEO in a way you hadn’t pondered before. At least that’s my theory.

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Recent news and notes that every PPC advertiser should be aware of…

Mobile ShopAlerts

Wow, mobile is evolving fast.  AT&T introduced location-based “ShopAlerts” in NY, SF, Chicago and LA.  People can opt-in to receive offers and promotions via SMS or MMS when they physically enter a designated area defined by the advertiser (e.g. a mile from their store).  This can help drive in-store traffic and reach mobile users in very specific markets.  This is even more targeted than web-based and app-based advertising, but it is opt-in.

New Ad Setting: Optimize for Conversions

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Check out some of the latest news and notes in the world of the PPC advertiser…

Twitter’s New Ad Platform

Although in beta and only open to VIP advertisers that are invited, Twitter has finally released their ad platform called Promoted Tweets.  The general format is that you can use tweets you’ve created or that have been retweeted by someone else as “ads” that are promoted in certain environments.  The way the ads are served are analogous to both search and contextual advertising in AdWords, where you pick keywords that are searched on to have your tweet shown or it is matched to a stream of tweets given the contextual nature that you choose in your account.  You pay on a cost per engagement which include clicks, favoriting, retweets and replies.  There is also Promoted Account where you can essentially buy followers and Promoted Trends where you are shown on hashtags.

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Last week, we talked about PPC trick #1 to building your online business for the long-term – using keywords correctly.  This week, let’s talk about another “trick of the trade” that will also help on the way to this goal.

Trick #2 – Using Campaigns Correctly

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Here’s what’s new in the world of paid search advertising…

Google Changes Display of Top Position Ads

Apparently, Google is going to start putting Description Line 1 of a typical PPC ad in the headline of the Top 3 ads positions as long as the line ends with a punctuation mark.  If they roll this out, it’s likely that competition for top position ads will grow and it will also affect ad copy strategies.  It is not recommended that you merge the headline and description line as there will be a dash placed between the two in the first line of the ad.

Remember, while it may get more expensive to be in the Top 3 positions if this happens, we still only bid for position if it is advantageous to our overall marketing goals.  As for ad copy, we may be more readily willing to be creative with our headlines since you could now put them in your description text and still have them show up big and blue on the page.

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One of the great things about PPC advertising is its immediacy.  You can start running ads right now and see almost instantaneous results; whether good, bad or just ok.  But, the trap that we don’t want to fall into when running our accounts is limiting our thinking just to what can be gained right now.  The fact is, PPC is a great way to help build all areas of your online business long-term.  And with the continuous expansion of features and avenues being offered in this channel today, the possibilities continue to grow.

But for this series of posts, I want to focus on keyword advertising.  I want to take you through a theoretical progression of how solid PPC search campaigns are started, developed and used to build a foundation for the long-term growth of your brand and website.

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Here is an absolutely delightful new little (but really huge!) feature in Google Analytics that should make anyone interested in improving their web business results smile from ear to ear.  It’s called Weighted Sort.

The problem:

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If you take your PPC campaigns seriously (why wouldn’t you?), you’re always testing.  Always.  It’s the only way to accomplish long-term growth and gain insights that will translate into all of your other marketing channels.  One problem that has been inherent since the beginning of PPC is the inability to do true A/B split-testing with variables like keywords, bids, ad text, ad groups, match types, dynamic keyword insertion, etc.

Yes, you could test them, but only by comparing metrics from different time periods (except for ads).  For example, you’d have to run ads at a certain bid price for a while, change it, and run them at the new bid price for a while.  Then, you’d have to compare the results from different time periods.  The problem? When you would compare the results, you would be likely to assume the differences in those key metrics to be the result of the changes.  But fluctuations in demand, shifts in competitor tactics, and uncontrollable circumstances (special events, etc.) can complicate things.

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Now that you’ve chosen your keywords to create ad group themes, you want to have ads that will move targeted users from whatever they’re doing online to being aware and interested in your product or service. Remember, since the Display Network operates by completely different rules and the users are in a completely different state of mind, the ads should be different than Search Network ads.

With Search, users are somewhere in the buying funnel; whereas with Display most of the users are likely not in the buying funnel at all. Therefore, the goal of the ads in the Search Network is to persuade the user that your solution is the best choice out of all of their options to make their life better; whereas the goal of the ads in the Display Network is to make users aware that you have a solution that could make their life better.

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