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Pay-Per-Click
Advertising
(cont'd)
Also, Google Adwords will often bump you up a spot or two if you
have exceptional clickthru rates. So, you can bid for a #3 spot, but
get a 10% clickthru rate and end up ranked #1. It's a great deal,
and there's no point paying for the top spot if you can get it for
free.
Finally, a top-3 position will put you 'above the fold' in most
users' web browsers. They'll see you the moment they search, and
while the number 1 position may have a better chance of getting
clicked, my experience is that the top three spots on any given
search engine get very similar clickthru rates.
Adjust, Adjust, Adjust: A Corallary
This isn't so much a rule as an overarching concern - don't set up a
pay-per-click campaign and then forget about it. You need to monitor
your ads on at least a weekly basis. Why?
-
Someone might outbid you.
-
Or, someone might have dropped out of the top spot, meaning you can
reduce your bid and keep a #3 rank.
-
Search patterns may have changed.
If search patterns change and your keywords are searched less often,
don't immediately alter your campaign - wait at least a few days to
make sure you aren't seeing a statistical 'blip'. But keep an eye on
things, always, or you might end up spending money unnecessarily. In
my experience, a well-designed campaign needs to be 'tweaked' every
few weeks.
A Quick Case Study
Planning and running a functional pay-per-click campaign is an art
form. Here's an example of one Google ad (modified to protect the
innocent) that we edited for a client. Their original adwords spot
read:
Low Cost Bicycle Parts
Order online today
These ads didn't
perform well - their ranking, clickthru and conversion rates were
very, very poor. Why? Three reasons: First, the ad is far too
general - someone searching for a bicycle part on Google will most
likely search for the specific part, not for sites that sell
everything. Second, the ad doesn't make any strong value proposition
- anyone advertising on Google can very likely take my order online,
today. Finally, the ad doesn't optimize for the search terms used to
find it.
The result? They were paying about $1 per click for a #1 rank, with
800 clicks per day and less than a 1% conversion rate and an average
profit per order of $6. No chance of making any profits with that
kind of performance:
1% clickthru rate
1% conversion rate
800 clicks per day
800 clicks * $1.00 per click = $800 cost per day
.01 * 800 * $6 = $48 profit per day
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