Beating Adwords - Pay Per Click Internet Advertising - Pay Per Click Campaign

By Ivana G.

Conversion is the most important metric of the online advertising. The term conversion refers to converting from leads to customers or users of your service. So if someone clicks on your ad and buys something on your site that click has been converted into a sale.

Conversion tracking is extremely useful because it enables you to accurately track how many clicks from your ads resulted in sales which will help you to determine your return on investment (ROI).

Advertising should be considered as an investment into your business growth. For an investment to be effective, it needs to generate measurable positive results — without positive ROI, advertising represents only cost to your business.

With a proper conversion tracking in place, you will be able to track your sales and calculate your ROI. There are many easy to use, affordable tracking tools to monitor and analyze your campaigns performance. (Apex Pacific, for instance, offers Dynamic Site Stats, a Web-based tool that monitors the performance of your website in real time and helps you improve the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns.)

By using website tracking tools and their reports, you can accurately track which ads and keywords result in sales. This will help you to determine and eliminate poorly performing advertising campaigns. It also tells which ad campaigns you should focus your energy and resources on to further perfect their performance.

For example, Live Cost Analysis report available in Dynamic Site Stats, provides you real-time insight into the effectiveness of your paid search (PPC) campaigns. It pulls together dynamic price information from the leading PPC search engines (Google, Overture, FindWhat, Espotting, etc) with the revenue earned on your website so you can measure the profitability of each keyword.

Live Cost Analysis offers you clear, concise and actionable reports on which campaigns, keywords and search phrases are bringing you the most new customers, and which keywords are the most effective at driving qualified customers.

Analyzing statistics from the Life Cost Analysis reports will give you the information you need to improve your ROAS (return on advertising spend). Reports enable you to see a number of actions and cost per action (CPA), which will help to evaluate your campaign and/or keywords performance.

Improving the conversion performance of campaigns and keywords that are returning a lower overall ROAS will have a positive impact on the effectiveness of your website and the value of your product offerings as well.

In conclusion, conversion tracking reports offer great help to effectively monitor and analyze ad campaigns and keywords performance. This way you are able easily identify areas of low performance and optimize these accordingly to achieve the maximum ROI of your advertising budget.

About the Author: Ivana Giardi is Marketing Director for Apex Reach division of Apex Pacific , a complete Internet marketing solutions provider.

By Robert Rogers

Seems like more and more kids are influencing the top keyword searches in google. When you look at the top searches, whether it be AOL’s, or Lycos Top 50, or Word Tracker, you will find things like celebrities, movies, myspace, rap, video games, etc… These entertainment type searches have been popular for a very long time and will continue to dominate the search engine ranks for years to come.

So many advertisers are chasing these keywords and losing their shirts in pay per click like adwords. I just ran across another keyword that advertisers are wasting their money on. Today I looked at the keyword “money maker”. I typed it into google and 9 ads came up. 8 of them were about how to make money online. The remaining single ad about listening to music is probably the only one that got it right.

You see, the most likely person to type in the keyword phrase “money maker” is probably some teenager who wants to download the song by Ludacris titled “Money Maker” and is probably not the least bit interested in “how to make money online.” I assume this based on the following data:

Searches done in November 2006 Count Search Term

187264 money maker
15237 shake your money maker
10537 money maker lyric
6990 ludacris maker money
3917 act make maker millionaire money think way wealthy
3749 ludacris lyric maker money
2660 shake that money maker
2540 shake your money maker lyric
2277 shake ya money maker
2083 ludacris lyric maker money shake
1473 maker money shake yo
1075 by ludacris lyric maker money

Although this “Ludacris” fan may click on “how to make money” ads, what do you think the conversion is going to be? The only keyword in the list that I would maybe buy is “act make maker millionaire money think way wealthy”. Of course I would trim it down to “money maker think” or “money maker wealthy”. So instead of a 1 in 20 chance of getting someone interested in making money online, I’ve narrowed it down to almost a 100% chance while lowering my cost per click from $0.90 to $0.10 or less.

So make sure you research your keywords before wasting your advertising money!

Robert Rogers is a writer in the Washington DC area. For more free tips on keyword research, visit his Internet Marketing Blog at http://bigsensation.com/marketing-blogzzzzzzz

By Joe Stewart

Your success with either Search Engine Optimization or Pay Per Click advertising can be determined by one single word. “Relevancy”. This is especially important to Google and should be to you too. Relevancy is what it’s all about in Search folks. When you are trying to find something online don’t you want the best, most accurate information that you can possibly get on the topic or would you rather find some software generated page that has a few of your keywords on the page, but the rest of it makes absolutely no sense? Anyone that’s been online for very long knows exactly what I’m talking about. The search engine’s, with Google leading the way, are determined to provide their users with the best, most relevant experience that they can possibly provide, so if you’ve been “spinning cobwebs” of crud and trying to make a few bucks, your days are numbered.

The Pro’s of Pay Per Click advertising are that you can have an ad up and running in as little as 10-15 minutes, once you have your account set up. Once you get a good idea of what you’re doing you can be running multiple ad campaigns, testing new headlines for web pages AND sales letters that can be used on or OFFline. Pay Per Click has practically changed the face of the way advertising works, both on and off the internet, for those “in the know”. It has allowed an average person to run a business from a small room in their home and compete with the largest companies around the world. Some people make 100% of their incomes from Pay Per Click advertising methods and others make extraordinary incomes.

The Con’s of Pay Per Click are that it costs money, in some cases, a lot of money, unless you learn to use it properly. When Google first came out with Adwords it was easy to throw up an ad and get traffic that was relatively cheap. As a matter of fact, until last year, ads only costed a nickel per click for the end position if there were less than eight advertisers on the page. Not so anymore. Google now charges a designated amount for each keyword and phrase, some of which can be extremely expensive. With the explosion of it’s popularity, it has also become extremely competitive.

Summary - Pay Per Click advertising is still one of the best, most profitable methods of advertising available. However, if you do not get the proper education before you jump into this snake pit, you could waste a lot of money and get little in return.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - This is a method in which you use keyword phrases and relevant content in order to compete for the free listings the search engines offer. The competition for phrases like “dog training”, “life insurance”, “internet marketing” and other similar high traffic phrases are nearly impossible to even rank for. However there are literally millions of terms that get less traffic, but they have little if any competition. If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and go to work, you can potentially dominate small markets. Also, many of these less traveled keywords are what is known as “long tailed”. There has been confusion about this term for many people and I’d like to finally clear this up as to what “long tail” means. This does not refer to any term that is 4-5 or more words long, it refers to terms that are this long that are “buying phrases”. That comes directly from SEO expert, Jerry West.

The Pro’s of SEO are that you can get free traffic, if you are willing to work for it. This is where you could have a huge advantage over most people because they’re lazy and aren’t motivated enough to do what it takes to succeed.

The Con’s of SEO are that it not only takes a lot of work, but it can also take months before your pages are indexed by the search engines. There are methods that you can use, that are ethical, to make this happen much faster, but for someone that is new to SEO, you’ll be at a serious disadvantage. Also, because SEO is free, you will have competition for the first page of your chosen keywords, so even if you are willing to work it still won’t be a cake walk.

Summary - I recommend that you diversify your marketing efforts to include both Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization methods. This way you’re getting traffic from two different sources, you’re getting immediate traffic from Pay Per Click advertising and you’re also investing in your future interests with SEO. There are people making enormous sums of money with first page rankings for both SEO and PPC.

Do The Terms “SEO” And “Pay Per Click” Have You Confused? Find Out Important Things That You MUST Know About These Topics And More By Going Right Now To SEONewsInc.com or by clicking on Search Engine Optimization Firm. Joe Stewart is a Webmaster and Internet Marketer That Uses Pay Per Click Advertising And Search Engine Optimization To Advertise Online.

By Maraya Mullen
For many, Pay Per Click advertisements are nothing more than a short-term marketing measure to be used just until the effects of search engine optimization are felt. Internet marketing experts, however, state that the customized ads in fact, provide more benefits than most people give them credit for. Here are some of them:

1. With PPC ads, you’re always at the top of the heap

In a perfect world, you would always have top ranking in search engine results page after your web site is optimized; unfortunately, we’re not even close. Getting on top of the list can take a lot of time and effort, and doubly more so if you’re targeting very popular keywords and phrases. PPC ads greatly increase the chance of your web site being seen by searchers even if thousands of other companies are competing for the same keywords. Advertising on programs like Google Adwords can actually save you time and resources by allowing you to focus your SEO efforts (which are definitely more laborious) on campaigns that will have more fruitful results.

2. You’re the boss (at least when it comes to your PPC ads)

With PPC ads, you get to choose how much you are willing to pay per click, how you would want your ads to be worded and how long you would want your ads to be displayed. One good thing about PPC ads is that you’re in total control of your ads. If you want to edit existing ads so you can announce a new promo for example, then nothing will stop you from doing so.

3. PPC ads can be used to ensure greater SEO success

PPC ads is a relatively inexpensive means of testing if the keywords and phrases you chose to use to optimize your site will work or not. PPC ads can help prevent the costly mistake of using ineffective keywords to optimize your site.

4. PPC ads allow you to pretend like you’re Big Brother

One PPC feature that makes the tool particularly attractive is the fact that it allows advertisers to extensively track their ads and how they are performing. With PPC ads, you’ll be informed of how many times the ads are clicked, the number of impressions, their average position, costs-per-click and other stats you’ll need to assess if the ads are worth the money you pay for them (remember, being micromanagers never hurt Bill Gates or Steve Jobs).

5. PPC ads help you help yourself

While many think that PPC ads bear only immediate results, the customized advertorials can actually benefit you in the long-term by helping you establish your brand. If people, through your ads, regularly see the name of your company and web site, you can expect to leave an imprint on their minds and create an impact.

For more information on Pay Per Click ads, you can visit Pay Per Click Services

Feel free to republish this article as long as you retain the source link

Maraya Mullen is a copywriter for Fruit Engine, a Search Engine Marketing Company.

While pay per click is a great way to get a new or not so new website known it can be a daunting task to get things going in the right direction so that it is profitable.

Too many new marketers lose money using pay per click advertising because of a lack of knowledge on their part. While pay per click is a very simple concept it is not so simple if you don’t know what you are doing.

Pay per click requires lots of testing to see what ad is going to be profitable. Most PPC advertisers have no idea how to use this great advertising tool to their advantage and ultimately lose money with their advertising campaign. Most will lose $500.00 and upwards trying to get their PPC ad going in the right direction.

Because of the lack of knowledge that these advertisers have about the PPC system they will never recoup what they have lost in advertising costs. It’s their ignorance is what costs them not the PPC system itself.

Unfortunately PPC programs such as adwords will not teach their advertisers how to use the adwords system and be profitable. The reason is that Google wants to keep its advertisers ignorant because they know that the less that you know the more money you will spend and the more profitable Google will be.

Don’t count on the suggestions and tutorials that Google provides with their adwords program because none of it will help you make money with the adwords system.

To make an adwords campaign successful and profitable you need to get unbiased information that will show you exactly what you need to do to be profitable. You can search the net for this info but I can tell you that most of it is very vague and that you won’t get much from it.

There happens to be one guide on the market today that will show you how to setup a successful adwords campaign that will put you in profit right away. The name of this easy to read and understand guide is called Beating Adwords.

If you have a new website ppc advertising may be the way to go to get visitors to your site and hopefully convert them to paying customers. Pay per click advertising can start making you money right away if it is done right.

I think I made every mistake there is to make when I first started using ppc. It took me quite awhile to figure out what I was doing wrong. I had spent in excess of $500 and hadn’t made a single sale. I was at the point of throwing in the towel with ppc advertising. The only thing that stopped me was that I new it must be effective because day after day, and month after month the same paid ads displayed on google. I figured these people must be making money otherwise they still wouldn’t be using ppc.

I have since fixed the problems that I was having and did recoup everything that I had lost in advertising expenses.

When using ppc advertising be sure to do the following. I didn’t do any of them in the beginning. That’s why I didn’t convert any sales. Hopefully this will save you from making the same costly mistakes that I made.

Target your visitors who are directly interested in your content and supply a product that is directly related to that content and your sales conversion will be a lot higher than you could ever imagine. Again, do not provide a product that is something like your content. Provide one that is directly related to your content. For example. If you were the owner of a juggling site, you wouldn’t want to be selling rubber balls. While rubber balls are something like juggling balls they are not juggling balls. You’ll make sales with juggling balls, you won’t with the rubber balls. Be very descriptive with your product. People will not buy if they are unsure of what it is that you sell or unsure of what your product does.

You can make sales very quickly with ppc advertising if done right. You can lose money just as quickly if not quicker if done wrong.

When I first thought of this my first reaction was to say no. The more that I thought about it, the more I realized that a newbie actually can make immediate money with very little investment on their part if he or she do things right. Of course a newbie wouldn’t be able to resort to his or her list because he or she would not yet have one. Of course a newbie could buy a list and spam people which is not a good idea.Search engines can take a long time to index a website and even longer to get a halfway decent ranking.

Since almost all newbies have absolutely no idea of how to optimize a web page to even get a decent ranking in the first place, organic searches would also be out of the question.

So what’s a newbie to do? There are so many supposed strategies out there (some that work, some that don’t), what’s the best course of action for a newbie to take? We all know that we need to get people to our website in order to be able to sell to them. That goes without saying. But how do we get them there?

The best way for a newbie to get new prospects to their website would be through pay per click advertising. While PPC will cost you an initial investment you will be able to recoup and hopefully profit from it pretty quickly. Think of it this way. Would you give someone $100 if they promised to pay you back $150 in a couple of days? If you trusted the person and their word, I’m sure that you would. That’s an easy $50 that you would make for doing basically nothing. That’s the way that you should look at PPC advertising.

Pay some money now to make money later. Hopefully right away. Pay per click can start making you money from the get go. Before getting into any PPC campaign make sure that you study and understand how it works and don’t do anything until you feel comfortable with it. You also may want to join a forum or two that deal with advertising. You’ll want to join forums that specialize in Internet advertising as you will find very knowledgeable people on this subject. They can advise you with any questions or concerns you may have. Run a Google search and type in forums”+”advertising” you should be able to find quite a few forums that can give you advice.

Google and Yahoo are the largest pay per click programs. There are smaller pay per click programs such as miva that are generally cheaper than Google and Yahoo. Check out Yahoo and Google and read how pay per click works and then join a forum or two to get some advise before you do anything. . If approached properly, PPC advertising can get a newbie on the fast track to making money right away.

Google recently launched a beta test program called “Pay Per Action”. Instead of paying when someone clicks on your ad a number of things have to happen before you will be charged. The person who clicks on your ad will have to complete an action specified by you before you will be charged. You only pay for the action and not for the click. You set the price of the action. You pay what you think the action is worth. I’m not sure if there is a minimum bid or not on an action.

For example let’s say that you want to build an email list. The action could be as simple as someone filling out a web form and supplying their name and email address. Another action could be a purchase which seems to me the best way to go because you will only pay when you get paid which is in essence free advertising for you. From what I can see, you can’t lose advertising this way.

The downside is, (yes there always is a downside) this is only available to people in the United States at the moment and will only work on your own website. Since you need to add code on your web pages to use this service, you will need to have access to your html pages to insert the code. You won’t be able to use this with affiliate products. You need to have your own product in order to use pay per action to make sales.

Another drawback is that “Pay Per Action” will be advertised through the content network. I’m sure that you well know if there is a way to cheat this people will find a way to do it. I hope there isn’t. This sounds like it has potential and a better way for marketers to advertise their own products. I can’t see it easily happening using a purchase action. It’s the other actions that concern me. ie. Advertisers using it to collect leads. What would stop people from fraudulently filling out the web email form?

If you own your own products and sell them on your own website, this might be a great cost effective way to advertise your product or line of products. I wouldn’t try using it for anything other than purchases until you learn and better understand how the whole program works.

To get more info click the link here. It gives you more of an explanation to how the program works and its requirements. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/03/pay-per-action-beta-test.html

You may want to try this out while it’s still in beta because it will probably be a lot cheaper now than it will be when it comes out of beta. If you have your own website and products and set your action to be for purchases only you really have nothing to lose because you only pay when you make a sale.

Something that you should know about using Pay Per Click with Google adwords that will save you a lot of money. I didn’t realize it until I had spent way more money than I intended to. Turn off the content network before you run any Google campaigns. The content network will suck up your money in a hurry and yield you with zero conversions. Take it from someone who learned that the hard way.

The content network will get you a lot of clicks. The problem is that those clicks are not targeted traffic at all. The content network consists of the Google ads that you see on non Google websites in case you don’t know what the Google content network is. Since most ads on web pages are setup in a way to make the ad blend in with the content, there are a lot of unintentional clicks from visitors of those websites. The last thing that you want is to have to pay for a click that someone didn’t mean to click on. Plus there is a fair amount of click fraud going on with a lot of these websites. So shut off the Google content network before you go live with your PPC ad.

Here’s something that your PPC ad should contain that will save you money that not nearly enough PPC advertisers do. Somewhere in your ad, either have the price, or put buy it here for the product that you are selling. If you don’t alert the searcher to the fact that it will cost them money to get your product, you will get a lot of freebie seekers that will never buy from you. Telling the searcher that there is a cost involved will save you a lot of wasted clicks and in return will save you money. Here are a couple of examples using the above method.

By doing just the two things mentioned here while they seem small will save you a ton of money and will yield you much higher profits. If you are running a PPC ad now and haven’t done these two things, every minute that passes, you are wasting money. Go pause your ad and apply the two strategies mentioned here. They will only take a minute or two to implement. For those who are not running a PPC campaign but intend to, keep these two things in mind when setting up a new ad campaign.