WebSales 101:
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Everyone uses search engines to find information on the internet.
Placing “sponsored” listings with search engines is
the fastest and easiest way to develop a stream of new leads. Companies
normally pay based on the number of times visitors click on their
listings. Therefore, this has come to be known as “pay-per-click”
or “PPC” advertising. The essential “ingredients”
of a PPC advertising campaign are channel, keywords & places,
cost-per-click, and tracking.
- PPC CHANNEL. You can create PPC marketing campaigns
with any search engine. Of course Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN have
great exposure, but this great exposure comes at a cost. A well-developed
PPC campaign will start with these channels, but will extend to
include channels that offer a lower cost per lead. There are also
various industry-specific search engines which are known to deliver
high-quality leads.
- KEYWORDS & PLACES. Once you've selected
your PPC channels, choose keywords that pertain to your business.
What are your customers searching for? It is important to compile
a list that includes many combinations, variations and even misspellings
of the words that are on your customers' mind! A PPC campaign
doesn't consist of keywords alone. PPC channels allow you to specify
geographic areas where your ad will be shown.
- COST-PER-CLICK. Is a click worth a penny, a
dollar or ten dollars? Fortunately, some basic math can come to
the rescue – simply put, how much are you willing to pay
per customer? A well-implemented PPC campaign will keep track
of how many people who fill out the contact form on your website;
by tracking these people through the sales cycle, you can calculate
exactly how much every click is worth to you.
- TRACKING. PPC marketing is a process that yields
a lot of data. You can see which keywords are popular and which
keywords translate to sales. The data that results from a PPC
campaign can give great leverage to your future marketing efforts.
Of all the technologies available to promote your website to prospective
customers, PPC advertising delivers the fastest result. For this
reason it is usually the first step taken by companies who are trying
to improve the performance of their web-based marketing.
|
