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In many ways, the ability to create the optimal PPC campaign
is based on factors you may not have been thinking about.
Most notably is your website design, but other factors include:
- How competitive your market is, relative to your budget.
- How your most important keywords have performed across the
entire Google system. Yes, your competitors performance for those
same keywords is a major component. This has a significant impact
on your keyword quality scores and quality score is the biggest
factor in determining what you pay per click.
- Local advertisers with smaller markets and less traffic, find
it difficult to break through the system-wide quality scores.
- Your larger competitors with deeper pockets can afford to
spend more and take a longer-term view.
- The lifetime value of a customer will determine how much you
can afford to pay to acquire a new customer.
- What is the action you want your “first-time visitor from search”
to take? Is it a lead or a sign-up that doesn’t require anything
more than a first name and email address or is it a $300 sale?
- Do you have actions first-time visitors can take, which we
can tract, that indicate you are connecting with visitors? If you
don’t, you will find it difficult to know what keywords and
ad copy are working and which aren’t.
These and other factors will play a large part in achieving your
goals, yet they are beyond what a campaign manager can control.
But let’s focus on your website because it’s so important.
In an ideal world, you would build your website with the
first-time visitor from search in mind and optimize your website,
especially your landing pages, specifically for that type of visitor.
You would begin by understanding what I call the “search vocabulary”
of your niche markets. These are the words and phrases prospects
use when they shop for products and services using search engines.
Google calls them search terms or search queries.
Not to be confused with keywords. And they might very well be
terms you wouldn’t have thought of and don’t appear anywhere on your
current website.
First-time visitors from search are a unique kind of prospect.
They tend to be cynical, skeptical and have very little patience.
From the moment they arrive at your landing page, you have 3-5
seconds to make a connection with them. If you don’t, they will
“bounce” and probably will not be coming back. How you create
landing pages that are optimized for first-time visitors, is called
Conversion
Optimization, a topic I talk about on my
Processes page. Examples of actions
that can be tracked in AdWords are discussed further down this page.
But let’s focus on the search vocabulary and how it relates to
your website design. To do this I need to introduce you to a new
term called the “search continuum”. It refers to how users search
for products and services as they move through the phases of seeking
information to shopping and then ultimately buying.
Ideally, you want to pay for one click from any given visitor and
then they buy from you. Unfortunately, it seldom works that way,
especially with search marketing where you have no previous
established relationship with the prospect.
Unless you are willing to make a considerable investment in a
website make-over, having the right AdWords strategy has a lot to do
with how your website is designed. I’d like to provide a generic
example to make the point.
- The information seeker who is early in the search
continuum, uses generic search queries such as “wagons”. At this
point, they want to know what they look like, how they are used
and perhaps ball park pricing.
- The shopper uses search queries that are a bit more
refined, such as “wagons for kids”. This user wants to know who
makes wagons for kids, what are they made of, what specific
products are available and some comparison shopping information,
preferably from multiple manufacturers and distributors.
- The buyer users search queries such as
“American Flyer AF-2307”. This prospect is very close to
purchasing and will be more interested in price, availability,
shipping costs and service after the sale.
Each of these three scenarios imply very different conversations
with your prospect and therefore very different landing pages and
website content. If your website is very product oriented, with
pages of detailed specifications and you only represent one supplier,
then you shouldn’t be using keywords indicative of the information
seeker and perhaps not even the shopper. If you do, you may wind
up turning off the visitor or at a minimum, paying for that visitor
to click on your ad several times as they move through the search
continuum. Your focus should be on prospects much further in the
search continuum who are very close to making a purchase.
For another perspective on this same basic issue, read my article
titled What is your problem?.
The degree to which a PPC campaign is implemented will be
dependent on several factors, which may or may not be
economically or technically feasible for your company. Certain
aspects of the campaign management will be performed based on
the level of experience and the tools which the campaign manager
has at their disposal. However, in many cases, especially for
companies who only have a basic web site and a minimal budget
for internet marketing, even the best campaign manager will be
limited in what they can do, especially when it comes to
producing tangible results in the short run.
Successful search engine marketing is focused on one very
important factor; Return on Investment (ROI) and the primary
tool used to calculate ROI is called
Conversion tracking. A conversion takes place when a visitor
to your website is able to take some meaningful action which can
be measured and monetized.
If you have no meaningful actions visitors can take that can
be tied back to a specific keyword, then you need to construct
your campaign and adjust your expectations accordingly. For
example, if the action you are looking for from your PPC
campaign is to have a prospect call you on the phone, it will
take longer to know if your campaign is producing the
results you are hoping for.
John Wanamaker's famous 1886 quote sums it up very well:
"I
know that 50% of my advertising is wasted...
...I just don't know which half!"
A good campaign manager will begin with a thorough analysis
of your web site to determine what, if any visitor actions can
be monitored to begin the process of establishing ROI based
advertising. In many cases, some important actions already
exist, even if it is only the action of visiting a specific page
on the site. Other actions may be able to be added without much
difficulty or expense such as creating a printable coupon. The
ultimate action is to have a visitor actually buy something on
your site! However, that implies that your site is capable of
e-commerce, which most small businesses that are not web-based,
simply are not set up to do.
Here are some ideas for actions that can be tracked and used
to help establish ROI:
- Visiting a specific page on your site
- Sign up for a mini email course
- Downloading a white paper or application
- Playing a video clip
- Take a poll
- Sign up for a newsletter
- Print a coupon
- Listen to an audio clip
- Fill out a “contact us” form
- Sign up for a conference call
- Sign up to receive a series of emails on a particular
topic
- Submit a question
- Make a call
- Register / Sign-up for an event
- Email to a friend
- Buy something!!!!
These are all actions which indicate that you have connected
with the visitor and you are beginning a relationship, and these
actions can be traced back to specific keywords and ads. Now you
have empirical data to know what's working!
Once you and your campaign manager have decided what your site
is capable of, web analytics should to be installed.
Website analytics
allows the tracking of visitor movements and actions
while on your site. In addition, they tell you lots of other
useful information that can help fine tune your campaign for
greater efficiency and improved ROI.
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