Internet Marketing Blog » PPC campaign

The benefits of PPC software

David — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:43:18 +0000

Inspired by the recent developments of our in-house built ppcTRAX™ software I thought I’d discuss the implications of such tools. In particular, I’d like to focus this week on our new building software. Our new PPC campaign building software has made it much quicker to develop very large amounts of keywords with an appropriate ad group structure than with previous methods. As we are continually refining this software it starts to beg the question of whether one day there could exist a tool whereby we can simply automatically import a list of products or services a client offers, click a button, and hey presto the campaigns are completely built.

It certainly does sound exciting, but more than an element of caution should be exercised. When conjugating vast amounts of ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ there is always going to be the chance that some keywords may simply may not make any sense. Without applying some sort of checking procedure, the build software may suggest that I add ‘work as a warehouse’, or worse ‘job in a secretary’ to a keyword list (true story).

It is of course possible that with continual improvements our building software could iron out such a problem; our software will already automatically flag up any duplicates across keyword lists, so what’s to say it can’t automatically remove silly choices like the ones above? While it would be quite easy to adjust the software to accommodate this, then what about the problem of ‘work as a admin’? Of course then we could rectify it to change all ‘a’s to ‘an’s when preceding a vowel, but there will surely be another problem lurking straight after that one that we haven’t yet considered.

Even if we had attempted to cover every nuance we think the English language could throw at us, I still wouldn’t recommend blindly setting the building software to complete auto-pilot. We will always need the human element for this checking process, particularly when dealing with campaigns with hundreds of thousands of keywords. Although of course there is a lot of potential that we can improve our software yet further, as each time we encounter such a problem it is very easy to make it so that we will never have to face it again.

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Using Google Trends to improve seasonal targeting

Joe — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:02:11 +0000

Most business will know their main seasonal trends. However, there may be some areas in their business where trends can be more ambiguous. Seasonal keywords appear in search results during certain times of the year and have lower relevance during the rest of the year – and for those working in PPC it is important to understand these seasonal trends and how they might affect PPC campaigns.

It is easy to understand why some keywords will be searched for in seasonal periods such as Christmas, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, winter, summer etc. For example, it is straightforward to see why there will be a large increase in searches for BBQs during the summer months.

For some products and services, seasonal trends are a lot more difficult to predict or understand. Many products and services may also have seasonal trends when you expect them to sell fairly consistently throughout the year.

A good example of a product like this is life insurance policies. Seasonal trends for life insurance policies may be difficult to predict without any research. Fortunately there is a simple tool to help us!

Using the Google trends tool we can easily spot trends in keyword searches to help us predict and understand seasonal trends and how they influence user behaviour.

Life Insurance

We can see using Google trends that there is a drop in searches for life insurance at the end of each year. This may be due to the fact that people won’t be thinking about death at this time of the year and/or are too busy to sort out none urgent matters.

Whatever the reason, spotting this trend will help with building a more efficient campaign for life insurance products. Using a simple search of the Google Trends tool we know that there is less demand for life insurance policies in the last 2 months of the year.

This tool is quick, simple and can be used to spot seasonal trends in search terms for products even if the causes are not known or understood; this is vital tool for agencies planning PPC and other search marketing campaigns.

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Does Paid Search Advertising Cannibalise Organic Search Traffic?

Rory — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 09:48:53 +0000

Does paid search advertising cannibalise organic search traffic? Initially, that question may appear to be laced with marketing jargon, but fortunately it is quite simple to break down. If a company paused their PPC campaign, would clicks on their organic search listings increase and cover the loss incurred by the stoppage of paid ads? It’s an interesting question, and it has repercussions for internet marketing agencies and businesses who invest in PPC advertising alike.

Understanding, or at least being able to accurately estimate the incremental increase in CTR from paid ads, can help a company more accurately determine a budget for a PPC campaign. Thankfully, some intelligent Google boffins have conducted a study showing that 89% of the traffic generated by search ads is not replaced by organic traffic when the ads are paused. This incremental traffic is a great reason to invest in PPC services.

The survey was conducted due to the lack of information that can be garnered from ad clicks alone; for example, that does not tell you about the incramentality of traffic generated by paid search advertising. Businesses have been known to pause PPC campaigns because of concerns about whether the traffic generated by them is incremental in relation to the click-through-rate of organic search results.

It was pointed out however that there are certain factors that contribute to the incramentality such as the similarity between the paid ad and the natural search listing. The Google engineers who conducted the White Paper also stated that their meta-analysis is not representative of all the factors that could drive a decline in advertising expenditure. However, the results are taken from a very wide cross-section and they do help to establish an expected rate of incremental ad clicks.

As mentioned, the meta-analysis revealed that over 89% of the clicks on search ads is incremental because it wouldn’t be generated without the PPC campaign. This does not mean, however, that the conversion rates of websites will also be incremental – that is still down to landing page design, and is generally a more holistic aspect of search marketing. Notwithstanding this, businesses are always on the lookout for ways to more accurately gage the potential cost of an online campaign, and this study by Google is a valuable source to be used when determining that figure.

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Tablets and Mobile Devices Split Out in AdWords

Alan — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:05:36 +0000

Good news – Google have changed the device targeting settings in AdWords so there is now a Tablets option. This is much better than what we have had before, where iPad was just an operating system under Mobile devices. It would have been nice for Google to let us internet marketing professionals know though rather than just change the targeting of our PPC campaigns.

We had our campaigns split out to target devices with the following 3 ways:

1. Computers – by checking ‘Desktop and laptop computers’ only

2. iPads – by checking ‘iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers’ then selecting ‘Target only selected mobile devices’ and checking ‘iPad’ under ‘Advanced device and operator options’

3. Mobile - by checking iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers’ then selecting ‘Target only selected mobile devices’ and checking ‘Android’, ‘iPhone/iPod Touch’ and ‘Palm webOS’ under ‘Advanced device and operator options’

We generally do not target WAP Phones in most campaigns so this has been left out of the above.

However we noticed that Google had started to roll out the new device targeting options in the image, and we saw that our Computers campaigns were suddenly targeting Computers and Tablets! So we had 2 campaigns targeting duplicate keywords on Tablets, thanks Google.

This has not been fully rolled out yet so not all AdWords accounts will have the options in the image above but beware if you currently target iPads in a separate campaign, when Google do roll this out to your account you will need to change your targeting.

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Defining Your PPC Goals

Alan — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:13:10 +0000

When setting up a pay per click account one of the most important stages is defining your overall goals and ensuring that the support is available to achieve them. Many PPC managers will omit to set goals but this can be a big mistake, as defining your objectives at the outset can make all the difference to your PPC campaign success.

The goal should be outlined well, but also any people involved in the PPC campaign or interested in the results should also agree to the goals set. You need buy-in from the people at the top as well as your team members that the amount of conversions you aim for is adequate. It’s also a good idea to get agreements on the average cost per lead and any budget constraints. This will ensure everyone has the same expectations of the campaign and they are also aware of what is required to meet that goal realistically.

For example, if you have set a certain amount of conversions as your goal, and to convert successfully you require contact information, it should be outlined up front that the landing page must be designed to allow that. If this doesn’t happen and the homepage is used instead with a contact us tab, it will become more of a challenge to meet your goal. If you have to work within these confines then you’ll need to set everyone’s expectations again and define other metrics that can be monitored instead. You may also decide to monitor the time on the site rather than just monitoring clicks. This will give you an indication of how well conversions have been qualified.

At Click Consult we can help you develop winning PPC accounts.

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Getting The Handover Right On Your PPC Accounts

Laura — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:01:43 +0000

More often than not you will inherit a PPC account. It may be that someone leaves the company or you are promoted to take on more responsibility within the team. No matter what the reasons, it can sometimes be daunting taking over someone else’s pay per click campaigns. Here are some ways you can make the handover easier:

Start the handover early

This may not always be possible as some team members may leave suddenly with little notice. If that does happen then don’t get stressed. Hopefully you use a project management system and have an overview of the account history.

If you get some notice then don’t wait around to make the transition. Start to ask for PPC campaign things to do as soon as possible. This will give you a chance to get acquainted with the account without having to know all the ins and outs straight away.

If there is time, take over the account two weeks before the previous manager leaves. The original manager needs to be completely hands off so that you can immerse yourself in the account, deal with any challenges but still have somewhere to go to ask questions.

Take time to make an internal download. Take time to sit with the original manager and go through any notes made on the PPC account. Look at any immediate plans that have been made on the account and put together a monthly to-do list.

At Click Consult we have an expert team who can assist you in all your PPC campaigns.

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Redefine Your Target Audience

Alan — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:17:13 +0000

You can quite easily drown in the detail of keywords and bids when managing a PPC campaign but you need to question on a regular basis what you want to achieve. It may seem an obvious question but take time to consider your goals. If your answer is that you want to achieve a certain amount of clicks or cost per lead then you really need to sit up and think again. Take time out to think about who your audience is and the goals for your pay per click campaign.

Think about the elementary questions – who, what, when, where, why, how. Use them to define who you want to reach. Who is the ideal target? When do they go online and how would they use the internet? How old are they? What is their lifestyle, values and mindset? What do they think about the products you sell and your company?

You can get some great information from analytics to understand who you attract now – however this might not be the type of customer you want. You will need to research hard to understand the best audience for your products and it is imperative to understand their behaviours and way of buying.

You can become so focused on the conversion funnels that you forget what the real people you are trying to attract look like. Collecting insight into consumers can provide you will a more balanced well rounded pay per click campaign.

At Click Consult we have an expert team of people to help with PPC management.

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Get The Month Started For Your PPC

Alan — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:30:19 +0000

If you want to get the month off to a flying start here are five tasks to get you going:

Run a keyword report – Home in on the top ten keywords. It can be hard wading through hundreds of keywords particularly when you have a well performing pay per click campaign. In order to tackle this task effectively look at the high value keywords and assess their performance and what can be done to better it. This may cover ad texts, bids, restructuring the ad group and identifying keywords.

Test multiple landing pages – A URL report can identify any poor performing variations that should be removed. This will free up time to concentrate on the better performing landing pages.

Ads running on the Content Network – Are you running ads within AdWords on the content network? Use a placement performance report and home in those websites that are bringing in the lowest conversion rate and the highest cost per sale. Keep it to 3 or 5 to maintain focus.

Expand you keyword list – review your site and look where you can add in 1 or 2 ad groups. You don’t have to do all the laborious keyword researching now but there is sure to be some phrases or terms that could be expanded.

Set up new automate reports – monitor performance using vital stats and get them daily to keep on top.

At Click Consult we can get your PPC campaigns running optimally.

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Are Your PPC campaigns Lost In Translation?

Alan — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:00:33 +0000

A multilingual PPC campaign can be a good way of creating a presence within a country within a short space of time. Most companies do not have the budget or time and resources to set up separate websites for each country but through pay per click you can access an international audience quickly online.

The downfall of most multilingual campaigns is simply laziness. Most advertisers will launch an international campaign without factoring in accurate translations or ensuring the message is relevant to the country’s culture. However, with some planning this can be overcome.

The importance of translations

The crux of a successful multilingual PPC campaign is in the translation. You must ensure it is a high quality translation for it to be effective in receiving relevant attention. Most adverts are translated literally without considering local translation. This often leads to confusion both at the ad and the landing page and native speakers can simply leave. Literal translations will stick out a mile and will smack of poor professionalism to the native speaker and they will ignore your message.

Avoid using online translation tools. You need to get a real live person involved in translations so take time to research a quality agency. A good quality service will involve the person reading the English version and rewriting it so that the tone and message are effectively conveyed in the new language. When you get the translation back ask a native speaker to proof read it.

At Click Consult we can help with local and international pay per click search marketing.

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Running Your PPC Accounts Like Clockwork

Laura — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:30:22 +0000

If you want to make sure that your PPC account ticks over like clockwork there are three things you can do:

Set up automated reports

This is a no brainer! There are automated reports in Yahoo!, Analytics and AdWords as well as Microsoft adCenter which allow you to create reports that you can set up to be emailed to you daily with that all important account data. It takes just a couple of minutes and it will ensure that you always know how your pay per click campaigns are performing.

Review your account settings

If you set up campaigns frequently then this is a must. If you don’t do this, then add it to the task list once a quarter. If you have lots of campaigns this will help your performance no end. There are a multitude of settings within Microsoft, Google and Yahoo PPC interfaces and if they happen to be set incorrectly you can experience poor performance.

Create your PPC schedule

Busy people must plan their time to be effective. Build a plan that allows account changes as part of your daily schedule. Set aside as much time as possible whether you can manage 30 minutes for just 10 minutes – it will make all the difference. Then assign a task – for example Keyword Research on a Monday, Rotate Ads on a Tuesday, Edit Bids on a Wednesday and so on.

At Click Consult we can help design outstanding pay per click search marketing campaigns.

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