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 One
of the quickest ways to drive qualified
prospects to your website is Cost Per Click
(CPC) Advertising. You also have control
over the process, including budget.
What's
CPC Advertising?
When
you search in Google (and most of the other
search engines), there are two places that
results are displayed.
The
first is the natural (also called "Organic")
search results. These are the search
results based on how well your website is
optimized for the keyword terms that someone
types into Google or another search engine.
The
second place is the sponsored results. They
usually have "Advertisement" or
"Sponsored Results" in faint letters.
Advertisers use an auction system to have
their ad placed on the page, and pay only
when someone clicks on the ad.
Traditional
marketing uses a cost per thousand impressions
to place ads. If you wanted to
have your ad reach 100,000 people, you would
pay on a cost per thousand basis, such as
$20 per thousand. To reach 100k people at
$20 CPM (cost per thousand; using the Roman
Numeral 'M' to signify thousand), would
be $2,000.
However,
the issue with traditional CPM marketing
is that while it allows the advertiser to
specify how many people they want to reach,
it's not as compelling for advertisers as
an approach where you only pay when someone
actually clicks on the ad.
 With
CPC advertising, the advertiser can set
a daily or monthly budget, and then agree
to spend up to a certain amount to have
their advertisement appear when someone
types in specific keywords into the search
engine.
But
it gets a little more complicated than that.
If you have an advertisement that
is deemed a relevant ad, then you will pay
less for a top position and less for the
the clickthrough.
Google
is in the business of providing the most
relevant search results possible to their
users. That's why they've created
a feedback mechanism that rewards more relevant
ads and penalizes ones that aren't as relevant.
Google
determines relevancy by how often people
click on an ad and how optimized the landing
page is for the particular keywords. It
gets even more complicated than that, but
if your ad performs well, you'll see a lower
cost per click and a higher position of
the ad on the page.
Best
Ways to Use CPC Advertising:
- Local
Reach / Geographic Targeting. It's
easy to only advertise in a specific geographic
location. If you only serve a specific
region, you can advertise to people only
within certain cities, states, or select
a radius from your business address.
- Demographic
Targeting. Some
systems allow you to target specific users
by age, income, and other interests.
- Time
Restrictions. You can set ads
to only appear at certain times during
the day or days of the week, so that you
can target end users who might be searching
during the weekend, or only target busy
business people searching during work
hours.
- Conversion
Tracking. You can place code
on your website each time someone fills
out a contact form, calls a phone number
or makes a purchase, to let you know which
keyword the person used to take the action.
CPC
Mistakes To Avoid:
It
sounds easy to get started, but little mistakes
can cost a lot of money. Some of the top
mistakes to avoid include:
- Using
Keywords that are too broad. One
of the fastest ways to chew through your
daily budget is to use non-targeted keywords
that are too broad and thus more expensive
to have a top position.
- Not
using qualifying words. A
qualifying word might be "hire"
or "purchase" as part of the
keyword string. That can help identify
more serious prospects.
- Not
using geographically targeted words. If
you're located in a specific geographic
area, make sure that these terms are also
part of your keywords you're using to
advertise.
- Not
using exact match, phrase match properly.
You'll be able to get a different price
if people are searching for an exact match
(i.e. the exact term they put in is what
you are advertising) instead of having
you bid on keywords that are just part
of their keyword search string.
- Not
using negative keywords. Yes,
it's a double-negative. But negative keywords
prevent your ads from showing if the negative
keyword is also in the search query. One
of our clients sells wallpaper (the kind
you put on the walls of your home). One
of the problems, though, is that people
search for wallpaper for their cell phone
or PC desktop screens. Using a negative
keyword of cell phones or computer prevents
spending unnecessary money on non-relevant
prospects.
- Paying
for the #1 position: Sometimes
it's important to have the top sponsored
spot. But position #2 or #3 might be a
better overall value and allow to get
quality clickthroughs at a lower overall
price.
- Not
having an optimized landing page. A
landing page that isn't relevant to the
search keywords will penalize your relevancy
score. But even worse, it will reduce
your chances that someone will know what
to do when they reach the site. We recommend
never sending people to just the home
page of your site.
- Not
putting conversion tracking into place.
Without conversion tracking, your CPC
efforts are still a guestimate. With conversion
tracking in place, you'll be able to measure
exactly what works.
- Setting
a budget that's too low to get good data.
If your budget is too low, and you're
always reaching a daily threshold, your
ads may not be running enough to get statistically
significant testing results.
Summary:
Done correctly, CPC advertising
can drive more prospects and sales through
your website. It's a reason we're
in business today. Without CPC advertising,
it would be difficult to reach the person
who's actively searching for information.
Done incorrectly, it's easy to waste lots
of money and not be able to determine if
your marketing dollars are well spent. |
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